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But Célie was going to climb it. She was not going to get stuck here, no way. Her favorite dream of riding out of this place on the back of a motorcycle behind Joss washed through her, and she tried to stamp that pesky dream back down in with the rest of the wiggles in her stomach.

  But … it would be so perfect. They could go find some little town in the south of France that needed a baker and a mechanic, far away from drug trades and gangs and hopelessness, and, God, would she be happy.

  “Coming, slowpoke?” she challenged over her shoulder, sticking her tongue out at him. Any time her crush tried to take over, she had to make sure it was obvious that she was just his friend’s impudent kid sister and not stupidly in love with him.

  His gaze flickered up from—her butt? Could it possibly be? Had he actually noticed she had a butt? But his expression was calm, neutral. “I’ll try to keep up,” he said, amused, reaching her with one long stride. “Célie, I still think pink is more your color.” He tugged her braid again.

  She frowned at him. “I’m far too tough for pink. Burgundy, now, burgundy makes a statement.” A tough statement. Vibrant but not to be messed with.

  They passed a tabac and a waft of cigarette smoke came through the door as someone left it, carrying a fresh packet of cigarettes. Célie craned her neck to take a breath of the smoke.

  Joss closed his hand over her nape and kept her going. “Bad for you.”

  Célie rolled her eyes. “I got it, Joss. I’m not going to start again.”

  “Promise?”

  “I already promised ten times!”

  He didn’t say anything at all, just kept walking, not letting go of her nape. Joss could out-stubborn her any day.

  “I promise!”

  “Even when I’m not around, Célie. Don’t do it behind my back either.” He held her eyes, something troubled in his.

  God, did he blame himself in part because Ludo had gone so wrong? Nobody could have stopped Ludo. She could personally attest to that, as the little sister who had tried. Plus, plenty of guys his age did time for drugs or theft or assault around here, it wasn’t like he was the worst guy in the world or anything.

  Joss was, in fact, the only really good guy she knew. But he made up for all of them. In fact, he seemed to take it as his personal responsibility to make up for all of them—always the guy who shielded her from her brother’s most irresponsible actions and kept her brother’s other friends in line as she was growing up, growing more female and therefore more vulnerable. When she tried to learn how to flirt, she mostly practiced on him. He was safe. As she grew older, the safety stayed reassuring but it grew more and more frustrating, too.

  “I promise, Joss,” she said, holding his eyes in return, putting everything of her in it.

  He held her eyes one more moment. Then his hand squeezed the nape of her neck and dropped away. He shoved it into his pocket, hiding that warmth from her.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  He moved his shoulders in a minimal shrug.

  She crinkled her nose. “No … uh … no luck on the job search?” she tested, and winced internally. She knew Joss’s pride. She knew how much he hated looking like a loser in front of his friend’s kid sister. And she never could figure out how to convey to him that she thought the world of him, no matter what. Didn’t it show at all, when she brought out some special dessert for him every day and her whole self lit up just to see him? She couldn’t tell him. If she exposed her crush too openly, he might distance her. For her own good, of course. Every time Joss did something that hurt her heart, it was for her own good.

  His lips pressed tight, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. But then he said, “I’ll probably have to leave here, to have any chance.”

  Instantly, that vision flooded back: her clinging to him on the back of a motorcycle, blowing this place as that deep, powerful motor roared them out of here to a new life.

  Her nails flexed into her palm, trying to drive that dream back.

  It was kind of hell having such a crush on her brother’s friend, when she knew it wasn’t reciprocated. But she still hadn’t managed to get up the courage to just leave him and go find her own way in the world, either. Come on, Célie, you’re eighteen now. You’ve got to just do it.

  They reached the worn-out green space in front of their building that once upon a time had been some architect’s idea of bringing nature to fifteen-story towers. All three of the limp, exhausted trees had their trunks covered with initials, bottles broken at their bases, here and there a syringe. Giant concrete towers rose above them, as if they’d been set there to turn humans into cockroaches and then crush the life out of them. Célie’s apartment was up there, floor fourteen, its windows unbroken. Joss’s was on floor seven.

  A lot of stairs, when the elevator broke down.

  “Where would you go?” she asked. Maybe I can tag along.

  “Away from here,” he said flatly.

  Yeah. That was pretty much where she wanted to go, too.

  She touched his wrist gently. Once in a while she tried something like that. I’m sixteen now, all grown up. I’m seventeen now, all grown up. I’m eighteen now, all grown up. Are you ever going to notice?

  He turned and faced her, in front of the doors to their tower, under a lonely tree scarred with so many initials that there was even one that said J + C that didn’t mean them at all. Over it, someone had carved an obscene symbol.

  “Joss.” Her heart broke a little for him. Sure, he tried to keep his expression neutral, but she’d known Joss a long time now. Behind that stoic expression, he held so much tense determination not to be beaten down by this place. And yet it was trying to break him. He was a good mechanic, she knew he was. He was a good guy. A really good guy. And yet just by association with her drug-dealing brother, he’d lost his job. He couldn’t even find another one. It hurt her, every day that he couldn’t. “Joss. You know you’re amazing, don’t you?” She felt so shy to say it but somebody had to tell him.

  “Célie.” His eyes closed a second, and he shook his head.

  She stuck her chin up. “Well, you are.”

  “Célie.” He lifted his hand to cup her cheek, and she stilled. Even her heart tried to stop. Her lips parted, and she stared up at him.

  Had he—was he—had Joss finally noticed her? As something other than his friend’s pain-in-the-neck kid sister? Had Ludo’s removal from their relationship somehow allowed him to see her?

  “I’m never going to let you down,” Joss said, low and fierce. “I swear it, Célie.”

  “No,” she agreed firmly, making a fist of encouragement, cheering him on. “You won’t. I know you won’t.” You’re such a good guy. My only good guy. And behave, you stupid wiggles. “You can do anything.”

  “Right,” he agreed, that monosyllabic intensity of Joss’s that turned one short word into a vow. He shifted his hand to her chin, still holding her eyes.

  She held very still. She kept her lips faintly parted. Just in case that was all the encouragement he needed to bend his head and …

  Kiss her on the cheek.

  Damn it!

  The other cheek.

  Her heart sank in disappointment.

  But he didn’t let go of her chin, after the good-bye bises were finished. “Célie. I’ve got to go.” That deep voice of his made her want to curl up with it so badly. Most nights, she pretended Joss and his deep voice were in her bedroom with her, just to comfort her enough so that she could fall asleep.

  Something about the intensity in his eyes made her want to step forward and curl up in him now—press herself against his chest, get him to fold his arms around her, as if he was going to be wrenched from her if she didn’t. But other than the time when she’d started crying after her brother was arrested, he never did hold her. She was the kid sister.

  “I know,” she said wistfully. Of course he had to go. He probably had a date or something. She was such an idiot.

  His other hand shifte
d in his pocket. As if he was clenching it and unclenching it.

  “You’ll be all right?” he said.

  Up went her chin. “Of course I will!” This place could not get to her.

  He bent again. And—

  Damn it.

  A third kiss on her cheek. A fourth.

  The full four bises, as if they came from some extra-affectionate part of France, the kind of regions where arriving at a party and greeting all the guests exhausted your cheeks. Not so common here, unless for a greeting after a long absence or a long good-bye. Or maybe, to give each other courage.

  Or maybe because … he was noticing her? Maybe liking her? Not quite ready to move straight to a kiss on the mouth, but getting interested? Wanting an excuse to touch her more?

  She tried to hold very still, so as not to shake any possibility of a birth of interest away.

  “Célie.” He closed his eyes a moment. “The way you look at me.”

  What was wrong with the way she looked at him? Heat climbed into her cheeks. Damn it, if he knew about those wiggles …

  He opened his eyes, holding hers with that beautiful, beautiful hazel green. “Célie. You know I’m just a man, right?”

  “No!” she said indignantly. She did not know that at all.

  “Made of clay,” Joss said, his mouth turning down. “I’m not good enough for the way you look at me.”

  Okay, now he was talking crazy. She put both hands on his chest. “You’re Joss. You can do anything!” She shouldn’t have to keep repeating that last part. It was so inherently true to who he was that she wanted to kick the world, kick her own brother, for vandalizing Joss’s belief in himself. People around here got their graffiti on everything else, but they could damn well keep their grimy, destructive hands off Joss Castel.

  He stared down at her a long moment. Then strength seemed to infuse him, even more strength than he always held, as if he grew three centimeters in every direction just from her belief in him.

  Well, good. She willed more of it into him, trying to pour it through her eyes into his heart. You are the biggest, best, most wonderful guy in the world. Don’t let this get you down. You can do anything!

  “Right,” Joss said. He took a deep breath that seemed to expand his chest to superhero size. He squeezed her chin one last time. “I can be good enough,” he said like a vow. “Way the hell better than this.”

  Exactly. You can do it! Don’t let this place get you down! She pushed the thoughts into him until her forehead hurt from the effort.

  His hand left her chin—but then it was as if he couldn’t stop touching her, because he stroked a wisp of hair back off her face, tucking it behind her ear. His fingers lingered over the curve of her ear and then, far too soon, fell away.

  Célie flushed all through her, this rosy, starstruck hope.

  “Bonne nuit, Célie.” He started to turn away, then stopped, and looked back, gazing down at her as if he had to memorize her for a test. “You really are the best part of my day.”

  So Célie was radiant when she curled up in her bed that night. She glowed so much she could have been her own night-light. Tomorrow—tomorrow she was going to wear her sexiest shirt, the one with the deep V-neck, and the jeans that really hugged her butt, and, and … she lost herself in dreams of what he would do, of how she might just trip a little when he kissed her cheeks, see if she might get their lips to meet for real tomorrow, because maybe he would like it. She dreamed it until those dreams blurred into sleep.

  So it was a complete shock to her when his mother showed up at the bakery the next day in a hysterical rage, blaming Célie because the evening before, her son had caught a train south and joined the Foreign Legion.

  Chapter 3

  When Célie finally came out of the ganache room so people could work, keeping her head down, trying to get to the bathroom first to wash her face before she had to make eye contact, Jaime was sitting on a stool beside Dom, leaning back on one elbow on the counter, talking to him, passion fruit caramel hair angling against her cheek. Her blue eyes locked on Célie immediately. “Hey, Célie.”

  Oh, crap. Dom had called for female intervention. His über-freckled fiancée was exactly the perfect person to doggedly pursue the issue until she got to the bottom of some suspected abuse of the sisterhood. Célie scowled at her boss, for being so damn bossy, as if he had the right to interfere in his employees’ personal lives or something, and went on to the bathroom.

  Cold water on her face did not really do a whole hell of a lot of good. She turned her back on the mirror and sank against the sink behind her, holding on to it with both hands, and just—holding, there, for a moment. Holding everything. She drew yet another deep breath and sighed it out and finally went out to deal with things.

  “So.” Jaime scooped her arm up, elbow to elbow, as if they were best sisters about to go out for a walk.

  Célie liked Jaime, so astonishingly different from all the women with whom she had been convinced Dom would screw himself over. In a good mood, she liked teasing Jaime, and even hanging out over a cup of tea or hot chocolate during a pause in the day. She’d been teaching the other woman how to inline skate, even. But still. They weren’t actual sisters. Jaime had one of those already.

  “Why don’t we go for a walk?” Jaime said.

  “He’s still out there.” Dom gave a greedy show of sharp teeth. “Why don’t I go send him on his way first?”

  “I believe we’ll call the police if we need that,” Jaime said very firmly. “Dominique. Let’s keep you out of jail.”

  Dom brooded like a cigarette addict trying to make do with patches while somebody smoked right beside him. Célie thought it was so cute the way his fiancée called him by his full name all the time, Dominique, with that little careful accent of hers around all the French vowels. It was probably no wonder Dom was always kissing her. Célie practically wanted to kiss her herself, and she was not the type to go for small women who looked like they needed protection. She’d always kind of wanted to be the small woman who got protected herself.

  It just hadn’t worked out for her.

  Well, Dom, but he was kind of on loan, really. He was her boss. He wasn’t supposed to have to act like her big brother, too. Or in any other capacity, although she couldn’t say that a few fantasies hadn’t managed to slip past her guard on bad days, especially after she’d finally forced herself to quit fantasizing about Joss.

  Well. Mostly quit.

  “He’s still out there?” Célie said, and repeating the words out loud made them true, made her heart beat harder, as if she was going to be sick. He didn’t just leave? Again. “Dom, don’t go get in a fight.”

  Joss had left her to go join the Foreign Fucking Legion, so by now, he was probably one of those people who knew how to kill others with his left pinky finger.

  She didn’t want either one of them to get hurt.

  “I’ll go talk to him,” she said sullenly. She’d been so happy. And here, bam, let’s just shatter that like crystal.

  “Why don’t you tell me a little bit more about what’s going on with this guy, first?” Jaime asked, pulling her outside the glass doors to the top of the steps so they could tuck themselves into some illusion of auditory privacy, if they kept their voices low, even if they were pretty visible. “Was it a bad relationship?”

  “No! It’s not—it wasn’t even a relationship. I just, I don’t know—I just trailed around after him, I guess.”

  Jaime narrowed her eyes. “He had other girlfriends, too?”

  “I wasn’t his girlfriend, Jaime. That’s what I’m saying. We just—we lived in the same HLM, and he was friends with my brother. Then he decided to make a better life for himself, and I haven’t seen him in five years.”

  “Oh.” Jaime sat still on the steps, trying to digest this. Since in normal times people ran up and down those steps between the laboratoire and the salon below constantly, they were really getting in the way, but no one pushed by them.


  That was Dom for you. He’d be more willing to piss off any number of customers than shortchange one of “his” people.

  “So,” Jaime said slowly. “He never hurt you, and he didn’t betray you?”

  Célie’s eyes filled again. “No,” she said. No, it had all been her wanting, her hurting, her needing. He’d never deliberately fed it. And he’d left her with all of it, having better things to do with his life.

  “Oh.” Jaime eyed Célie doubtfully. Célie scrubbed at her tears again. Jaime sat waiting. The glass door nudged gently against their backs, and they scooted over to the far side of the top step, so that Thierry could squeeze out with a tray with a mille-feuille and a cup and pot for hot chocolate on it.

  Sorry, Thierry mouthed, face scrunching with the force of his apology, as he snuck past them and hurried down the stairs. They must be getting desperately backed up, behind that glass door. Célie wouldn’t turn around to see if anyone was watching them, or if they were all trying very hard to work—as long as that work kept them in full view of the glass doors.

  Right now, she almost didn’t care.

  “Maybe I should go talk to him,” Jaime said. “Do you want me to ask him to leave?”

  Célie’s heart seized. Leave? Again? Just disappear into that dark void again, and this time maybe she would never see him again. Never know what became of him.

  She sprang to her feet. “No. No. No. I’ll talk to him.”

  Jaime stayed seated, arms wrapped around her knees, watching Célie a long moment. Then she nodded and stood. “I’ll make sure Dom stays upstairs. You promise nothing is going to happen that will make him jump through the window and break an ankle in his rush to go smash that guy’s face in?”

  Célie shook her head. “Joss would never hurt me.” She hesitated, one step lower. “Enfin … not like that.”

  Chapter 4

  Joss waited.

  He’d gotten good at it in the Foreign Legion, waiting. That grim, stubborn, determined waiting for someone to move, for a chance to kill or be killed to open up. For backup to arrive, for their unit to move on, for mail.