Page 9 of Into the Dark
“I think I should go. Thank you for dinner, Laurent. I did have a nice time.” I stand up from his dining table.
He stares up at me for a long moment before letting out a deep breath and standing up with me. The look in his eyes speaks of regret. I’m sure mine do too. “My pleasure, Alex. I’ve enjoyed your company very much. I’ll walk you down to the gate.”
“There’s no need, honestly. I can navigate my way down. It’s not far,” I tell him. Although the cobbled pathway from the edge of his property to ours is a little perilous, I can manage it fine on my own.
“I would not dream of letting you go alone,” he says rather abruptly. He lifts both our glasses and carries them to the sink. “I am going to have to finish that entire bottle on my own now, I hope you realize. Day-old wine is not something I enjoy.” He gives me a playful frown. It lightens the mood.
“I’m sorry about that. It’s getting late, though, and my parents will be wondering where I am,” I jest, and he chuckles somewhat sexily.
Holding my gaze for a moment too long, he moves past me toward the door and opens the latch, gesturing me through it.
We walk in silence around the side of his house to where the path leading to our house starts. I say “path,” but really, it’s just some broken paving stones at uneven intervals down a slight slope. I have to try my hardest to navigate my way over them in the dark in my sandals.
Laurent’s property must be about four acres with the retired vineyard to the back. Dad always thought it was an ugly house. It’s yellow with a terracotta roof and not the prettiest building in the area by a mile. Personally, I think it has its own kind of charm. Trees surround it on our side, so it’s not really visible from our house.
After I stumble twice, I stop to take off my stupid sandals because I’d rather navigate the pebbled path barefoot than have Laurent see me fall over. He holds me steady while I unbuckle and remove my shoes, and I thank him before we continue on our way. The stone beneath my feet is still warm from the sun, and it’s a balmy night, the smell of French summertime filling my nose while the wine flows through my blood.
I see the lights on in our house as we near the bottom of the grassy incline. No doubt Nick and Tash will still be awake and chatting into the night like they always do when we’re here. Mum and Dad will have gone to bed, or Mum will have while Dad sleeps on his chair with his wineglass balanced perilously on his chest.
We make the short walk in relative silence until Laurent stops us, puts his hand on the small of my back, and turns me south to point up to his favorite constellation. If I didn’t have a Jake-sized hole in my heart, would I fall for it? As cliché as it is, being wine-drunk and wandering through the countryside of Southern France looking up at the stars with an attractive local… But I do have the Jake-sized hole in my heart. In my soul. In my life. A life that feels emptier now than it ever did before him. It’s him I want beside me now. Him I want to be strolling through the French countryside with, the warmth of good food and nice wine heavy in our veins. Well, if he drank wine.
When we reach the gate that separates our properties, I turn to face Laurent.
“Well, thank you again for a lovely night,” I smile up at him. “When do you return to Lyon?”
“Ah, I am not certain yet. What about you? When do you return home?”
“We leave on Thursday.”
“So I have five days to make you forget about your broken heart. I like a challenge,” he says with humor.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have insisted I talk about it all evening. It would have been a lot easier to forget.” That’s a lie.
“I like talking to you,” he counters. When he reaches out toward my face where Jake used to touch me, I can’t help but turn my head away from it. I hope it looks nonchalant. “I would like to see you again before you go,” he says, dropping his hand.
When I turn to him, there’s hope and desire shining in his navy eyes. It’s on the tip of my tongue to say yes. Out of politeness, perhaps. Or maybe it is something more than that. I don’t know. But I understand something then, under the cool French moon. This man is as close to my type as it’s possible to be. He’s older and darkly handsome. He drinks French wine and reads Russian literature. He’s everything I thought I wanted once. But that was before.
Before him.
Before Jake.
Now there is no one else. There will never be anyone else. Only him. And this, tonight, was a mistake.
Laurent seems to sense the shift in me. Seems to know the answer to his question without me needing to speak it aloud.
“I understand,” he says softly. He leans in to place a kiss on each cheek. “Perhaps we can meet as friends when I come next to London, enjoy some French wine together and talk about our broken hearts?”
I smile at that. “I actually don’t have a friend who likes to drink French wine.”
“Ah, well then, I would be happy to oblige.” He places his hand on his chest and dips his head. “I shall call you when I am in town.”
“I’d like that.” I continue to smile as we say our good nights and part ways. When I get to the break in the trees, I turn to look back at him. He’s leaning forward on the wall watching me, a gentle smile in his eyes.
I hear the chattering voices as soon as I get near the house, and so I follow them around the side terrace to the back patio by the pool. Tash is curled up in Greg’s lap on the patio sofa, her hair piled on top of her head, looking tanned and sleepy. Nick’s lying flat on his back on a sun lounger using lots of hand gestures to make a point.
“Yeah, but the problem is, Tash, he never did anything he said he was going to do—Guantanamo being the prime example. He ended up being like every other politician on the planet, turning his back on the entire foundation of what he stood on. He did nothing. He let people down.” Nick sounds exasperated.
Greg nods, agreeing.