Again, But Better

Too. Attractive. Can’t.
My arms twirl up around his neck, and we kiss in the backyard
of Versailles. I lost.
The four of us have lunch together in the café buried amidst the landscape. There’s more
hand-holding, but it’s always when Babe and Chad aren’t paying attention. We ride the
RER back into the heart of Paris, explore Notre Dame, have dinner, and make fluffy
conversation.
At the hostel, we drop Chad and Babe off on floor four, and ride up to six. Hands
intertwined, we come to a stop outside our room.
“So this is me,” I say, casually turning to face him.
“You’re kidding. I’m here too.”
I roll my eyes, trying to clear out the overwhelming googly-eyed feeling that’s taken
hold of my brain, and put the key in the lock. This sensation is so new. I always get
anxious, shaky, but swoony? Is 
swoony
a word?
I push open the door. Sleep-apnea man wheezes away in the corner. I drop my purse
onto the floor and sit on my bed, feet resting on the ground in the space between our
singles. Pies sits across from me on his own mattress. My skin zings as our knees graze.
“So, is this the end of our second date?” I note quietly.
“Looks like it. How’d we do?”
I purse my lips. “Four and a half out of five stars.” He smiles.
“Congrats on winning the move-off.” I hold out my hand to shake his.
He squeezes it gently. “You put up a valiant effort.”
I grin and reposition so I’m lying on my side like last night. “If you can’t tell, I’m not a
big move maker.”
The bed next to me creaks as Pilot mirrors my posture. “You hold some damn good
eye contact,” he says with his trademark cool-guy smirk.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says softly.
“Good. I’ve been practicing for years now.”
His eyes light with a smothered laugh.
“The whole move-making thing is tough.” I purse my lips together for a moment.
“Putting yourself out there like that makes you feel like a vulnerable idiot.”
“Sometimes we have to be vulnerable idiots,” he says simply.
“Yeah, I’ve been a vulnerable idiot since we got here, but I mean, like, even more of a
vulnerable idiot.”
He chuckles. I push myself up and off the bed. His eyes follow me as I step toward
him.
“Move over, please,” I instruct.
He raises his eyebrows in amusement and scoots to the opposite edge of the twin bed. I
settle myself on my side and prop my head up. We’re inches apart, but nothing is touching.
I bite down a grin. “Look, literal and figurative move.”

---

“Respect.” He smiles freely. He studies me for a moment. “Just for reference, I know I
acted like I was angry about what you told me at the coffee shop when we first got here,
but in retrospect, I’m glad you made that move.”
My heart swells. I imagine my lungs crushed against my rib cage.
I swallow. “Pilot, I know this is kinda weird to talk about, but I feel like I need to know
more about your current 2017 life.”
He exhales and flops onto the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. A minute passes. I drop
my head onto the pillow too, but stay on my side, watching him.
“I don’t know … My job is good. Stable. Amy and I, we live, lived … together. You
asked if we were engaged that day at the café … I’ve thought about proposing. I guess I’d
kind of fallen into this Sisyphean cycle, though, where I felt like I was constantly trying
and failing to reach a point where Amy and I were back at a hundred percent. It wouldn’t
be fair to her or me to get engaged if we weren’t at a hundred percent.” He lets loose a
long breath before rotating to face me. “Shane, my parents were going through a tough
divorce the first time we were here.”
I study his eyes for a second. “What?”
He stares back up at the ceiling. “Yeah, and I guess it’s happening again now. They
separated right before I left for London. I didn’t really understand why, they tried to
explain it, but I didn’t really—I guess they just didn’t want to try anymore. I don’t know.
They never really argued much, but all of a sudden, everything was a fucking crap show.
They were debating whether or not to sell the house, where my sisters would live. My
sisters were a mess. Holly was only twelve and Chelsea was fifteen. I was Skyping with
them a lot while I was here, trying to help them figure everything out. My parents were
asking them to choose where they wanted to live, and they didn’t know what to do. My
home life was changing so much, and I had no control over any of it.”
He pauses. I stay silent, heart clenched up. All those times he was on a call or Skyping
in the kitchen, it could have been with one of his little sisters? I always assumed it was
with Amy. I take his hand and give it a gentle squeeze. He returns the gesture.
“It was hard to imagine anything else changing, you know?”
I exhale a breath. “Pies, I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. Things are okay now. At the time, you know, it was hard being so far
away from it. And at the same time, I didn’t want to talk about it here because it’s kind of
like what you said the other day—it was a nice escape not to have to think about it all the
time. It’s surreal now. I mean, I just talked to Holly this past week, she’s eighteen in 2017,
and she was so little here. It was such a trip.”
He turns onto his side and props his head up again. I prop mine up too, so we’re on the
same plane.
He shoots me a small smile. “Sorry, that was kind of a downer. I just wanted to tell
you.”
“I’m glad. Thanks for being a vulnerable idiot. I appreciate it,” I say quietly.
“Maybe let’s change the subject,” he adds hesitantly.
My lips turn up. “Okay.” I think for a moment. “How about you tell me the stuff you
like? Stuff you find out on dates.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Everything. Like things! Stuff! I know some things, but give me more.”

---

He purses his lips.
I snort. “Do you need an example? Go ahead and ask me what I like,” I prompt.
“What kind of stuff do you like, Shane?” he asks, amused.
“Obviously 
Lost
—Juliet inspires me. Harry Potter always makes me happy. I love
walls full of pictures. If I ever build my own house, I’m making a room just for pictures,
where I’ll plaster them on every surface. Extreme photo-albuming!” I pause for a second.
“Black raspberry ice cream because it’s delicious, but mostly because it’s a wonderful
purple color, and it doesn’t taste like grape. And I like when thunderstorms make the lights
go out at night, and you’re stuck inside with your family using flashlights for hours.
Everyone acts like it’s the worst and such an inconvenience. And it is, but the bigger part
of me gets excited by the darkness, and the lack of technology, and the need for
flashlights. It’s the best way to gather everyone around a table to play cards. No one’s
distracted by anything, and you play by the candlelight, and you all watch the storm
through the big back windows, but you stay away from the windows because you don’t
want to get electrocuted.” I sigh, suddenly fighting off a wave of homesickness. The last
time that actually happened, I was sixteen. The three of us were at Uncle Dan and Aunt
Maria’s for dinner.
Pilot eyes me thoughtfully.
“Your turn,” I whisper.
“I’ve never met someone as outwardly passionate about their favorite things as you.”
“Well, things inspire me and make me happy and feel more understood … if I can give
that to someone else by recommending my things, I want to.” The way he’s watching me,
I feel like I’m under a spotlight. I swallow.
“So, your turn now,” I say quietly. “What things do you like?”
“I like mint chocolate chip ice cream,” he says, trying not to smile. I wait.
“Because…” I goad.
He looks thoughtful again. “Because it’s refreshing. Like when you walk out onto the
street in the fall and the leaves are swirling around, and you get pummeled with the perfect
amount of windchill.” I nod appreciatively.
“Music, guitar, records. Troubadours in the wild. The idea of living day by day,
making music, brightening someone’s life with the things you make. The courage it takes
to do something like that is admirable. They make me want to make things.
“Exploring places on foot with a real map, no GPS.” He pauses. “My family. I can
really get behind a good game of cards.”
“So nothing too nerdy, then?” I ask.
“I like you.” He grins.
I smile down at the bed, closing my eyes for a second. “What a line. I guess I set you
up for that.”
He continues, “I know you hate those chairs in the kitchen, but I can’t help but hold a
special place for them in my heart. Watching that ongoing struggle, Shane versus chair,
has brought me so much joy.”
I reach out my free hand and push his shoulder. He catches my elbow, slowly sliding
his hand up to my mine and weaving our fingers together. I can feel the heat coming off
him.

---

This has gone as far as I’d like it to in a room with two sleeping strangers. I sit up,
twisting away to put my feet back on the floor in between our beds. I’m radiating
dangerous levels of joy. The bed moves as Pilot sits up and scoots toward me.
“You okay?” he asks quietly. His concern fades when he finds me struggling to subdue
the banana-sized smile spread across my cheeks. I bring my face close to his again,
reveling in the electric feeling that sparkles over my skin. “I like you too,” I whisper. “I’ve
changed my answer: five-star Yelp rating for date number two.”
He leans in to close a kiss, and I back out of reach.
“Good night.” I chuckle, rising from the bed.
“Hey.” He catches hold of my hand. I drop back down, grinning.
“Is this you officially surrendering to my whisper move?”
He scoffs. “Five-star Yelp rating, and no kiss at the end of the night? That just doesn’t
add up.”
“Admit your surrender.”
He holds my gaze. I shrug and push off the floor to stand. He tugs me back, and I twist
around, landing happily back on the bed.
“You win,” he concedes. His lips find mine, and they’re charged full of fire. I’m
floating when I pull away.

---