I laugh, and he watches me from the step below. Beaming. The current between us is so intense that it’s almost visible. He takes my hand and turns it over, examining it. It’s so much tinier than his. “If you were my girl?” he says. “I’d steal you away from the fancy gathering and take you somewhere less pretentious.”

I rest my thumb against an ink stain on his index finger. “And if you were mine, I’d tell you that I know a good place just up the street.”

He lifts his head. His eyebrows rise.

I smile.

“If you were my girl,” he says, but there’s an explosion outside in the courtyard, and I miss the punchline. Fireworks crackle in showers of pink, green, blue, white, green, pink, orange. The museum-goers on the escalators heading upwards erupt in a frenzy of applause as we continue heading down. “If you were my girl,” Josh says, pressing his nose against my ear. I turn my head, and the lights and the noise and the people disappear. The distance between us disappears.

Our kiss is anything but shy.

His lips press deeply against mine, and mine press deeply back. Our mouths open. Our tongues meet. We’re hungry, deliriously so. Even with my eyes closed, the shape of his body flashes before me, lit by the spectacle outside. Light, dark, light, dark. He tastes like champagne. He tastes like desire. He tastes like my deepest craving fulfilled.

Chapter ten

Our mouths are still attached when Josh hits the ground floor. A number of things follow in rapid succession: his chin smacks my nose on its upwards trajectory as he quickly reclaims his height over me; I lose my balance, stumble forward, and take both of us crashing to the museum’s polished concrete floor.

“Holy shit.” Josh looks up at me, and his eyes widen. “Holy shit!”

Blood is pouring from my nose.

“Is it broken? Did I break your nose?”

I touch it and wince, but I shake my head like it’s not a big deal. I shove my dress back down over my indecently exposed upper thighs. “I’m fine.” Imb fimb.

Josh pulls me up and out of the escalator’s path. He pats his coat frantically, searching for something, but he’s coming up empty. A concerned observer whisks out a stylish floral pocket square and hands it to me.

“Merci,” I tell the dapper man. Mbear-see. I hold it to my nose for a few seconds, and it comes down looking like a crime scene.

“No. No.” Josh can’t stop repeating himself. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay!” I hope he can understand my voice. “It’s only a bloody nose.” I hold out the pocket square, unsure, and the man furiously waves his hand. Thatsokaykeepit. I nod another thanks as Josh leads me to the closest restroom. “Really, I’m fine,” I assure him. But he touches his forehead in horror as I disappear inside.

Damage inspection. My nose is still running, my chin is stained like a tomato, and tomorrow I’ll be sporting a vicious bruise. At least my dress is still clean? A woman with flawless ebony skin and to-die-for cheekbones emerges from a stall. She gasps. “What happened?” she asks in French. She’s already producing an entire pack of tissues from her bag. She pushes them into my hands.

“I get these all of the time,” I say. “It’s so embarrassing.”

Only the first half is a lie.

I hold up a tissue, carefully pinch the bridge of my nose, and wait for the bleeding to stop. And wait. And wait. I urge her to leave, because it’s weird to have a stranger, even a well-meaning one, stare at me for this long. She finally does. Immediately, I hear Josh ask her in manic – but word-perfect – French if I’m okay.

Aha! I knew it.

When the blood comes to a standstill, I reappear with a whopping smile. Josh wrings his hands. “Isla, I am so sorry. Are you sure it’s not broken?”

My smile turns into a full-blown grin. “Positive.”

His discomfort eases, but only momentarily. His brow refurrows in confusion.

“Un nouveau record,” I say. “Combien de temps ça t’a pris? Une heure?” A new record. How long did that take? An hour?

Josh’s eyes narrow. He realizes that I caught him speaking in fluent French, even though he implied upstairs that he can’t. “Au moins quatre-vingt-dix minutes,” he admits grudgingly. At least ninety minutes. It only took this long for me to learn the truth.

I stare at him. I stare harder.

Finally, he shakes his head and laughs. I smile – sweetly, this time – to let him know that his secret is safe. Josh rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t suppose you’d still want to show me that other place? That less pretentious, date-continuing place?”

“I don’t know,” I tease. “It’s a secret place. Can I trust you?”

“I’m great at keeping secrets.”

I nudge him gently. “I know you are.”

The air outside is gusty and crisp, and it adds to my feeling of recklessness. I don’t know if I’ll be able to tell Kurt what I’m about to do, if this is breaking some sort of friendship code. It might be. But I don’t care.

We’re radiant, the thrill of the evening having been returned, as we hurry up the next four blocks. I take a left on rue Chapon and lead him to a building with white peeling paint and red wooden shutters. I stop at the keypad. Josh look surprised, maybe even shocked. “Don’t tell me you have an apartment.”

I punch in the code, and the door buzzes. I give him a mischievous smile. “Come in.”

“I figured we were going to a bar or club or something. Colour me intrigued, Martin.”

I wrinkle my nose.

Josh cringes. “Yeah. That doesn’t work with a male surname, does it?”

I head upstairs, smiling to myself, and he follows quietly. After we’ve passed several floors, he shoots me a curious look. “All the way up,” I say. We spiral and spiral until we reach the top landing. Josh glances at the purple door with the leopard-print mat, expectantly. Nervously. “Not that one.” I steer him around a hidden corner towards a second, smaller door. “This one.”

He tugs on the knob and discovers that it’s locked. I fish out the skeleton key from the bottom of my bag. It’s heavy and iron. “You know,” he says, “if you weren’t tiny, cute, and remarkably innocent looking, I’d be running away right now. This feels like the set-up to some torture  p**n .”