Page 50 of Meet Hate Love
The cashier glanced up with wide eyes as she slid the piece of plastic across the counter. My attention went to her name tag and the flags notating which languages she spoke. French, Italian, and, of course, English. Which meant she’d heard me whisper, “I’m just horny,” after I’d trekked a mile through bone city. Great, amazing, and wonderful.
“I was talking to myself,” I said as I passed over my euros. “And, just to be clear, I wasn’t saying that because I have a thing for dead stuff or anything. I had an encounter with this guy earlier, and it’s kind of stuck with me.” I felt my ears grow hot, but once the word vomit started spewing, there was no stopping it. “He’s the one who made me horny. In the cemetery.” Why couldn’t I shut up? “And I didn’t think you would understand English, but I was…” I let out an uncomfortable laugh, followed by an audible swallow. “Wrong.”
Without a word, she passed over my change, along with the button.
I took it and ran for the door. Margot would get a kick out of that, although then I’d have to confess that I’d kissed Vance. And then she’d ask how it was.
I’d tell her I was confused.
She’d tell me the only way to rectify the situation would be to fuck him, and I didn’t need any more encouragement. After all, he already had condoms.
* * *
I tookthe metro over to the Panthéon. Then I checked Vance’s itinerary to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally bump into him and journey on toPalais Garnierbefore I headed over to Montmartre and sat down at a café.
Halfway through the best chocolate gelato of my life, my cell phone buzzed on the wrought-iron bistro table. I licked my fingertips while a flurry of rapid-fire messages popped up in the family group chat.
Mom: Patricia, could you ask Rob to do us a favor and have the fire department come over to help?
Aunt Patricia: Help with the poo?
Mom: Yes. The smell has crept into the whole house.
Mom: Poor Kate has locked herself in the bathroom in tears.
I shouldn’t have gotten satisfaction over that, but what could I say? I was obviously a slightly horrible person.
Grace: You can’t ask the fire department to help clean shit out of the yard.
Mom: It’s turning into a neighborhood emergency. The Porters next door said it’s an act of vandalism, and they’re calling the local news.
Grace: What is the fire department supposed to do about the smell?
Aunt Patricia: Rob said you may need to call a hazmat unit.
Mom: HAZMAT UNIT?
Erin: ????
Aunt Patricia: He said biological waste is a hazard. They can’t powerwash it into the neighbor’s yard. It needs to be removed.
It kept getting better and better. I took a screenshot and opened my message thread with Vance, then stopped. He was not the person I needed to be sharing a laugh with. Or sharing spit with…
Annoyed with myself, I got up from the table, paid my tab, then stepped off the terrace into the warm sunlight. I really needed to find some reasons not to like him. Maybe play a probing game of one-hundred questions. Kale or chocolate, because only a true psychopath would choose kale.
I rounded the corner of the soft-pink building to a perfect view of theSacré-Cœur Basilica. The huge, white, domed structure sat straight ahead, perched high atop a green hill, and centered perfectly between the narrow, shop-lined streets. And holy crap at the steps that led up to it.
Three hundred to be exact, well, maybe not exact. I had distracted myself by coming up with questions to ask Vance that could reveal how terrible we would be for each other, like have you ever clotheslined a bicyclist? If so, how often do you think about it? If his answer was anything but zero, I could say he was a monster and move on with life.
The mixed chorus of a choir drifted through the open doors of the Basilica. And as I approached, I felt a renewed sense of hope that I could once again despise Vance Morgan the way God had intended.
The sound of the hymn amplified as I passed by signs instructing visitors not to take pictures, and it continued to increase once I stepped into the domed structure. A bright mosaic of deep blues, brilliant golds, and a huge image of Jesus with outstretched arms covered the ceiling. I wasn’t particularly religious, but I had to admit, there was something about the place that felt spiritual, something about the way mosaic Jesus stared down at me like he knew my deepest, darkest sins—desecrating a cemetery with lust.
I held my phone by my hip and snuck a photo, then another. “It’s our secret, Jesus,” I whispered as I moved past people lighting candles in front of a statue of Mary.
I plopped onto a wooden pew, bowed my head—I figured it was the most respectful thing to do if I intended to disregard the rules of a church so blatantly—and flipped my camera around, aiming it straight up.
Ten seconds into the recording, someone took a seat right beside me.Rightbeside me. Why in the world would someone feel the need to invade my personal fake-prayer bubble when there were about twenty empty pews?
