The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley Read Free Book Online Page A

this morning walking around in his apartment. She’s staring
     straight at me. I can’t move.
    In my head the roar of static grows louder.
    Finally she turns away. When I breathe out my chest burns.
    Â 
    I watched him arrive from here, too. It was August, nearly three months ago, the middle of the heatwave. Camille and I were
     sitting on the balcony in the junky old deckchairs she’d bought from a brocanter shop, drinking Aperol Spritzes even though I actually kind of hate Aperol Spritz. Camille often persuades me to do things
     I wouldn’t otherwise do.
    Benjamin Daniels turned up in an Uber. Gray T-shirt, jeans. Dark hair, longish. He looked famous, somehow. Or maybe not famous
     but . . . special. You know? I can’t explain it. But he had that thing about him that made you want to look at him. Need to look at him.
    I was wearing dark glasses and I watched him from the corner of my eye, so it didn’t seem like I was looking his way. When he opened the boot of the car I saw the stains of sweat under his arms and, where his T-shirt had ridden up, I also saw how the line of his tan stopped beneath the waistband of his jeans,where the paler skin started, an arrow of dark hair descending. The muscles in his arms flexed when he lifted the bags out of the trunk. Not like a jacked-up gym-goer. More elegant. Like a drummer: drummers always have good muscles. Even from here I could imagine how his sweat would smell—not bad, just like salt and skin.
    He shouted to the driver: “Thanks, mate!” I recognized the English accent straightaway; there’s this old TV show I’m obsessed
     with, Skins , about all these British teenagers screwing and screwing up, falling in love.
    â€œMmm,” said Camille, lifting up her sunglasses.
    â€œ Mais non ,” I said. “He’s really old, Camille.”
    She shrugged. “He’s only thirty-something.”
    â€œ Oui , and that’s old. That’s like . . . fifteen years older than us.”
    â€œWell, think of all that experience .” She made a vee with her fingers and stuck her tongue out between them.
    I laughed at that. “Beurk—you’re disgusting.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “ Pas du tout. And you’d know that if your darling papa ever let you near any guys—”
    â€œShut up.”
    â€œAh, Mimi . . . I’m kidding! But you know one day he’s going to have to realize you’re not his little girl any longer.” She
     grinned, sucked up Aperol through her straw. For a second I wanted to slap her . . . I nearly did. I don’t always have the
     best impulse control.
    â€œHe’s just a little . . . protective.” It was more than that, really. But I suppose I also never really wanted to do anything
     to disappoint Papa, tarnish that image of me as his little princess.
    I often wished I could be more like Camille, though. So chill about sex. For her it’s just another thing she likes doing: like swimming or cycling or sunbathing. I’d never even had sex, let alone with two people at the same time (one of her specialties), ortried girls as well as boys. You know what’s funny? Papa actually approved of her moving in here with me, said living with another girl “might stop you from getting into too much trouble.”
    Camille was in her smallest bikini, just three triangles of pale crocheted material that barely covered anything. Her feet
     were pressed up against the ironwork of the balcony and her toenails were painted a chipped, Barbie-doll pink. Apart from
     her month in the South with friends she’d sat out there pretty much every hot day, getting browner and browner, slathering
     herself in La Roche-Posay. Her whole body looked like it had been dipped in gold, her hair lightened to the color of caramel.
     I don’t go brown; I just burn, so I sat tucked in the shade like a vampire with my