Page 194 of Boyfriend of the Hour

Nathan, to his credit, didn’t seem the slightest bit ashamed as he closed the distance between us. His hands hovered over my shoulders, but when I looked at them, they fell to his sides.

“I found out where you were, and it seemed like the right thing to do,” he said. “The only thing to do.”

“Why?” The question pained. I hated that I didn’t know the answer. “To punish me? To sue me? To rub my misery in my face? Or just to show me what I can’t have anymore?”

“None of that.” His brown eyes were full of something mournful. Something deep. “I came because I had to know you were okay.” He shook his head. “What my brother did was deplorable. I don’t blame you for leaving at all.”

“Blame me,” I muttered before I stumbled backward and walked around in a quick circle. Suddenly, I felt trapped in my own body, buzzing with energy that had no way of getting out. “Blamemefor leaving? What about you?Youleft with them. Walked right out of the planetarium while I was standing there, bawling my eyes out.”

It wasn’t until I said it that I realized I wasn’t just sad. I was also mad. For months, I’d been beating myself up over the whole situation. Depressed that I wasn’t enough for him to stand up for. Heartbroken because I’d failed to protect him from my past.

But that was just it. My past. I’d made mistakes. Big ones. But also, I had been so young. That tape was an enormous stain on my life, but it didn’t have to define me.

But he had let it. He had looked away from it then, and he was looking away now, seemingly unable to meet my angry gaze while people around us continued to watch and whisper about the odd Americans making a scene on the steps of the famous museum.

“Was I supposed to stay there and punish you?” he demanded right back. “Allow my parents and my brothers to continue talking about you as if you were nothing, hurting you like that? I couldn’t bear it, Joni! I couldn’t stand the look on your face every time my mother called you a name or someone played that goddamn video. It was fucking torture.”

“How do you think it felt forme?” I shrieked.

We seethed at each other for a good long minute, letting the sounds of tourists, traffic, and the rest of the city argue for us.

When I tried to turn away, though, Nathan took me by the wrist, forcing me to face him.

“The only thing I could think of was to get them away,” he said, his voice back to a normal timbre. “I knew if I stayed with you, they wouldn’t go either. So I left. I was always going to come back. Please believe me.”

I couldn’t answer him then. My throat was too choked with grief, and I was too busy fighting tears to think of anything to say.

“Pardon?” We both turned to where a man, maybe a little older than Nathan, was approaching, hand raised to me. “Mademoiselle, ça va bien?”

I shook my head. “I don’t speak French.”

“We’re fine,” Nathan snapped at him in an unusually rough voice. Then to me, much more gently, “Would you prefer to walk along the water? Maybe a museum wasn’t a good idea.”

Wordlessly, I nodded. “Sure. The water sounds…fine. I guess.”

He could have offered a shipping container for all I cared. I just wanted to get out of this place.

He reached out as if to take my hand again, but then seemed to think otherwise.

Oh, that hurt too.

“This way,” he said, gesturing toward a crosswalk.

I followed him across the street, then down a set of stairs that led to the cobbled pathways lining the river. We walked for a while in silence, passing under one bridge, then another.

It was like being on a movie set. I sighed and found myself humming the lilting bars of one of the musical numbers I remembered, just like I used to as a kid. It would get me in trouble at school, but it was one of the few things that would calm my screaming brain when it felt like this, like a caged animal clawing to get out.

“What’s that you’re singing?”

“‘Our Love is Here to Stay,’” I replied, my voice dead. “FromAn American in Paris. Ironic, I know.”

When he shook his head blankly, I sighed and went on.

“Gene Kelly sings it to Leslie Caron, and they dance here on the Seine. Nonna and I used to watch that movie when I was little. I memorized all the steps.” I did a few of them, just out of habit, then sighed again, dejected. “Leslie Caron wasn’t much of a singer either, but she could really dance. I wanted to be just like her.”

Nathan watched me carefully through a few more steps but didn’t speak, even when I returned to walking next to him.

It took several more steps and then about fifty yards of walking while watching the river before I calmed down again.