Page 35 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

VODKA AND TONIC TOGETHER AGAIN

Hazel

I crunch into a croque madame, hold the ham, the next morning. Cheese oozes over the edge of the toasted bread, but I dart out my tongue to catch it.

Jackie laughs from across the tiny orange table outside the boulangerie. “You go, Frog Hazel.”

“I love cheese and I cannot lie,” I say after I finish the bite.

“Who doesn’t?” Alecia seconds. “When my wife felt well again, she was like bring me all the cheese .”

“Your wife is smart. Cheese might be the meaning of life,” Maria adds, then takes a bite of her croissant, humming in appreciation. “Can I move to France someday? Well, after I finish my degree and meet a hot billionaire.”

Alecia nods knowingly. “May we all either meet them or become them. Speaking of, I think Amy and JHB have a little something-something going on.” She whips her gaze to me. “You should write about them.”

I’ve already thought about that. But I don’t want to let on any secrets about future story ideas. So I shift gears to the ladies. “Maybe I’ll write about someone who becomes a billionaire making dog bandanas.”

Jackie laughs, clearly tickled at that idea, but then she sighs.

“I really hope the bandana business takes off. I have a chance to partner with a pet supply store, but I don’t know what to say in my proposal.

Well, I do know what to say. I just think I’ve said it badly.

” She frowns, looking embarrassed. “I haven’t sent it in yet. ”

I put down my coffee cup and seize the opportunity. These ladies have done so much for me. This is one thing I can do for them. “Want me to look at it?”

Jackie’s eyes pop. “You would?”

“I’m not too bad with words. I could help if you need it.”

Alecia slugs Jackie’s shoulder. “Take the help, Jackie. Let five Calgon Take Me Aways help you.”

“That would be great,” Jackie says, then she fishes out her tablet from her purse. I spend the next thirty minutes fine-tuning her pitch.

“Thank you,” Jackie says sincerely before we go.

“It was my pleasure,” I say, and truly, it was. I want her to have all the good things. Then I take them and the rest of the group on a tour of my Paris, and somehow it feels even more special to share this place I love with all of them. The readers who have become friends.

And that guy too. There at the back, listening intently to every word I say about the curving cobbled street in Montmartre where the hero in The I Do Redo realizes exactly what he wants.

My stomach swoops annoyingly.

Or perhaps not too annoyingly.

The tour is over and I’m wandering with the Book Besties through a map shop in a covered passage when my phone trills with the theme from Jaws.

Normally, I don’t answer or look at my phone when I’m out with others like this, especially when I’m the host. But that’s Michelle calling with the special ringtone I gave her since, well, she’s a shark when she needs to be.

“That’s my agent,” I say apologetically to Jackie, Alecia, and Maria, who are checking out a cartoonish map of Europe. “I’ll call her later.”

Except when I hit ignore, Michelle just rings again a minute later. That’s her shorthand for pick up fucking now.

I wince, unsure what to do.

Jackie, though, is certain. She waves at the phone, shooing me out. “Go! Agents must always be answered.”

“Hi, Michelle,” I say as I head to the door and press the phone to my ear.

“Hi, cutie-pie,” she says in her Georgia accent. Everyone’s cutie-pie to her. I suspect it makes her shark bite sharper. “Is Axel there? Get that peach too.”

I catch Axel’s attention. He’s checking out globes with the Nikon Man and his wife.

I waggle the phone, and he follows me outside the shop, then around the corner, where he slides in next to me, shoulder to shoulder, as we lean against a pretty yellow column.

He’s close, so close I can smell him, a hint of soap, a bit of rain. My new favorite mix.

Must focus .

“We’re both here,” I tell Michelle, holding the phone between us.

“I am calling with delish news,” she says. She’s well trained. I hate being blindsided, even more so after last year, so Michelle knows to preface her calls with whether the news is good, bad, or ugly.

“I like good news,” I say.

“Guess who got you two cuties a twenty percent raise?”

I blink. Axel’s jaw drops. “Wow,” we say in unison.

“Apparently that disappearing act made your next book even more valuable. Fans are clamoring, and Lancaster Abel wants to put the preorder up soon. So they’re offering to pay you a bigger advance on the book.

And they want you to deliver it in four months.

What do you think? Can you pull it off? If you do, there will be a bonus on delivery, and the usual bonuses for bestseller lists, which you’ll hit because everyone, and I mean the whole dang Internet, is talking about you two being back on.

It’s like vodka and tonic got back together after a terrible year apart. ”

I gulp.

Holy shit.

This is real.

We’re truly doing this.

I knew that. Of course I knew that. But now everyone knows. And even if Michelle is exaggerating a tidge, this is a reality check.

As in, we’d better deliver, or our careers are toast.

I look to Axel first. My answer hasn’t changed, but I want to hear him say yes again. I kind of can’t get enough of it. “Thanks, Michelle. That’s a lot, and it’ll let me keep writing,” he says, sounding honest and grateful.

He’s still amazed he gets to do what he loves for a living. I am too. To tell stories is heady and humbling all at once.

I chime in with a cheery, “Send the contract anytime.”

“Great,” she says, and it sounds like she’s about to hang up, but then she adds, “And by the way, The I Do Redo is a bona fide hit in France. The U.S. too, but your French publisher is très, très happy. They called, raving about how it’s selling there. Just wanted to pass that along.”

“Good to hear,” I say, briefly flashing back to Veronica’s advice when I FaceTimed her in Rome— focus on work .

In a way, I did focus on work. On being fully present for every moment of the tour, on listening when the readers shared ideas, then on plotting new stories with Axel and revisiting old ones.

Somehow, that all worked out, and here I am, lucky enough to still write for a living. Pinch me. Just pinch me.

It’s almost all too good to be true. But somehow, it’s real.

We finish up, and when I end the call, I’m still in a state of shock and wonder over the Axel news. “We’re really doing this,” I say.

“We’re really doing this,” he repeats.

I’ve wanted this reunion badly. But now, I’m also starting to want something else. Something beyond the characters, beyond the coffee shop camaraderie, beyond the partnering in crime.

But my track record sucks. I guess you can’t have everything.

A little later, we arrive at Gare du Nord for the final leg of the train trip. As I roll my luggage along the platform, Amy by my side, I glance at the clock on the station wall. It’s early evening. This is our longest train journey—fourteen hours to Denmark.

Axel’s behind us, chatting with others, while Amy rattles off details of the last night of the tour.

“And I checked and double checked. You’ll be all set with lots of space,” Amy says as we near the car.

We’ll have separate compartments on this journey north.

That should make me happy, but it doesn’t.

I can’t rely on a reservation snafu this time around to bring me closer to Axel. I’ll have to take the step.

“Thanks, Amy,” I say.

I shift the conversation to her, asking about her kids in Los Angeles, if she misses them, if she’s excited to see them. I listen attentively, even though my shoulders feel heavy. Time feels too fast. It’s running out for real.

This is our last night on a train. Then Axel and I will spend tomorrow night in Copenhagen before we leave for the airport to return to New York.

Less than forty-eight hours, and this brief and lovely tryst on a train, in a hotel room, under the table in a brasserie, will end.

But it’s been more than the best days of my so-called sex life. It’s been boat rides and meanderings in foreign cities. It’s been games we love playing and wishes in fountains.

When we return to New York, it’ll be contracts and deadlines. It’ll be keeping the promises we made to our readers. I won’t break those again.

But we made promises to ourselves too—to finish the story. To see our characters all the way through. That’s what we do. We write.

It’s how I understand the world, and I don’t want to break my understanding of myself either. I want to finish what we started.

There’s only one thing to be done.

Once we step onto the train, Bettencourt is there waiting, sporting an expensive suit and an intensity in his gaze. “There you are, Amy,” the billionaire says, and her name contains multitudes. He’s eager to see her, he’s hungry for her, he only has eyes for her.

I wave goodbye to the single mom who looks a little enchanted as she talks to the man waiting for her. I can’t wait to tell Axel about the two of them and how they deserve a train romance.

When I reach my compartment, I flop down on the same bed we shared earlier in the trip, and I call him.

“How’s your compartment?” I ask when he answers.

“You trying to trade, Valentine?”

I smile. “If yours is better, we should sneak into yours tonight.”

I can hear him smile over my boldness, over the way I ask for what I want.

“Get over here now. Act casual, like we need to, I dunno?—”

“—plot.”

“Yes. That . Brilliant.”

Seconds later, he’s opening the door to his compartment, and I’m stepping inside so I can ask for something from the guy I couldn’t stand when I shared a table with him in New York more than a month ago.

And it’s not about Amy and the billionaire. It’s about us. I’m eager to wring as much joy as I can from the waning days. “What if we make the most of these last two nights?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, sounding full of hope too.

“We finish the book tour tomorrow afternoon in Copenhagen. But we don’t leave till the next day. Spend it with me. Just me. All day, all night.” I take a beat, gearing up for the real ask. “Like a date.”

His blue eyes twinkle. Then, he lifts a finger, swipes it across my eyelid gently and holds it up. “Eyelash. Make a wish.”

I blow on it, wishing there were a way for Axel and me.

“What did you wish for?” he asks.

I already know it won’t come true, but I still don’t reveal my wishes. “I can’t tell you, but I can tell you what my fountain wish was.”

“Yeah? Does that mean it came true? It was my iron dick, right?” He’s trying to make me laugh, to keep the moment light, but I can tell he wants more from my wish.

I play with the neck of his shirt. “I wished to have a good trip, and I did. What about you? What was yours?”

He shakes his head. “It hasn’t come true, but I’m close. So damn close.”

“Tell me then?”

He just shrugs, noncommittal, and I hope to learn his wish someday. I hope, too, that it comes to pass.

Then he kisses me, and I taste both wistfulness and joy.