Page 12 of Maybe This Time
“How was Paris?” she asked.
Her voice snapped me out of my reverie and I responded quickly, “Fine,” praying my expression didn’t betray my thoughts.
I wasn’t going to shy away from telling her how I felt tonight, no matter how it ended, but I had to break down her walls first. And more importantly, not think with my dick.
I cleared my throat and met her gaze. I’d expected indifference, assuming she was only being polite by asking, but beneath that resistant armor, I still caught a glimpse of my Talya.
So I’d hold onto that. I’d use it to remind her of who we used to be.
I’d already recounted every second of my time in France through my letters and the few times we managed to FaceTime, but if she wanted to hear it now, I’d indulge her.
“I mean, it was good. Great, actually,” I said with a small smile. She didn’t return it, but she was listening—and that was a start. So I kept going. “I got to learn a lot. And Chef Dumas was amazing. Well… outside of the kitchen. Inside it, he was a fucking asshole,” I shared with a soft chuckle. “But I’ll forever be indebted to him for everything he taught me.”
I paused, then added, “And I got to learn a lot about my dad.”
Her gaze softened. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
There were many reasons I’d applied for the Dumas internship, but the most important one—the one I hadn’t told anyone except Talya—was my dad. I’d never had the chance to meet him before cancer took him, and my mother rarely ever talked about him. I never blamed her because I couldn’t even fathom losing the love of my life right before one of the biggest milestones in your life… let alone raise a kid who looked like an exact replica of him while trying to navigate your own grief.
It had always felt like I couldn’t connect to this other part of me because how could you miss someone you never met? But there’d always been this longing inside of me to know more about my father. So when I’d stumbled on an old journal that my dad kept while he was studying to be a pastry chef, I’d found entries of his time with his old friend Auguste.
When I’d told Talya about it, she’d been the first to push me to apply.
So I did.
I’d even used my mother’s maiden name so there’d be no bias, and a week before graduation, I’d gotten my acceptance letter.
“The internship was intense,” I said, “but when I finally told Auguste who I was, he made sure to share every embarrassing story he had about my dad.”
I still remembered the day I’d finally mustered the courage to tell Auguste the truth. I’d been whirling with emotions and the first person I’d wanted to call was Talya. But by then, that stupid letter had already been sent and I’d had to remind myself she’d made her decision about us.
“I’m happy for you, Ezra,” she said, a small smile forming on her lips. “Truly. I know how important finding a way to get closer to your dad was for you.”
Warmth spread through my chest at her words and all I wanted was to pull her into my arms and never let go.
“Thank you, Taly-belly.”
She stiffened the moment the nickname slipped past my lips. Her smile vanished as quickly as it had come. Her gaze dropped away, shifting to the phone screen beside her.
The timer showed forty minutes had already passed.
Panic swirled inside my chest, dousing the previous warmth. It was replaced with a heavy weight that settled deep in my gut at the realization that I only had twenty minutes left with her before she might disappear forever from my life.
I could see her walls going back up, so I said the only thing I thought might blur the lines enough for me to finally be able to ask her what I’d set my mind to the second I saw her tonight.
“Let’s play a game.”
CHAPTER 8
TALYA
Let’s play a game.
My eyes snapped back to his, my brows drawing together in confusion. “A game?”
There had been a flicker of panic in his gaze when he noticed how much time had been left to whatever this charade was. But my response seemed to have sparked a fire inside him; one he’d been staving away until now.
