That afternoon, the Sunday after Noah's day with Luke, Noah found himself in the busy side streets along Rue des Rosiers, a street in the shopping district of Saint Ouen, a suburb of Paris. He had taken the metro with his father in the morning, and now that it was after noon, the crowds began to gather in the marketplace, overflowing with tourists and shopkeepers selling antiques and fine jewelry.

Noah took his phone out of his back pocket as it beeped, indicating a text message.

"Who keeps calling you?" his father asked as he looked over his shoulder at his son.

Noah read the message: where r u? It was from Luke. "No one," Noah said. He quickly typed the name of the street they were on and put his phone away. "Just a friend from school."

The Colonel looked over at Noah as he walked ahead of him, an unusually sly grin on the old man's face. "Ahh, I see. A girl, perhaps?"

His son pursed his lips, the nodded. "Uh, yeah. Just this girl I study with sometimes." He saw this as an opportunity and put his hand on his father's arm, forcing him to stop. "In fact," he said over the noise of the crowd, "I told her I'd bring him something back from Paris. Do you mind if we stay along this street for a while?"

The Colonel turned to his son and smiled. "Of course, if it's for a girl." He laughed and patted Noah's shoulder. "You should have told me, Noah. I'd like to meet her when we go back to New York."

Noah gave him a fake smile. "Oh . . . so would I." His phone beeped again and Luke's message popped up: which store?

The Colonel watched Noah read the message, his smile never wavering, the look of a man who was finally proud of someone who had disappointed him too many times in the past. "Well, look—you take your time out here. I'm going into this store to see if I can get a decent watch for under a thousand dollars." The Colonel laughed and Noah smiled weakly at his joke.

"I'll just be out here," he said. He waited until his father was in the store and responded to Luke's message, ignoring the throng of people pushing past him on the cool spring day.

Belles Antiquités. Noah typed. How long? He waited a moment, nearly falling when a man from behind bumped into him and rushed off. "Hey!" Noah cried. The man had already disappeared into the crowd.

20 minutes. Luke typed back.

Noah frowned. It was only around one o'clock but already the crowds were surging and Noah knew his father would be getting restless to go back to the hotel. Too long, he typed. Not enough time.

Noah waited again, looking out amongst the crowd of people buying and selling along the street. His cell phone beeped. 10 minutes. Luke typed. Distract him. Noah frowned again and flipped his phone shut with a sigh. He wondered if it would have just been easier to meet up with Luke near the hotel when they got back. He put his phone in his back pocket and froze when he didn't feel his wallet in his denims. He looked around frantically and searched all the pockets on his jeans, looking out at the crowd again and wondering if a pickpocket had stolen it. His heart raced, his jaw clenched shut, a sickly feeling grew in his stomach—

"Excuse me, monsieur," a man from behind him said, "is this yours?"

Noah turned and faced an older man, maybe five to seven years his senior, with a goatee and slicked-back hair. He wore a yellow suit with a blue tie, a gold ring on his pinky finger and a devilish smile radiant enough to make his own mother smile. He held Noah's wallet in his hand, the flap flipped open to reveal Noah's driver's license.

"Yes," Noah said, relieved. He took his wallet from the man's hand. "Thank you."

"But of course," the man said. He rubbed his thumb over his goatee and smiled, looking Noah up and down. "You should be more careful, mon petit chou. There are thieves lurking everywhere in the market."

Noah looked at him for a moment, then put his wallet away and nodded. "Yeah, I'll try to remember that." He looked through to store window to see if he could spot his father, and rolled his eyes when the man spoke again.

"My name is Georges Benoit," he said, extending his hand.

Noah sighed and shook it. "I'm Noah," he said.

Georges' face brightened. "Ah, yes. The prophet who saved his family from God's Deluge."

Noah put his hands in his pockets and kept a watchful eye on the store window. "Yup," he said.

"You are American," Georges said, leaning in to Noah with an amused grin.

"How'd you guess?" Noah said flatly.

Georges shrugged as though he were a magician being asked the secret of his trick. "You have a beautiful, white smile. Many Americans have beautiful smiles."

Noah laughed and shook his head, wondering if this man was for real. "Thank you, that's very kind of you to say."

Georges ran a hand through his greased-back hair. "You look well-to-do. May I ask which hotel you are staying at?"

Noah looked at him suspiciously. Before he could open his mouth to tell him how uncomfortable he felt, his father came from the store and interjected them.

"Noah, what's going on?" the Colonel asked.

George smiled and opened his arms. "Aha! Noah did not tell me he had a handsome older brother."

Noah let out a laugh and turned his head away. He dared not look his father in the eyes, for fear of laughing even louder at the Colonel's bewildered expression.

"Who is this man, Noah?" the Colonel asked sternly.

"Ah, yes," George said, "how rude, please let me introduce myself—"

"That's not necessary," the Colonel said.

"I dropped my wallet," Noah said to his father. "He picked it up for me."

"Yes," Georges said, shaking his head. "You're son is very handsome, but very clumsy, I am afraid. A better thief would have been more subtle at stealing my heart."

Noah threw his head back and laughed at the man's ridiculous attempt to flirt with him, in front of his own father, nonetheless. He doubled over and held his stomach, weak from laughing so hard. He put a hand over his mouth, but by then it was too late, the Colonel was already upset.

"Noah, stop that!" he cried.

Noah tried to gain his composure and stood straight, chuckling slightly as he looked at the silly Frenchman in a yellow suit. Colonel Mayer turned to Georges and pointed to him. "I don't know who you think you are," he said, "but I think you had better leave."

Georges held up his hands and gave him an aw-golly frown. "Me, monsieur? What is the problem?"

Noah opened his mouth to ask the gentleman more politely to leave again, but his father interrupted his attempts.

"You are my problem!" the Colonel cried. He looked at Georges as if he were carrying some sort of infectious disease. "You people disgust me!"

"Dad, calm down," Noah said, looking around, "people are staring."

George's face dropped and he became sincere. "I am sorry I have given you a bad impression, monsieur," he said. "But I assure you, the French are good people."

"Not the French, you idiot!" the Colonel yelled, waving his arm. Both Noah and Georges stepped back from his wrath. Noah's father pointed to Georges again. "I'm talking about your kind! You flirt with every guy as if they're just like you—you try to get in their pants like some sort of pervert!"

"Monsiuer, I—"

"Dad, what are you talking about?" Noah asked.

The Colonel turned to his son, his face red and livid and scary enough to make Noah recoil. "Don't you see, son?" he asked. "This man was hitting on you . . . he's nothing but a faggot!"

Noah winced at the word, the tone of his father's voice. He suddenly felt afraid to be there, that if he stayed long enough, his father would be able to see right through him and beat him right then and there in the streets.

Georges put his hand up and laughed. "Typical stupid American," he said. "You think the world revolves around your ideas. You are a . . ." he paused. "What is the word? Ah, yes!" He pointed to the Colonel. "You are a bigot!" Georges clapped his hands and laughed. "Say what you will, monsieur, but here in France, it is you who are the disgusting one."

Determined to have the last word, Georges turned on his heels and walked in the other direction. Noah watched him go, admiring him slightly while still cautious of his father's wrath.

"Get back here!" The Colonel shouted after him. "I'm not through talking to you!"

Noah reached in his back pocket and took out his wallet with his cell phone. He punched in Luke's number to text him. Trouble. Hotel, 1 hr. He put his phone away andlooked through his wallet.

"Oh my God," he said to himself. "I had at least thirty euros in here!" He brushed past his father and called out to Georges. "Hey!" he cried. He ran down the street, pushing past the crowd of people around him.

"Noah, come back!" is father yelled after him.

Noah ignored his father and followed George's unavoidable yellow suit. Georges looked over his shoulder and began to run after he saw Noah chasing him. He led him to a corner of the street and pushed a rack of clothes over from a woman's kiosk of goods. Noah tripped over the pile and fell hard onto the cracked cement of the sidewalk. He felt a stinging pain on the surface of his elbow and rolled over to his side, watching out of the corner of his eye as George got away in the thick of the crowd.

Colonel Mayer rushed to his side and helped Noah to his feet. "Are you alright?" the Colonel asked. "Did he hurt you?"

"I'm fine," Noah said, brushing himself off. The woman at the kiosk began yelling at them and Noah helped put the clothes back on the rack. "Sorry," he said to her. "I'm sorry." He handed her six euros as a gesture of forgiveness and limped away.

"Noah—"

He put his hand up as he walked away from his father. "Can we just go, please? Can we just go back to the hotel?"

The Colonel took Noah's arm tightly and whipped him around. "Don't you ever walk away from me like that," he said in a stern tone. He lowered his voice. "I don't ever want you talking to people like him again, do you understand me?" The Colonel studied Noah's face to make sure he knew what he was talking about. "People like him are sick, they need help. Fags like him are only after one thing."

Noah winced again at the word, feeling physically ill at his father's voice. He stared him square in the eye, knowing that there was only one thing he could say that would make him drop the subject and let them move on.

"Yes, sir," he said.

0000000

Luke sat back in his chair and looked at Noah from across the café table. They were seated outside, the four o'clock sun hazy in an increasingly overcast sky. Noah had told his father he was going to get a cup of coffee alone to clear his head after the incident at the market, and when the Colonel expressed interest in taking a nap, Noah thought it was perfect opportunity to see Luke again.

"First he hits on you," Luke said, "then he steals from you?"

Noah sipped his cappuccino. "To be fair," he said, "I'm pretty sure he stole from me first when he gave me back my wallet. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the pickpocket he told me to look out for."

Luke laughed and shook his head.

"It's not funny," Noah said.

"You're right, it's not," Luke said with a chuckle, "I mean, you'd think a Frenchman would have a better pick-up line than 'mon petit chou'—which, by the way, means 'my little cabbage'."

Noah laughed and put his elbows on the table. He drew in a breath and held his arm at the spot where he had scratched his skin during his fall in the market. He rolled up the sleeve of his sweater to reveal a red mark the size of a quarter dotted with dried blood.

"Here, let me help you." Luke inched his chair over to Noah's side and dipped a linen napkin in his water glass. He put it on Noah's cut and his companion pulled away. "Hold still," he said. He dabbed the wet cloth on Noah skin and blew a cool breath on the area. Luke looked up at Noah and saw that the man was staring at him tenderly. "Better?" Luke asked.

Noah nodded and smiled. "Much."

Luke put the cloth down and kissed the other side of Noah's arm. "There you are, mon petit chou."

Noah chuckled. He thought to himself as Luke moved his chair back to his original spot. "It was terrible," Noah said. He looked at Luke. "My father hated him. You should have seen his face, he wanted to kill him. All for being . . . all because he . . ."

Luke leaned over the small table and put his hand on Noah's cheek. "Hey," he said, "he won't be like that with you."

Noah shook his head. "You didn't see his face. He couldn't have cared less that Georges was a thief—all he cared about was the fact that Georges happened to like men."

Luke stroked his cheek and took Noah's hand. "Maybe he doesn't like it now, but give it some time. Once you tell him, he's bound to understand."

Noah smiled weakly and brushed his thumb over Luke's knuckles. "I wish I had your optimism."

"I'd like to think of it more as . . . blind faith." He winked at Noah and they both laughed. Noah squeezed his hand, reveling in their time together and forgetting everything the Colonel had to say about such things.

"Anyway," Noah said, taking a drink of his cappuccino, "I have good news."

Luke's face brightened and he rested his elbows on the table, leaning in. "Does it involve me?"

Noah nodded. "It might. My father will be in Niece on business all day tomorrow."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "All day?" he asked with a smile.

Noah nodded. "All day."

Luke put a finger to his lip and pretended to think. "Hmm," he said, "I wonder what we should do in that time."

"I can think of a few things," Noah said. "What time do your classes end?"

"Two o'clock."

"Then how about we meet here at two thirty?"

Luke sat back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. "And maybe I'll have a surprise for you," he said.

Noah raised his eyebrows, nodding. "I see your surprise and I raise you a romantic picnic in the park."

Luke held out his hand. "Deal," he said.

Noah shook it. "Deal."

To be continued