Page 24 of City of Love

“I do prefer girls,” he says, the corners of his lips curving into a rare smile.

“Har har,” I say, but I can’t stop my own tiny smile.

“And Luc is definitely not my type,” he adds.

He guides me slowly to his bed, and I sit, blinking in surprise when he sits next to me. I’m even more surprised when he puts one awkward arm around me.

I look over at him. “What are you doing?” I say.

“I don’t know,” he says gruffly, scrubbing one hand down his face. “Trying to make you feel better?Mince, I’m bad at this,” he mutters. “It’s been a long time. I don’t know how to—”

I give a little snort of laughter, cutting him off. “Sorry,” I say when he raises one brow at me. “It’s just—you really are bad at it. But you're trying,” I add quickly when his brow furrows.

His only acknowledgement is a grunt.

“I haven’t forgiven you yet,” I say softly.

“I know,” he says, sighing.

With that understood, I sink further into him, resting my head lightly on his shoulder and soaking up what little comfort he offers. It feels nice, here in the middle of the night in a foreign country with people that, for all intents and purposes, I don’t know. Maybe we can be friends.

Which reminds me…

“Oh,” I say. I sit up straighter, shrugging his arm off. “I brought you something.”

He looks at me curiously, his eyes guarded, hesitant. “You did?”

I nod, digging the little box out of my pocket. “Here,” I say, handing it to him. “I was considering throwing the box at you, but…”

He gives a wry snort of laughter and opens it, revealing the utterly feminine bow-shaped earrings.

“You can give them to your mom or something,” I say quickly. “Or your girlfriend?” I add, not sure if such a person exists.

“Don’t have a girlfriend,” he murmurs, holding the earrings up to look more closely at them. He then proceeds to remove them from the wrapping andput them on—first his right ear, then his left.

“But—” I say, my eyes widening as his fingers move deftly. “They’re—those are for girls.”

He shrugs. “Says who?”

I swallow. “I don’t know,” I admit.

“I don’t care,” he says. “Besides, I’m confident in my masculinity.”

My eyes flit from his half sleeve to the faint outline of his muscular chest to the curve of his jaw, and I can admit he has every reason to be confident. And really, the earrings are tiny. Small enough that if you weren’t looking closely, they would just look like studs.

“Well?” he says, raising one brow expectantly once both earrings are in.

They…don’t look bad. At all.

I clear my throat. “Good,” I say, nodding as I stand up to put some space between us. “Nice. They look—yeah. They’re good.”

Cool. I can’t string a sentence together.

“Thank you,” he says, and incredibly, he sounds like he actually means it. His eyes never leave mine as he speaks again. “And…I know you’re angry,” he says. “But I hope we can keep being friends.” The words sound unnatural coming from him—not as though they’re insincere but as though he doesn’t say things like this very often.

I study him for just a second. Can I forget all the things he’s lied about? All the things that I know he’s still keeping from me?

I find myself nodding even before I’ve answered the question in my head. He had a good reason for not telling me he was a guy, even if I would have made a different choice. He thought he was doing the right thing. And as for the other things—well, I’m not entitled to know everything about him. He has the right to keep secrets. I’ll just have to silence my inherently nosy nature.

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