Sweet Filthy Boy

But then his face falls.

“What is it?” I follow the path of his eyes to the pan on the stove where I’ve tossed the prawns with the pasta and vegetables.

He winces. “It looks unbelievable. It’s just . . .” He swipes a palm across the back of his neck. “I’m allergic to shellfish.”

I groan, covering my face. “Holy crap, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, clearly distressed. “How would you have known?”

The question hangs between us and we both look anywhere but at each other. The amount of things we know about each other seems dwarfed by the amount of things we don’t. I don’t even know how to go back to the introduction phase.

He takes a step closer, telling me, “It smells so good.”

“I wanted to thank you.” It takes a beat before I can get the rest out, and he looks away for the first time I can remember. “For taking care of me. For bringing me here. Please wait, I’ll go get something else.”

“We’ll go together,” he says, walking closer. He puts his hands on my hips but his arms are stiff and it feels forced.

“Okay.” I have no idea what to do with my own arms, and instead of doing what I think a normal woman would do in this situation—put them around his neck, pull him closer—I fold them awkwardly across my chest, tapping my collarbone with my finger.

I keep waiting for his eyes to flare with mischief or for him to tickle me, tease me, do something ridiculous and Ansel-like, but he seems beat and tense when he asks, “Did you have a good day?”

I start to answer but then he pulls one hand away, digging into his buzzing pocket and pulling out his phone, frowning at it. “Merde.”

That word I know. He’s been home for less than three minutes, and I already know what he’s going to say.

He looks back up at me, apology filling his eyes. “I have to go back into work.”

ANSEL IS GONE when I wake up, and the only evidence I have that he came back at some point is a note on the pillow beside mine telling me he was only home for a couple of hours and slept on the couch, not wanting to wake me. I swear I can feel something inside me splinter. I went to bed in one of his clean T-shirts and nothing else. New husbands don’t sleep on the couch. New husbands don’t worry about waking up their new, jobless, tourist wife in the middle of the night.

I don’t even remember if he kissed my forehead again before he left, but a very large part of me wants to text him and ask, because I’m starting to think the answer to that question will tell me if I should stay, or book the flight for my return trip home.

It’s easy to distract myself and fill my second day alone in Paris: I wander around the exhibits and gardens at the Musée Rodin, and then brave the interminable lines at the Eiffel Tower . . . but the wait is worth it. The view from the top is unreal. Paris is stunning at street level, and hundreds of stories up.

Back in the apartment Sunday night, Lola is my companion. She’s sitting on her couch at home in San Diego, recovering from whatever virus we both got, and replying to my texts with reassuring speed.

I tell her, I Think he regrets bringing me back with him.

That’s insane, she replies. It sounds like work sucks for him right now. Yes he married you, but he doesn’t know if it will last and he has to take care of the job, too.

Honestly, Lola, I feel pretty moochy, but I don’t want to leave yet! This city is ahhh-mazing. Should I stay at a hotel, do you think?

You’re being sensitive.

He slept on the COUCH.

Maybe he was sick?

I try to remember if I heard anything. He wasn’t.

Maybe he still thinks it’s shark week?

I feel my eyebrows inch up. I hadn’t considered this. Maybe Lola is right and Ansel thinks I’m still on my period? Maybe I really do need to be the one to initiate some sex-type things?

OK that’s a good theory.

Test it out, she replies.

Forget the T-shirt. Tonight, I’m going to sleep naked, no covers.

I WAKE, GLANCING at the clock. It’s nearly two thirty in the morning and I immediately sense that he’s not home yet. The lights are all out in the apartment, and beside me, the bed is empty and cold.

But then I hear a shuffle, a zipper, a tight moan coming from the other room.

I climb out of bed, pull on one of his T-shirts he’s left in the laundry bin and which smells so acutely of him that for a beat, I have to stop, close my eyes, find my balance.

When I step into the living room and look to the kitchen, I see him.

He’s bent over, one hand braced on the counter. His dress shirt is unbuttoned, tie hanging loosely around his neck and pants pushed down his hips as his other hand flies over his cock.

I’m mesmerized at the sight, the sheer eroticism of Ansel pleasuring himself in the dim light coming in from the window. His arm moves quickly, elbow bent, and through his dress shirt, I can see the tension of the muscles in his back, the way his hips begin to move into his hand. I step forward, wanting to see better, and my foot catches a squeaky board. The sound groans through the room, and he freezes, his head snapping to look over his shoulder.

When his eyes meet mine, they flash with mortification before slowly cooling to defeat. He lets his hand fall away and his head drops, chin to chest.

I approach him slowly, not sure if he wants me, or wants anything but me. Why else would he be out here doing this, when I was naked in his bed?

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he whispers. In the light coming in through the window, I can see the sharp line of his jaw, the smooth expanse of his neck. His pants are slung low on his hips, his shirt unbuttoned. I want to taste his skin, feel the soft line of hair that travels down his navel.