While I was waiting for Rachel to untangle herself enough from Fabrice for me to talk to her about the next time we’d meet, I spotted a familiar face across the street: Bruno, the boy who’d rescued my bag in the café. He was walking with a couple of other boys, and when he saw me he smiled and waved, and I waved back, and I thought he was going to cross over the street and talk to me. But then he seemed to change his mind and he smiled again, a little differently, and carried on walking. I turned around to see where Rachel was and found Lucas standing next to me, also looking across the street at Bruno and his friends.
‘Rachel said you would need a lift home,’ Lucas said. ‘I’m going now.’
‘Oh, great, if that’s OK?’ I asked him. ‘Let me just tell Rachel I’m going.’
‘Of course,’ Lucas said. He stood waiting for me in a moody sort of way. I could feel his eyes on me but I needed to find Rachel so I could give her a hug and tell her to be careful with Fabrice, and ask her if she was really sure I wasn’t going to die if I got on Lucas’s moped. She said I’d be fine and she’d be fine, stop worrying, and to call her as soon as I got back. I was, again, more than a bit freaked out that being far from home seemed to be making her worry less and me worry more.
So, that moped. They’re quite cute-looking things, and they can’t possibly go very fast, can they? I was thinking, as I tried to work out whether my shoes were in any danger of falling off. Lucas gave me his spare helmet and I put it on, wondering how stupid I looked. I hadn’t thought to scoop all my hair back, and some of it got pushed in front of my face. My cheeks felt squished too. I stared up at him and hoped I didn’t look really stupid.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ I said. ‘What do I do?’
‘Just hold on,’ Lucas said.
‘There’s no, um, seatbelt, then?’ I said, as we arranged ourselves on the seat.
Lucas laughed. ‘Your arms,’ he said. ‘Hold me.’
But it is just so crazy hugging a boy you fancy and hardly know! I wanted to apologise. I worried I’d hugged too early. I worried about how tightly I should hold him . . . well, that was until he started the engine. Then I gripped him like my life depended on it. I felt the rumble of the engine under me, the wobble of the bike, and I was really scared. I had no way of stopping it or getting off. I was afraid my hands would somehow forget how to hold, or that we’d hit a bump and I’d let go and fall.
This was all before we’d left the car park.
Then . . .
As we left the town and crossed the river and zoomed through the fields, there were no street lights, no other cars, and everything around us was pitch black. I felt like I was drunk, or dreaming, or watching myself from somewhere outside me. I leaned tightly into his back, then consciously tried to sit just a little more upright and further away, daring to tilt my head to glance out at the night sky for barely a second until the dizziness made my heart almost stop with fear. Suddenly, I had a thought: what if you stop being scared? What if you just let it happen? I realised that my knees were gripping the sides of the bike so hard that they were almost numb. I forced myself to soften, relaxed my face, and moved my hands just barely so I could feel that I was holding Lucas’s torso, and a shiver of excitement shook me so hard that I gripped just as tightly all over again.
It was a little after midnight when we got in, and the house was silent, the lights off, his parents were in bed. We bumped around in the dark feeling for lamp switches.
I wondered if he was going to stop and talk, but that didn’t seem to be on the cards, maybe because he didn’t want to wake up his parents, maybe he was tired, maybe he just wasn’t interested in talking to me at all. We were both at the foot of the stairs, about to walk up together (to each go to our bedrooms) when Lucas stopped and turned unexpectedly so he was close enough to kiss me.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Samantha,’ he said. I just nodded with my mouth open, sort of idiotically. Then he turned around again and carried on up the stairs.
Chapter 8
I had a normal, awkward breakfast with the Fayes, minus Lucas, who was either still in bed or had already left. His favourite weird, dry, breakfast sausage was lying out on the table, so it was hard to tell. To my relief, Madame Faye asked me if I had any plans for the day, which usually meant she didn’t. I lied and said I was going to meet Rachel, knowing I could always arrange that later, and I didn’t want her to come up with an alternative. Monsieur Faye asked if I’d need taking into Vernon, and I thanked him but said I could walk.
After breakfast I went back to my room to call Rachel. When I’d got back the night before, I’d phoned her and gone straight to her voicemail, so I needed to find out what had happened after we’d split up. But there was a knock on my door even before I found my phone. It was Lucas. We’d just spent the evening before hanging out in a bar, like friends, but I still didn’t feel relaxed around him, the way I might have if, say, someone like Bruno had just happened to be passing my bedroom and dropped in for a chat. Lucas maintained a kind of distance, as if he’d made a conscious decision not to give me any idea how he was feeling at any time.
‘I’m going back to Paris today,’ Lucas said. ‘Do you want me to bring you somewhere before I go?’
I was gripped by a mad urge to get on his bike again. I think I’d just had too many deadly dull days one after another and last night’s midnight ride had woken up a real need for something to happen. And OK, he’d only offered to give me a quick lift somewhere before completely forgetting I existed again, but just for a few moments this morning, I wanted to be scared and excited and going somewhere fast again. I raced around my room grabbing all the things I might need that day and stuffing them in my bag, and told him I was ready to go whenever he was. We dropped by Chantal’s room; she was working on her web page and happy to send me away. She casually asked Lucas when he’d be home again, and he told her maybe next week. She shrugged and said OK, but I caught her eye when he told her au revoir, and noticed she looked quite sad.
Monsieur Faye had already gone to work by the time Lucas and I got downstairs. Madame Faye asked me if I wanted to invite Rachel for dinner the following week. Right, she’ll love that, I thought. But I told Madame Faye that was really kind of her, and I’d let her know with plenty of time to prepare.
I couldn’t wait to get out.
My plan was just to get Lucas to drop me off in Vernon, where I could call Rachel and get her to come out and meet me, or maybe I could go round and finally see the amazing house she was staying in. She’d talked about it, but I hadn’t been there.
‘What time did you tell your friend you’d meet her?’ Lucas asked.
‘Rachel? I haven’t called her to fix it up yet,’ I told him, arranging my hair so the helmet would look a bit prettier this time. ‘I mean she’s staying almost in the centre, so I thought I’d just wander around until she can come and meet me.’
‘So I could take you for a ride,’ Lucas said. I grinned, wondering if he knew that had a double meaning in English.
‘Well, if you have time,’ I said. ‘I know you have to get back to Paris today.’
‘Paris is not much more than an hour away,’ Lucas said. ‘It’s early. I’ll bring you to Gaillard; it’s one of my favourite places.’
‘Sure,’ I said, a bit confused by the offer. ‘Great.’
Today, I noticed that his moped really didn’t go all that fast, and that nerves and the dark had made me more afraid than I’d needed to be. We rumbled steadily along the country roads and I could turn my head and watch where we were going and see there wasn’t really that much to be afraid of. My inside thigh muscles were giving me a sharp reminder of how tightly I’d been gripping with them the night before – they were absolutely killing me! I locked my fingers around Lucas’s waist, feeling his soft skin under his thin T-shirt, and felt, well, kind of just a bit amazing.
We rode through a beautiful little town that went uphill in a spiral and I saw road-signs to Château-Gaillar
d, the place Lucas had mentioned, as we drove higher and higher, and then I saw it: a medieval castle. We stopped on a breezy plain where just a couple of cars were parked, and walked across to the castle ruins. The view was incredible, stretching for miles over hills and fields.
‘This château was built by an Englishman,’ Lucas said, getting all tour-guidey. ‘Richard, Coeur de Lion.’
‘The Lionheart,’ I said, trying to sound clever. As we walked to the ruins, Lucas sank his hands into his pockets, pulling his jeans down a tiny bit, so I could see the top of his boxers, and carried on with the history lesson.
‘It was created to be impregnable by the French. It stood here in our country, like a challenge to the natives. The proud English fortress. Untouched by the French assault.’
We crossed a series of stone bridges that were now sunk into grassy banks with steep slopes, where the land had begun to overgrow the ruins. Lucas pointed out strange wild flowers which he said had been brought here from the East during the crusades and still grew just here, within the castle’s grounds, nowhere else in France. We came to an iron gate that closed off a dark, dungeon-like space, and Lucas stepped back and around in a kind of twirly way, positioning himself between me and the path out. He leaned forwards and I pressed back against the bars.
‘But eventually, after much French persistence,’ Lucas went on, ‘we broke through the English defences. And took hold.’ He was giving me the eyes again.
‘I . . .’
‘And conquered.’
I would have laughed out of embarrassment at the cheesiness if I hadn’t been so totally thrilled. Lucas put a hand out and grabbed one of the bars behind me. He smiled.
‘You look beautiful in this sunlight,’ he said.
I’d been here before. Obviously not with Lucas. I mean, between you and me, I have snogged quite a few boys. Just snogged, by the way. Two in one night, at the aforementioned party with the strong punch. Listen, I’m not recommending being a quite easy snog as a good thing – it’s probably the opposite and has got me in plenty of trouble – but it has given me a bit of confidence in situations like this, and now I understood Lucas better than I had done before. I was still a bit trembly-kneed: the closeness of him, the scorch of his stare, it was all pretty powerful. I still wasn’t definitely sure he was what I wanted, but knowing he liked me like that gave me back some sense of control.
There are a couple of ways of letting a boy know you’re open to the idea of him kissing you, and I’ve found that the best is to look from their eyes to their lips. Eyes, lips, eyes, lips, and then touch your own lips very lightly, quite shyly, with your fingertips, as if you’re kind of confused and nervous, but kissing is on your mind.
Yeah, it’s a bit shameless. It works, though.
There’s something quite magical about kissing outside in bright sunshine, because when you open your eyes, everything you see is sort of black and white, and it gradually comes back into colour like a Polaroid picture in front of you. And then you just want to close your eyes and start kissing all over again.
Afterwards, we walked back to his bike, holding hands.
‘Last night in Vernon, I saw you waving at Bruno; do you know him?’ Lucas asked softly. This is a terrible thing to own up to, but I really liked the jealousy that seemed to come with the question, it made me feel wanted.
‘Do you know him?’ I said, prolonging the moment.
‘We went to school together,’ he said, shrugging.
‘Well, I had my bag stolen from a café in Vernon. And Bruno got it back for me. He just happened to be there. He’s the only other person I’ve made friends with since I got here. Not like Rachel, who is, like, at the centre of the cool crowd. I don’t seem to have her charm . . .’
‘I would say you probably have more than you need,’ Lucas said. Again with the cheese! But there is something about hearing cheesy lines in a French accent that makes you sort of melt. Heh, melted cheese. He smiled down at me. ‘So, I have to go back to Paris. Do you want me to bring you?’
‘Well, I think it’s a bit late now,’ I said. ‘Maybe another day?’
‘Why is it too late?’ Lucas said.
‘I’d have to get the train back, I’d hardly spend any time there.’
‘You could stay over.’ He talked casually, and quickly, as if everything he said was obvious and logical and everything I said didn’t make much sense. But regardless, that was certainly not going to happen.
‘No, I don’t think your mum would go for that,’ I said, laughing.
Lucas did a sort of . . . boy pout. Like a manly version of a girl pout – I think you can only do it with French lips. ‘OK, well, I’ll bring you into Vernon and you can do what you told my mother you were doing today. But I have to go to Paris.’ Did he seem disappointed? Angry? Completely not bothered? He was back to being impossible to read. And damn, that was sexy.
Chapter 9
I found it nearly impossible to get to sleep that night, flipping crazily between regret and excitement. I’d snogged Lucas! My hosts’ son! Thank God he went back to Paris rather than staying another night! Although, hey, by the way, how cool was I? Lucas was smoking hot!
Only, what was I going to do when he got back?
Eventually I did sleep, but when the morning came I’d barely woken up before I started worrying about what I’d done the day before. What was going to happen next? I’d tried calling Rachel as soon as Lucas had left for Paris, but she didn’t answer her phone. She still didn’t answer later that evening, when I sat on a lumpy little armchair in the corner of the Fayes’ living room while they all watched telly, frantically checking my messages and hoping they didn’t spot me doing it. By the next morning, Rachel still hadn’t replied to any of my texts. I was feeling isolated again. As I came out of the bathroom, I came face to face with Chantal and felt myself turn absolutely beetroot red. There was no way she knew I’d been snogging her brother, but the blush was beyond my control. I gave her a stupid goofy smile and said, ‘Hey,’ but she just blinked at me drowsily.
I got dressed, went downstairs, and asked Madame Faye if she’d mind me skipping breakfast and leaving immediately. It was Sunday, and I knew they’d be going to church soon. Chantal, who was tearing up a croissant, asked if I wanted her bike again. I was starting to seriously love Chantal, she always came through. I texted Rachel again to tell her I was going into Vernon and she HAD to come out and meet me, and then I cycled over to my favourite café and waited.
I was looking down at my phone, waiting for Rachel’s reply, and saw a shadow fall over my table. I thought it was the waiter with my cup of hot chocolate, so I was quite shocked to look up and see Bruno standing there instead. It was weird how I kept running into him . . . although admittedly one of the reasons I’d come back to this café – where I was robbed! – was that it was one of the first places in France I’d felt happy and not lonely, and that was because of him.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘May I join you?’ I hesitated for a second too long, because he added. ‘If you’re waiting for someone, or you would just prefer to be alone . . .’ As usual, I found it really sweet the way he talked in that old-fashioned way, like someone in a black and white film.
‘Oh no, I’d be deligh—’ I stopped myself replying the same way. ‘I mean, yeah, that’d be great.’
I was glad he was there – sitting alone in a café only felt romantic and independent the first couple of times you did it, before you started getting jealous of all the people with, you know, friends. But although he was really nice to talk to, I thought Bruno maybe fancied me a little bit, which changed things. Now I’d snogged someone else, it felt weirder talking to him. On the one hand, the pressure was off. If things were edging towards the romantic, I could tell him I was interested in someone else. On the other hand, part of me definitely didn’t want to mention Lucas, as it’d ruin the gentle, flirty way we’d talked when we last had breakfast here together. Spending time with Bruno made me feel good, like the
cup of hot chocolate that the waiter finally gave me. In comparison, spending time with Lucas was more like strong coffee – a lot less sweet and left me twitchy, but somehow felt more grown up and sophisticated.
‘So do you have breakfast here every day?’ I asked him.
‘Not every day,’ he said. ‘But it’s a nice place to sit outside and sketch.’ I noticed he had a sketchbook with him, and he flashed it open to a random page to show me. It was full of faces – people who might have sat in the café near him. They were simple and really good, a few lines perfectly conveying the tiredness of an old man, or a lady eating a croissant at the exact moment her stiff snobbiness melted into greed. But he closed it just as quickly, telling me, ‘They’re not very good.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I said.
Bruno changed the subject, asking me what I’d been up to and seen since I arrived, and I gave him a long list of Faye activities.
‘Oh, you’re staying with the Fayes?’ he said, and I realised too late that I’d casually insulted them for being strict and boring, when I should have thought that he went to school with Lucas and they could all be family friends.
‘They are really nice, actually,’ I blustered. ‘It’s just that I’m not so interested in all the traditional touristy things they’ve been showing me. It’s my fault, though, for being a bit of a lightweight. I mean . . .’ I couldn’t think of an alternative to lightweight, and couldn’t imagine a Frenchman knowing what it meant. ‘I mean, I’m not all that intelligent.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Bruno said, with a grin. ‘You get along with Chantal, though?’
‘Oh yeah, she’s great. But I’m not sure Chantal has as much time for me. I think I’ve been foisted on her. She’s had to babysit for me when she’d rather be off practising with her band for this summer festival thing she’s doing.’