Page 34 of Meet Hate Love
I’d decided against informing her that Vance evidently had a soul.
Alive after nearly twenty-four hours together. That’s promising.
Not even twenty-four hours. Reconfirmation of how screwed I was.
I feel like it’s already been three days.
Had it been three days, at least I would have felt a little better about myself.
ChapterTwelve
VANCE
“That was traumatizing,” Blake said, hand on her chest as she stared back at the open elevator.
“You’re over-exaggerating.”
“We got stuck in an elevator on the Eiffel Tower!”
“I’d barely call that stuck. It stopped for all of five minutes.” But that was just enough time for people, including Blake, to freak out.
Shaking her head, she made a beeline toward the brightly lit gift shop across the esplanade. “Cursed, I’m telling you.”
I followed her into the store. Mumbling about the elevator, she bypassed the trinkets and went straight to a drink cooler at the back of the shop.
She flattened her palms against the glass door and pressed her forehead to it. “How do they not have wine?”
“I thought you weren’t drinking?”
I’d offered to buy her a glass of champagne from the champagne bar on the top floor. She’d declined, saying she had sworn off alcohol for the next two weeks.
“That was before we got stuck. My nerves are rattled, Vance.”
“It’s a gift shop… they aren’t going to sell wine.”
“They have chocolate bars!” Blowing out a breath, she shook her head. “Just so you know, I Googled how likely those elevators were to get stuck. Google said it was practically impossible due to how often they’re serviced.”
“Again. It wasn’t really stuck. It had a hiccup.”
Blake lifted a brow before heading down an aisle filled with trinkets. “A hiccup…” she snorted. Then, like the magpie she was, something shiny caught her attention. “Oh, look at this!” Smiling, she held up an Eiffel Tower-shaped teaspoon and went straight to the register to pay.
“You’re going to buy a souvenir from every place you visit, aren’t you?”
“Of course. It’s what you’re supposed to do.”
It was obvious she believed that. At the Louvre, she’d bought a Mona Lisa apron, a Venus de Milo notebook, a magnet, and three T-shirts.
When the clerk behind the counter passed Blake’s bag over to her, I went to the door to hold it open.
“Let me guess,” she said, ducking underneath my arm. “You’re one of those people who doesn’t buy souvenirs.”
“They’re nothing but crap.”
“This—” she dug the spoon from the bag and wielded it in front of me—“is not crap.”
“You could find that on Amazon.”
“Pfft.From Amazon, he says.” She crammed it back into her purse. “It loses all meaning if I didn’t actually get it at the Eiffel Tower.”
