Paris is Always a Good Idea

by Jenn McKinlay

I was prepared for heart surgery, not wedding colors!

He looked at me with a know-it-all expression more commonly seen on a teenager than a grown-ass man. Hmm.

desperately needing a snack to fill the gaping hole of sadness in my soul.

“Reschedule? I didn’t think the itinerary queen—that’s you, by the way—even knew that word.

Eh, who was I kidding? Paris was always a good idea!

I glanced at the phone and saw Jason watching me. The look in his eyes was one I didn’t recognize.

“What? How is lipstick important but eyeliner isn’t?” I asked. “Men don’t think about kissing your eyeball,”

I snorted, almost laughed, but then frowned.

I felt my face get a little warm at the compliment, and I smiled. It was the first time I’d ever actually smiled at him with anything other than malice.

“I don’t need you,” he said. “I need your help in understanding your incredibly long-winded campaign proposal. There’s a difference.”

“There are good ships, there are wood ships, there are ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships, and may they ever be,”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh before, Martin,” he said. “Probably not,” I agreed. “Which is a shame, because you have a great laugh.”

Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. The joys of travel.

I was always struck by the distinctively sweet smell that was Paris. Fresh-baked bread intertwined with the bouquets from the flower vendors on the corners and with subtle notes of tobacco smoke that blended with the pungent fumes of the Metro and the overlying scent of the towering chestnut trees.

And so I took in the amazing lights rolling out to the horizon and the blue strobe light sweeping across the cityscape from the peak of the Eiffel Tower, and I thought that of all the places I might find my old self, Paris seemed the most likely.

It hit me then that I could see what our office mates saw in him. He was handsome, in a rebellious way, and he was always smiling.

“Nah.” Jason turned his head and looked out at the city when he said, “You look perfect to me just as you are.”

“Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné.”

“Tell me what happened tonight.” I leaned back in my chair. “Why do you care?” “I want to know if I need to go punch someone.”

“Still, you’re my colleague—no, that’s not right anymore. You’re my friend.”

Trying to lighten the moment, I smiled at him and repeated his previous words to me back to him. “So what you’re saying is you’ve noticed me.” His gaze met mine with an unexpected intensity. “Yeah, I’ve noticed you.”

I nodded, wondering why, having won this round, I felt as if I’d lost something precious and rare.

In my bewildered and panicked state, feeling as if my quest to find my old self had just been hijacked by a man who thought my future was farming potatoes in outer space,

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone about Jess before, not even Aidan.”

“Well, I can’t weigh in on that debate, since I didn’t know you then,” he said. He put his hand on the back of his neck as he studied me from beneath his lashes. “But I can say that I like the Chelsea Martin who’s here right now. I think she’s pretty damn special.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with these feelings, but I wasn’t going to pretend they didn’t exist. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

He stopped short when he saw us, and Marcellino gently put me down. He adjusted my hat and said quietly, “But that one, I don’t think it is friendship he feels.”

“I’m in love with you,” he said. “Don’t—” “Too late.”

“Because I fell in love with you on the other side of your greatest loss, your deepest grief,” he said. “I fell for the strong, determined, driven woman who you’ll always be, and I love you exactly as you are.”

“Trust me that it will be all right. I’ll hold you through it. I’ll keep you safe, I promise. Be with me, Chelsea. Tonight. Here and now, in this moment, let the past go and choose me.”

because in deciding to spend the night with Jason, I had chosen him . . . but I had also chosen me. I was finally ready to embrace me.

“When Aidan sent me to Paris to find you, I couldn’t wait to get there, because I knew I was already half in love with you.

You said you went on this quest to find yourself, but you didn’t need to go away to find yourself, Chelsea. You needed to go away so that I could find you.”

“It’s okay. I’m terrified, too. We’ll be terrified together. Just don’t leave me, Martin.