Racing to You: Racing Love, Book 1 (3 page)

Chapter Five

I forge through my teaching and make no attempts at conversation, just endless verb conjugations. The students are mind-blowingly bored, which is awful. I don’t want them to hate studying English, but I’m too afraid of awkward, stomach-clenching moments to do anything more risky.

I’ve thought of asking the other teachers for help, but it’s hard to approach them since they’re all at least fifteen years older than me.

Except for Paul.

After my final class for the day, he enters from the doorway. “How are things?”

He’s twenty-eight, still too old for me at twenty-two. I’d like to get to know him more, but he’s cool and aloof, though I try not to take it personally.

“Okay. You?” I respond in English. I’ve quit trying to speak French with him. He always wants to practice his English with me.

He thrusts a hand in his pocket and tilts his blond head. “Some friends and I are going to the carnival tonight. Would you like to come?”

“Carnival?”

“Mardi Gras.”

My family is Catholic, so I knew it was Fat Tuesday. Last week. “Mardi Gras is over. It’s Lent already.”

His lips quirk at me like I’m a simpleton. “Nice’s Mardi Gras goes on for weeks. Haven’t you seen the parades?” Another reason he’s difficult to get to know: he’s condescending. “How can you not have seen the tourists?”

“Oh.” So that’s why the sidewalks have been so crowded. “We have to teach tomorrow.”

“Aurélie, you really are…er, how do you say? A stick-in-the-mud. You must experience Carnival.”

I’m doing it again, avoiding being social. I need to make friends. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Yes. What is your mobile number? I will text you.”

“I don’t have a mobile.” I sigh. This has been a recurring problem, but I don’t want to spend the money. My stipend barely covers food.

“You don’t have a mobile?” His eyes are wide with more condescension. “
Alors
. We meet at the bar at seven.”

“The bar”, the one the teachers go to, different from the one the students frequent. I don’t like parties. My family loves to celebrate whenever there’s an excuse for a party. I escape from the noise into my books every time.

I miss it, those family parties that I loathed. I miss being annoyed at the abundance of company. “Okay.”

He nods. “Good.”

I squelch the urge to talk to him more. Nothing about Paul has ever invited me to confide teaching troubles to him.

“The office had this for you.” He hands me an envelope with the Fulbright logo in the corner.

“Thanks.”

“See you later,” he says, and leaves.

Inside the envelope, I find an application. To go home early. An optional request form to end my assistantship in May instead of June. I don’t know why it’s here. I didn’t expect it.

A condition of my Fulbright is that I can’t come back to France for two years after I return to my home country. We’re supposed to share the things we learned with our communities. Going home early isn’t an option, no matter how homesick I am.

I shove the form inside my desk. I can’t look at it. The temptation to fill it out is embarrassing.

Mardi Gras will be good for me.

* * * * *

I’m shoved on my feet between packs of people, again. The noise of the carnival is deafening. I push fingertips in my ears and cry inwardly, hoping for something, anything, to get me out of here.

“Stop it, Aurélie,” Paul shouts, and pulls my finger from my ear. “Have some fun!”

A drunk person swoons and almost knocks me over.

Two hours ago, I met Paul and four of his friends at the bar. We walked together downtown to check out the night’s Mardi Gras entertainment.

The Promenade des Anglais is the most beautiful street in maybe the whole world. My first day in Nice, the waters of the Mediterranean glittered crystalline-blue with radiant sunshine. It was my ideal paradise realized.

The Promenade is now a nighttime circus of parade floats the size of skyscrapers. American pop music blares through speakers, with troops of dancers in the street. It’s a Super Bowl half-time show on steroids. Except I can’t turn off the TV. I’m stuck here.

There are tens of thousands of people here, packing the street and the bandstands. They’re all drunk and screaming, and having a great time.

“This is soooo great!” one of Paul’s female friends cries.

I thought the French were all romanticism, artistic brilliance, and philosophical depth. Right now, it’s cartoon floats and drunken partiers. Paul and his friends are having so much fun, and I’m so miserable.

Is there something wrong with me?

For the first time, I truly want to go home. Before it was mere homesickness, but now I want out. I miss my mom.

Paul wraps his arm around my shoulder. “Relax.” He shoves a wine bottle in a paper bag in my face.

This is the fifth time he’s done this. I’ve resisted, but now I know there’s no way I can survive this sober.

Just try it
, I chant to myself.
Try to have fun with these people.

I take a swig from the bottle, and nearly choke when it gushes down my throat. I’ve never guzzled wine from a bottle before. I try to double over with coughing, but there are so many people I can’t bend at the waist without hitting someone.

One of Paul’s male friends reappears through the crowd and shouts to us. “I found us seats to watch the light show.”

The whole group cheers and follows him. I’m still holding the wine bottle. Someone slams into me from the side and the liquid splashes out of the bottle into my face.

I freeze in horror.

The dark red liquid is dripping into my eyes and down my cheeks. I wipe at it and yell, “Oh my God,” and stamp my foot. It seeps into my hair and stains my coat.

“
Mon Dieu
,” says Paul, trying to help me.

Fearful of crying, I stammer, “I can’t—do this!” and shove the wine bottle back at him.

I push through the people, desperate to get away from him and his friends. Fuck friends. The ones who talk to me, I insult. The ones who ask me to hang out just want to drink.

It’s hopeless.

I’m not paying attention to where I’m going. I’m dizzy in the sea of people and have no idea where I am.

I step on things, not knowing what they are. I touch people in places I shouldn’t touch strangers, but I keep moving.

I’m shattering on the inside. Everything I thought I wanted from life has come crashing onto me. I’m not the strong, independent woman I thought I was. I’m lonely and weak, and I need help. But there is no one.

Short of calling and crying to my mother—on the phone I don’t have—I’m lost.

I trip over a curb, and my head rams into someone. They don’t notice, or even turn.

I grab onto a signpost, finally reaching the edge of the street. I still have no idea where I am.

I pull out a paper map from my back pocket. I’m bumped from so many sides that it’s impossible to hold the map still. It’s too dark for me to see it, anyway.

A shout rises over the noise. “Frenchie!”

My neck seizes. I’ve only ever heard one person say that, with that thick American “r”.

I’m imagining things. Someone collides with me, and the map is ripped between my hands. The whole world really is out to get me.

I could cry.

“Frenchie!”

I turn my head left and right, looking for the voice. I really did hear it this time. It sounds like Braker. The idea of seeing him drains away my panic. I could use a familiar face right now.

I don’t see him, and I want to kick myself for hoping. He’s still the same man I insulted yesterday afternoon, who I never want to see again. The same man who will never want to see me again.

“Frenchie! Up here!”

I look up, and leaning over the iron railing of a crowded balcony is Braker. I get a bright shot of his smile when a light blinks across his face. Then the light goes out and he’s surrounded in silhouette.

“Braker?” I say, squinting to see him better. The crowd tosses me, and I lose sight of him for a moment. I cling to the signpost again for balance.

“Come up!”

People knock me back and forth. I manage one more glance at him. “How?” It takes all my attention to remain in one spot and hang onto my signpost.

His shout is muffled but I think I hear, “There’s a door around back!”

Then the blaring music quiets. My ears ring from the release in the noise, and I see nothing in the darkness. The surging crowd breaks up, and I can breathe. For the first time in hours, I’m touching no strangers on any side of me.

But the lights are so dim that when I glance up at the balcony I can’t see him.

A voice comes near me in the dark. “Aurelia?”

“Braker?” Looking behind me, I decipher the outline of his face.

I’m so grateful for a familiar voice, for someone who knows my name, who speaks my language, that relief loosens my chest.

He clasps my hand. “Follow me.”

I expect to trip or stumble in the dark, but I don’t. He moves slowly enough and leads strongly enough that I know exactly where to go. He pulls me down a side alley to a door and pushes it open.

“Where are we going?” I whisper, though I don’t know why. Everything is so quiet.

He pauses. Inside, a dim bulb illuminates a narrow staircase. “My team flat.”

He lives here. And he’s taking me inside. I barely know him, but I want off the street. I’m so sick and terrified of the crowds that the empty stairwell and its gentle lighting cry safety.

He asks, “Have you seen the light show?”

“No.”

He squeezes my hand. “Come up.”

Going with him feels a little strange, a bit dangerous, but more—exciting. He wants to show me the lights.

His dimple pinches. “You’ll like it.”

My lips curve up. “Okay.”

Keeping my hand, he leads me up the stairs. I should let go of him, but I like how his hand feels, warm and comforting. It won’t hurt if I hold it for a little longer.

The staircase hits a landing. “One more floor,” he says. Anticipation laces his tone. He measures his steps for me. The hall lighting is dim, but walking behind him, I can see his jeans. And not like American baggy jeans, like skinny-cut Euro jeans. His ass is firm and begging to be squeezed.

I trip on the step.

“Whoa.” He turns and supports my elbow. “You going to make it?” His eyes are a rich golden-brown, sweet and syrupy like honey.

“Uh-huh.”

He winks at me and continues tugging me up the stairs.

My breath comes faster. It’s from the stairs. It has nothing to do with his honey eyes, or his ass in those jeans, or the way his whole body glides up the stairs with pristine animal grace.

We reach the second floor, and murmurs spill from the door into the stairwell.

“This is it,” he says, and with his hand on my lower back, nudges me into the dark apartment.

Chapter Six

It’s dark, but I hear chatter and feel a breeze from the balcony. It’s chilly, but the air smells salty and clean. I hadn’t realized how musty and derelict the air on the street was from the party. Up here, it smells like the sea.

A shot of envy snaps in me. He lives here. The view of the Mediterranean in the day must be wake-up worthy.

“Everyone’s on the balcony.” He leads me through the dark. Five people on the balcony block the railing. “Gary, make room. She hasn’t seen it yet.”

A silhouette, who I assume is the solemn, dark-haired guy whose bike I knocked over yesterday, moves to the side. “Hi, Aurelia,” he says.

“Hi, Gary.” I’m glad it’s too dark for him to see my heating face.

Once the view is open, my attention is stolen.

An enormous fountain glitters, rainbow lights dancing on the surface. I can’t tell if the lights shine from above or below the water, but the colors are low and muted. From the water,
lumières
take flight. Yellow flames flicker inside shapes of fluttering silk. They float higher and higher, the silk sprouting from the little globes like wings.

It’s breathtaking. An orchestra replaces the pop music with ambient tones. The building-sized parade floats are gone, sucked back into the darkness like monsters in the night. The masses of people are hushed, transfixed by the “light show”.

I had envisioned lasers or fireworks, but this is truly artistic, all the more beautiful following the noisy parade.

The
lumières
dip and dive, their flames deepening to orange. Like chicks hatching from eggs, they bloom with the flames; their silk coverings expand to full-size birds in flight. They flicker faster and brighter, swooping through the air. The flames bleed to red. The crowd “oohs” and “aahs”. The music speeds, racing in time with the silk birds. An ominous ending builds.
Things cannot end well for the
lumière
birds
, the music says.

One bursts into flames, and another. Fire consumes their silken wings. Like the phoenix at the end of its life, they couldn’t sustain their fire or their beauty any longer. The music stops and they are gone.

The crowd erupts in applause, and a rash of fireworks boom, announcing another troop of dancers.

The pop music returns, the party continues, the revelers resume their celebrations, as though the sublime moment of the flaming birds never happened.

I forget where I am until a light turns on behind me, and the people on the balcony start to move inside.

“What did you think?” Braker’s eyes flicker, and he leans against the railing beside me. “Neat, huh?”

I gulp, unable to stop staring at his eyes. They’re so light and open. “Yeah. Really beautiful.”

“The best part of Carnival. I thought you’d like it.”

“You…” Words catch in my throat.

He gestures back inside where a half-dozen people mill in the kitchen. I recognize some of his teammates.

“Have you eaten?” he asks. “There’s risotto if you want.”

“Risotto?” I haven’t had cooked food in over a week, not since I splurged on a bowl of soup one rainy day.

“Yeah. Come on.”

I follow him inside, shuffling my feet. I feel like a mooch, eating his food when I just walked in.

I fidget and spot the red wine stains on my cream-colored coat. I forgot about them. I try to cover them with my hands, but there are too many. I must smell like a wino.

“Actually,” I say to Braker before he gets to the kitchen. “Thanks, but I think I should go.”

He says, “Eat first,” and saunters away in those too-sexy jeans.

“I’m not hungry,” I lie.

He ignores me and asks the guys in the kitchen, “Any risotto left?”

I furrow my brows in annoyance. I don’t like being ignored. If I say I don’t want something, I don’t want it.

“No, Terr,” Gary says. “It’s gone.”

Braker turns back to me with a shrug. “Good thing you’re not hungry, I guess.”

Everyone’s eyes in the room are on me.

I fail to cover the wine stains with my hands, and I retreat for the door. “Thanks for letting me up to see the show.”

Braker follows me. “Hey, wait. You don’t got to run away.”

The situation is too awkward. It’s been a hell of a night, and while watching the light display from the balcony was amazing, I need a break from people. I need to get home.

“Thanks for having me up, Braker,” I say again, galloping down the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” I round the first-floor landing, hoping he’ll stop following me. I can feel him behind me.

He follows me out the door into the darkened alley. “Do you know where to go?”

I turn around and bump into him.

He clasps my shoulders, and when I try to step back, he steps closer. “Why are you in such a hurry, Frenchie?”

He’s so close it’s shocking, and the alley is so dark it freaks me out. This time when I step back, he doesn’t follow.

A gaggle of drunken partiers passes by the end of the alley, their squeals and laughter echoing.

“I’ll take you to the tram stop, if you want,” he says gently.

The street-level tram. I’ve ridden it before. It’s nice, quiet, safe. “That would be good.”

Nodding, he turns up the darkened end of the alley, not toward the lighted Promenade.

“Where are you going?” I point toward the carnival.

“I’m not going through those crowds. This is way faster. I need to get to bed.”

“Bed?” I follow him.

“Early ride tomorrow. No days off for me. Come on.” He grabs my hand again and leads me down another dark alley, to a staircase sidewalk up the hillside.

“You’re not going to party?” I take my hand back, not wanting him to touch me. It’s distracting. I may need his help to find the tram stop, but I don’t need his help to walk.

“I’m a dead man walking. Supposed to be in bed an hour ago.”

There’s no wine smell on his breath. No one in his apartment was drinking either. They were all cleaning up for the night.

He walks slightly ahead of me, glancing back, then tries to slow next to me, but I stay behind him.

“You usually out this late?” His voice is amused. His question isn’t serious.

“No. I’m usually—”

“Reading?”

“Yes.”

“How’s that going? Oh—oops.” He cuts himself off with a hand over his mouth. “Forgot. Not supposed to ask. Stupid jock who can’t read.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking or hurt. Maybe both.

“Sorry.” I’m surprised how easily the apology slips out. It doesn’t make me feel vulnerable, it makes me feel relieved.

He doesn’t respond.

Maybe he really is mad. “You were right.” The words are slow in my throat, but I force them out. “I’m not very good at—making friends.”

He shakes his head and chuckles. “We’re in a truce, Frenchie. Stop it.”

“Stop it?”

“You. Being all mousey. It’s a crap act. Are you scared or something?”

“No,” I snap too fast. I don’t want him to know I’m nervous. This is feeling more like a walk in the dark with him than an escort to the tram stop. There’s no one else around. After the carnival, it’s jarring.

“It’s only two more blocks, okay? I’ll get you there, don’t worry. What are you doing down here alone? You looked scared as shit on the street.”

“You already figured out I’m not good at making friends. The ones who brought me here, well—I don’t like parties.”

“So, the wine on your coat and your hair. Somebody spill something on you?”

I don’t think he’s making fun of me, but I’m not sure. So I keep walking, not responding.

An awkward quiet settles between us, the noise of the carnival in the distance. He hums for something to say. “You do anything for fun besides read, Frenchie?”

“My name’s Aurelia.” His nicknames grate on me. “Frenchie” is better than “sweetheart”, I guess.

“You always so serious?”

“Reading French
is
fun.” I flush, remembering how I told him I read Proust for fun. Only two more blocks to go.

“Right.”

“You ride bikes for fun.” I speed up next to him. “That’s not exactly my idea of a good time either.”

“Riding bikes is work. I enjoy it, but it’s not what I do for fun.” His voice floods hot and thick. “I do—other things for fun.”

My lungs tighten. An embarrassing urge to giggle wrenches my throat. I bite my tongue to keep it down. Did he really just suggest—

“I’m guessing you don’t do
those
things either.” His tongue drawls over the words in sensual suggestion.

My eyes are saucers, and I brave a stare at him. I must be reading too much into his words. But no. The “things” he’s thinking steam from his liquid eyes and wicked, curving mouth.

His mouth. I wonder what things he does with it.

I jerk my eyes to the pavement, my feet still moving, my brain addled. He’s shameless. “Asshole,” I whisper.

“Maybe,” he whispers back.