Natalie stood in front of the windows, staring out at the landscape before her. Her back was to me, so I couldn’t see her face. Her dark hair fell in waves down her back. She had wrapped one of the covering sheets around her body so that all I could see was the bare skin of her naked shoulders. The sheet cascaded around her, pooling at her feet like some strange new ball gown. She looked like some kind of fallen angel, but I liked to think of her more as my angel.
We had been together now almost three months. It felt to me as though I were leading someone else’s life. I wasn’t this guy, was I?
I wasn’t the type of guy to call a girl faithfully every night before I fell asleep. I wasn’t the sort of guy to look forward to the weekends because it meant more time with her. I wasn’t the kind of guy to whisk a woman off to Paris for the week just because she’d happened to mention that seeing the Eiffel Tower in snow was on her bucket list.
And yet,
I found myself doing every one of those things. I found myself wanting to do every one of those things. It wasn’t just that she was young and new and exciting. It was more than that, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I had vowed to myself that I would stay away from relationships. I thought I had made that decision a long time ago, but for some reason, my will couldn’t stand against Natalie’s charms.
She was innocent, shy, sensible, hardworking, and practical. But she could also be sexy, seductive, witty, and intelligent. She was a little bit of everything, and I found myself drawn to her mind, as well as her body. I had also realized in the last few weeks that I had been thinking about my parents a lot. I thought about my father and the way he had loved my mother. I thought about my mother and the way she had repaid that love by leaving him to his broken heart.
I wanted to talk to someone about it, but there was no one there for me. I knew Sophie would listen, but she would also demand to meet Natalie, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. I needed to figure out my own complicated thoughts first, before I added my sister’s input to the mix.
Still, it was hard to worry about anything at the moment. I was in Paris with a beautiful woman who was standing before me, naked underneath that sheet. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, got out of bed, and walked over to her quietly. I was naked, and I was hoping that in a few minutes, she would be, too.
I snuck up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. She gave a little start of surprise and then laughed, kissing my arm in the process.
“Morning,” Natalie greeted. “I didn’t even hear you get up.”
“You were preoccupied.”
“This view,” she said, looking out at the Eiffel Tower in the distance. “I don’t think I can stop looking at it.”
“I know the feeling.” I nodded, forcing her to turn towards me. “Except that’s not the view I’m talking about.”
She smiled. “It’s not?”
I shook my head. “You’re the only view that I can’t turn my eyes from.”
“You’re quite the charmer,” Natalie laughed as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss me lightly on the lips. “I still can’t quite believe that we’re here.”
“Don’t worry; you’ll believe it once we’re walking the streets of Paris, visiting the Louvre, taking pictures by the Arc de Triomphe down the Champs-Elysees.”
“Your French accent is impeccable,” she noted. “Makes me feel quite uneducated.”
“Please,” I said. “You’re the most informed person I know… You’re the one who’s been educating me about France, remember?”
She shrugged as though it were nothing. “I read – that’s not special. Anyone who chooses to read will know the same things I do.”
“But they don’t,” I pointed out. “Because not everyone has your curiosity or your thirst for knowledge. Trust me; I’ve been to a lot of different places around the world. There are many people who are content to sit in their little corner without ever venturing out. You’re not like them, and neither am I. Which is why I think we get along so well.”
She smiled. “Do you spend a lot of time thinking about the reasons we get along so well?” she asked. Her tone was half teasing and half serious.
“I have been lately,” I nodded.
“Why?”
“Because…I never expected this,” I admitted.
“You never expected what?”
“A relationship,” I told her. “I never expected to have anything in common with my father.”
She frowned. “And, what exactly is that?”
I smiled self-consciously. I had a suspicion, but I was too scared to give it life by saying the words out loud. Instead, I pulled Natalie close and kissed her hard.
“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “All that matters is that we’re here, in Paris, and you can cross another item off your bucket list.”