I tell him he should just put me on a plane headed back to California.
I think he laughs and says no.
He spills me into the back of a cab before climbing in after me and speaking in a burst of French to the driver. He’s speaking so fast I’m sure there’s no way anyone can understand him, but the driver seems to. We lurch from the curb, and take off at an unreal speed from the beginning. Getting out of the airport is all jerks and starts, acceleration and swerving.
Once we get into the thick of the city, and buildings rise and loom above narrow, curved streets, it’s harrowing. The cab driver doesn’t seem to know where his brake pedal is but he sure knows his horn. I curl into Ansel’s side, trying to keep what’s left of my stomach from crawling up my throat. I’m sure there are a million things I want to see from the window—the city, the architecture, the vibrant green I can almost feel in the light coming into the cab—but I’m shaking and sweaty and barely conscious.
“Is he driving a cab or playing a video game?” I mumble, barely coherent.
Ansel laughs quietly into my hair, whispering, “Ma beauté.”
In a beat, the world stops churning and jerking and I’m pulled from the seat, strong arms behind my knees and around my back, under my arm, lifting me.
Ansel easily carries me into a building and directly into a tiny elevator. He waits as the cabbie pulls our bags behind him and shoves them in with us. I can feel Ansel’s breath on my temple, can hear the gears of the lift taking us higher and higher.
I turn into him, my nose in the soft, warm skin of his neck, relishing his smell. He smells like man and ginger ale and the tiny remnant of soap from so many hours ago, since he showered clean of me in the hotel room.
And then I remember: my present smell must be revolting. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, turning my head and trying to pull away, but he squeezes me, saying, “Shh,” into my hair.
He struggles to find his keys in his pocket while carrying me, and once we’re inside, he sets me down on my feet and it’s only now that my body seems to get permission to respond to the cab ride: I turn, crumple to my knees, and throw up whatever water I have in my stomach into the umbrella bucket near the door.
Seriously, it is not possible for my humiliation to grow.
Behind me, I hear Ansel lean back heavily against the door before he slides down behind me, pressing his forehead to my back just between my shoulder blades. He’s shaking with silent laughter.
“Oh my God,” I groan. “This is the worst moment in the history of ever.” Because it is, and it turns out my humiliation can grow plenty.
“You poor girl,” he says, kissing my back. “You must be miserable.”
I nod, trying—but failing—to pull the bucket with me when he lifts me around my ribs.
“Leave it,” he says, still chuckling. “Come on, Mia. Leave it. I’ll take care of it.”
When he lays me down on a mattress, I’m barely aware of the light, the smell of him everywhere. I’m too incoherent to be curious about his apartment but I make a mental note to look around and compliment it as soon as I no longer want to die. I add this task to the to-do list where I also thank him profusely, and then apologize, and then get on a plane and fly back to California in mortification.
With a small pat to my back, he’s gone and almost immediately I fall fast asleep and have intricate, fevered dreams about driving through dark, narrow tunnels.
Beside me, the mattress dips where he sits and I jerk awake, knowing somehow it’s been barely a minute since he left.
“Sorry,” I groan, pulling my knees to my chest.
“Don’t be.” He puts something down on a table near the pillow. “I’ve put some water here. Approach it with caution.” I can still hear the smile in his voice, but it’s easy, unmocking.
“I’m sure this isn’t how you pictured our first night here.”
His hand smooths over my hair. “Nor you.”
“Probably the least sexy thing you’ve ever seen,” I babble, rolling into the warm, clean Ansel smell of the pillowcase.
“‘Least sexy’?” He repeats with a laugh. “Don’t forget I biked across the United States with sweaty, dirty people.”
“Yeah, but you never wanted to have sex with any of them.”
His hand stills where it’s gently rubbing my back, and I realize what I’ve just said. It’s laughable, this assumption that he will ever touch me sexually again after the past fifteen hours. “Sleep, Mia.”
See? Proof. He called me Mia, not Cerise.
I WAKE UP to morning of some bright, unknown hour. Outside there are birds and voices and trucks. I smell bread, coffee, and my stomach clenches, quickly protesting that I’m not ready for food yet. And as soon as I remember the day before, a hot wave covers my skin; whether it’s embarrassment or fever, I have no idea. I kick off the covers and see that I’m dressed only in one of his T-shirts and my underwear.