Chapter Text
The first time he sees her, well thinks he has seen her, a camera hides her face. He is in a hurry to get to the metro but he does a double take at hair the colour of wine. She has her back to him with her camera up still. Her hair is longer than he remembers but it has been a couple years. The wind picks up and he swears he smells her shampoo. The smell that he almost memorized while in high school. But a crowd comes through, she is gone, and he is late for work.
The next time, he swears she is haunting him. He only gets a brief glance at her face before she is walking off the train. He makes a move to follow but the doors close and he cannot find her on the platform anymore.
Weeks pass and he hasn’t seen her anywhere, so he stops looking. Then he passes a bar and sees her smiling to something the person next to her said. He almost runs to the door and rushes in, his heart beating out of his chest. The person sitting next to her recognizes him.
“Salut!” They say and wave him over. She turns around and the smile on her face changes to disbelief.
“Lily.” He whispers. Then she’s flinging her arms around his neck and he’s picking her up in a hug.
“I thought I would never see you again.” She’s whispering, in English, in his ear. He just holds her tighter. His friend, Emma, clears her throat and they release each other.
“So you two know each other?” Emma asks.
“Yeah we went to high school together and haven’t seen each other since.” He explains. His hand still rests on the small of Lily’s back.
“Well you two should get caught up then! I’ll see you in class.” Emma says to him and to Lily she says, “It was nice to meet you,” in much simpler French. Lily smiles and nods.
They leave and head back to his apartment. They don’t talk the whole way but Lily has her arm around his with her hand on his bicep. When they get inside there is a moment of silence as Lily walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. The sun has set and all the lights of the buildings create an orange glow on her face.
“It’s beautiful.” Her English is rough to his ears.
“It is.” His English is rusty from lack of use.
“Comment ça va?” She asks very slowly. Like she’s trying to remember how to form the words.
“My rusty English is better than your French.” He smiles and she does too. “But I’m good. You?” He asks. He stands next to her to look out the window. She shrugs.
“Same as always.” She looks around his apartment as if she’s analyzing it. “No girlfriend.” She states and he shakes his head. This simple statement opens the floodgates for both of them. They talk until three in the morning but he doesn’t mind. Even though he has to get up early. He doesn’t mind when he realizes that she’s fallen asleep on his couch. He just picks her up and places her on his bed. He knows that couch isn’t comfortable to sleep on. And he still doesn’t mind when he wakes up the next morning to her burrowed under the duvet with her hair a mess of red on his pillow. He doesn’t mind her morning breath when she kisses him. He doesn’t mind all of this because he finally has the girl of his dreams.
He’s looking at her as if she will disappear and never return. She blushes and covers her face with the duvet. This makes a laugh bubble from his mouth as he wrestles the blanket from her grasp.
“Stop looking at me like that.” She says breathlessly.
“Like what?” He questions.
“Like I hold all the answers to the world’s questions.” She is still smiling when she speaks. He just smiles and twists a strand of her hair between his fingers.
“Your hair is redder than I remember.”
“I dyed it right before I left the states.” He nods slowly, still playing with her hair. She sighs and sits up after a moment. He looks at her curiously when she isn’t wearing the same shirt she fell asleep in. She can feel his gaze on her and answers his question before he asks it. “You are like sleeping next to a furnace. I woke up too warm so I took off the shirt I was wearing over this one.” She can hear him chuckle behind her. She can feel his hand drawing circles on her back.
“I have to go to work.” He states a couple minutes later. He can feel her back tense under his palm. She nods then. He sits up and places a small kiss on her shoulder.
“I have the short shift today though so I’ll be home early.” He says hurriedly. She nods again, her whole demeanor has changed. She is tense and vacant. He doesn’t like seeing her like this.
“Hey, look at me.” He physically turns her body to face him and lifts her chin up. “Please be here when I get back.” He whispers and he sees something shift in her eyes. A small smile breaks across her face. He mirrors her smile and leans forward to place a kiss on her lips. It’s quick but feels natural.
She lies back down in his bed and watches him get ready for work. Her eyes never leaving him. He thinks that it should feel awkward but it doesn’t. However, when he comes out of the bathroom from styling his hair, she is not laying on the bed anymore. A fleeting worried thought crosses his mind but he shuts it down. She wouldn’t do that…would she?
He rushes into the kitchen to see her standing in the same spot she did last night. With the morning sun pouring in through the windows, she looks ethereal. He would think that the sight “took his breath away” but this is Lily and she would hate how cheesy that line would be. Then he notices that she wearing one of his flannel shirts. The green plaid one specifically. It was excessively big for her, she had the sleeves rolled up, and he wishes he had a camera to capture the moment.
“I never told you, but I love city views and skylines.” She glances over at him and her blue eyes pierce his soul. But he chuckles and walks to her.
“The people selling the apartment hated the view because you couldn’t see the Eiffel Tower.” She smiled.
“There’s more to a view than the tourist attractions.” She says softly. He nods and runs his fingers through her hair. “You’re going to be late for work.” She says softly. She is looking out the window again. He swallows past the lump in his throat and nods.
As he is walking to his front door, he hears her call his name, “Asher,” He turns and faces her. “I’ll be here when you get back. I promise.” She is smiling at him and tucking her hair behind her ear when she speaks.
“I know you will be.”
If he was being honest with himself, he was a little worried that she would not be at his apartment when he got back. He fumbles with his key in the lock and eventually gets the door open. But she is there. He exhales the breath he did not know he was holding. Her hair is in a messy bun on the top of her head and she’s humming along to a song playing from her laptop speakers. She is still wearing his shirt.
He sets his keys in the bowl by the door in the entryway and walks to the kitchen. She turns around on the bar stool to face him. She is smiling at him and gives him the ‘I told you I would be here’ look.
“Hi.” He says quietly.
“Hi.” She replies, “How was work?” She asks.
“Work was okay. Nothing too special. Did you go get your laptop while I was gone?” He internally slaps himself because of course she got her laptop that is why it is sitting on his counter playing a Rolling Stones song. She smirks at his question.
“Obviously.” There is just a bit of her usual sarcasm coating her reply.
“Yeah that was a stupid question. I’m not used to having someone home when I get home.” Although he believes, he could get used to having her here. “I usually just come home and turn on the TV for a few hours before biology kicks in and I need to eat.”
“That can be arranged. Let me just finish up working really quick.” She smiles and turns back to her computer. He agrees and goes to get a glass of water.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you working on?” He had noticed a word document open on her computer.
“I don’t mind, I’m working on a movie review.” He can hear the shyness in her voice when she answers.
“That’s awesome! Are you a movie critic?” He asks, generally interested. She nods and types quickly. Her eyes never leaving the screen. “Well I don’t want to distract you from work, so I’ll be watching TV until you’re done.” He kisses her temple as he walks by. He hesitates and can feel her looking at him. It just felt so normal to do so. He clears his throat and leaves her to work just as he said he would.
About an hour later, he hears her laptop close and her bare feet move to the living room. He tips his head back to see her standing there.
“All finished?”
“All finished. Now scoot over.” He moves to one end of the couch and she curls up next to him as he flips through the TV channels.
“Are there any channels not in French?” She asks quietly. Almost like, she was ashamed to ask.
“I’m afraid not.” He replies carefully. There is a question that had been burning a hole in the back of his mind since this morning, he just is not sure if he should ask it.
“Why are you tense? It is as if…I don’t know. Are you worried about something?” She is sitting up and looking at him with the cutest confused face he has seen.
“I, uh, just want to ask you something.” She raises an eyebrow but her facial expression doesn’t falter. “How, um, long are you going to be here?” He has to look away from her mid-sentence because her gaze still doesn’t falter.
“I fly back Sunday evening. Back to New York.” She looks away from him and moves so she isn’t touching him at all. “I assume you have a work visa here.” She whispers.
“Yeah I do. Also, Sunday is in 2 days. Well realistically, less than that. When were you going to tell me?” He couldn’t help but feel a bit defensive that she didn’t tell him. She whirls around to look at him. Her eyes no longer held the warmth that they had earlier that day.
“I didn’t realize that I had to tell you everything. Nor do I have control over what days I have for leave. I don’t live here,” She stood from the couch and glared down at him. “I have a job, in another country, that doesn’t allow me to just leave!” She has barely raised her voice but the echo rings for a few moments after.
“That’s not what I meant.” He sighs.
“Then what did you mean? You were the one who got all defensive with me.” She crosses her arms over her chest and holds her head high.
“I was just hoping to have more time with you is all.” He is exasperated with the conversation and it was a short one really. “I have…-“
“What?” She didn’t have patience anymore.
“I have loved you since second semester of junior year of high school. I wanted to have more time with you before you left so you could love me too.”
“Asher. I did love you,” He notices the past tense. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to drop everything, in a place that I love, with a job that I love, and live here.” Her eyes soften and she uncrosses her arms. Though she remains standing. “I found my home, Asher, and clearly you have found yours.” She whispers. She walks to that spot where she had stood the first time she walked into his apartment. Staring out over the skyline.
“Home for me is wherever you are.” He wishes he could take the words back as soon as he said them.
“We both know that isn’t true. You left. You came here first. You ran!”
“I wasn’t running!” He shot from the couch and stood to face her.
“Then why did you leave? If you were in love with me back then, why did you leave in the first place without telling me jack shit?” Whatever softness there was, is now long gone; she is furious.
“Okay so maybe I was running. A little bit. But you never said anything either!”
“Because I wasn’t about to screw up your chance of finding whatever it is you were looking for! Because I knew, I did not see the long-term picture of my life with you in it as a relationship. Friends, yes. But I knew, somewhere in the mess of my thoughts at the time, that I was going to move on and so were you!”
“So now you get to make my choices for me?” He knows it is a low blow but he has nothing else. He knows that she is right.
“I’m not making your choices for you and you know that. I am doing what is best for me. And I know that all that would happen would be pain for you.” She holds no emotion on her face. It is as if the Lily that he saw last night is now stored away somewhere else.
“How do you know that?” His tone is even and controlled.
“Because you are just as much in love with this city, this country, and these people as I am with New York. I am not going to ask you to leave this place. Just like you couldn’t ask me to do the same.”
“Well I could.”
“And if you do, this conversation will get a lot uglier.” Her tone states that this conversation is over and not to be argued anymore. “I’m going back to my hotel. If you want to go get something to eat or drink, well you know where I’ll be.” She comes out of his bedroom fully dressed, no longer wearing his plaid flannel. She grabs her laptop off his counter as she leaves. Not once does she look over her shoulder.