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Once Charlie felt up to it again, they cleaned up the table and headed back through the museum. It was really beautiful. Everything looked brighter than it had earlier.
They were admiring a large open area of marble and stone when Nick's phone buzzed. He looked at it, surprised. "Oh. It's my dad. Um … Sorry, I'd better …" He put the phone to his ear and walked off a bit.
"Your dad?" Charlie echoed. Nick never talked about his father. At all. Neither did his mum.
Standing there, he tried not to listen to Nick's conversation, but he couldn't help it when he realised Nick wasn't speaking English. In fact, he was speaking French. Fluently. Like he'd grown up speaking it.
When Nick finished his conversation and turned around, Charlie was grinning, unable to stop himself. His boyfriend spoke French. That was … surprisingly hot.
"Okay," Nick said. "Sorry about that. He said, um …" He stopped and frowned at Charlie. "What?"
"You speak French. Like, fluently."
"Sort of. Um … My dad's French, and he basically only speaks to me in French, so … Anyway, he lives in Paris, so I've been trying to—" He stopped again, because Charlie absolutely could not wipe this silly grin off his face. "Are you … Wait, do you like the fact that I speak French?"
"Oh … I mean, it's fine," Charlie said, but he turned away to hide how much he really liked it. "It's cool."
Nick laughed and chased after him. "Charlie!" He caught him by the hand. "Mon amour."
Charlie could only imagine what that would be like if Nick said it while they were kissing. To cover how much he wanted that, he pulled away. "Oh, my God, you're so cringe!"
Holding on to his hand, Nick pulled him closer. "You actually don't look like you're cringing. You look like you're blushing."
"I am not!" He was. He really was.
"Oh, yeah? Sure?"
"Leave me alone, you dick!"
Wrestling and laughing, they were on the ground when a sharp voice above them said, "No!" Looking up, they saw a man in a dark suit, probably someone who worked the museum. He shook his finger at them and spoke to them in French.
They dashed up the stairs and out of that area, leaving the angry man far behind them.
Leaning on a wall, they looked out over the courtyard.
"My dad wants to meet up, like, today," Nick said. He didn't look all that happy about it.
"You've never mentioned your dad before."
"I mean … he's not really a big part of my life anymore, since he lives here, and … he's not the most reliable. He's still my dad, so …"
It was funny to think that not that long ago, Charlie had thought of Nick as someone who had a perfect life, where nothing ever went wrong. But now he knew that Nick hated exams and he froze up during them, and his brother was mean to him, and his father wasn't part of his life. It just went to show that you could never tell what went on in someone else's world, until they let you in.
Nick hesitated. "I had this idea that I might introduce you to him."
Charlie smiled. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." Nick smiled back. "It's just hard to get in touch with him when he never answers my texts."
"How about we promise to tell each other when we've got stuff going on?"
"Deal." Nick reached out and wrapped his arms around Charlie, pressing his face into Charlie's shoulder.
When the hug ended, Charlie asked, "When are you actually meeting up with him? And how?"
"I said I'd meet him in a café in twenty minutes."
Charlie reached out a hand and Nick put his into it, and they hurried out of the Louvre together. Nick had directions from his dad, so he led, holding on to Charlie's hand all the way, turning to smile at him whenever they stopped for a moment.
Still holding hands, they came down a set of stairs to an open-air café. Nick stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking around. Charlie could see how nervous he was; Nick was rarely this tense.
Then, a little way down, a man with greying hair pulled off his sunglasses and stood, waving. "Nicolas!"
Nick's smile in return was small, uncertain, and Charlie thought maybe he shouldn't have come. "Would you feel better if I waited here?"
Frowning, Nick said, "No," as if the idea had never occurred to him.
As they approached the table, Charlie couldn't help but wonder about Nick's dad. If he made Nick this nervous, what kind of person could he be?
"No," Nick repeated. "Please come with me."
He led the way to the table. His father laughed, looking him over and saying something to him in French. They shook hands. No hugs. Charlie thought of his own dad, holding him while he cried outside Harry's party, and thought he should probably try to spend more time with him.
To Charlie, Nick said, "This is my dad, Stephane." He gestured at Charlie and added, "Uh, this is my …" But he couldn't say it. Charlie wasn't surprised, given how completely un-Nick-like he was around his dad.
"I'm Charlie," he said, reaching out a hand to shake.
"Nice to meet you, Charlie."
They sat, and Stephane ordered them coffees. "So, you meet Nick in school?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Ah, great." He smiled at Nick. "So good to see you in Paris! You never visit."
"Oh. Uh …"
Stephanie explained, "When he was younger, he would visit every summer. When do you graduate? Must be soon now."
"Uh, I've still got two more years left."
The smile faded from Stephane's face. "Ah." He fiddled with the silverware in front of him. "I would have invited you this summer, but Martine is having this new kitchen fitted. The apartment is a mess."
"That's okay," Nick said. "Um … You know, I'd still like to meet her, sometime—if you wanted me to."
Stephane nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. … Yeah. Perhaps, someday soon, hm?"
But it was clear that for whatever reason, he didn't want Nick to meet this Martine. Those few sentences had explained so much to Charlie about Nick's relationship with his father.
"Now, tell me about this school trip. Have you been seeing the sights of Paris?"
"Yeah, most of them. Uh, we went to the Eiffeil Tower, uh … Sacre Coeur …"
"The Louvre this morning," Charlie finished.
"Yeah. it's been really fun."
Stephane's phone rang and he excused himself, taking it away from the table to answer.
Nick leaned back, folding his arms over his chest, his expression somewhere between hurt and angry.
"You doing okay?" Charlie asked him.
"I think so."
Then Stephane came back, his call ended. "I'm sorry, boys. Something has come up, and I just can't get out of it."
"Oh. Uh …"
Before Nick could figure out how to respond, Stephane went on, "But I haven't told you my news. I'm coming to England next week. Small business trip."
"Oh! Um … You should come to dinner," Nick said hastily, standing up. "I'm sure Mum will be okay with it, and David will want to see you."
"I miss that boy," Stephane said. "Ha! We'll see. I'll talk to your mother." He left some money for the coffees and said something to Nick in French. "Was good to meet you, Charlie. Wonderful to meet one of Nick's friends."
"Yeah. You, too." Charlie was standing now, too, next to Nick.
And then Stephane was gone, walking off down along the river, and Nick was watching him go, his eyes suspiciously bright. He sat down again, blinking the tears back.
"Wow," Charlie said. "That was … fast."
"I really thought I could talk to him about you."
"It's okay." It really was. The number of things Stephane didn't seem to know about Nick seemed like a mountain in which his having a boyfriend was only one small lump. "There'll be other chances." Charlie wasn't going anywhere. This afternoon had proven to him that Nick needed him, his support and his caring, just the way Charlie needed Nick.
Nick was looking off into the distance, where his father was now just one of the crowd. "He just doesn't … He doesn't know me. I mean, he knows I like rugby, and … that's it."
Charlie reached for his hand. "Let's walk back to the coach. You can rant about him the whole way there."
"Okay. But—I don't think I want to talk about him anymore, if that's all right."
"It's fine. As long as you know you can when you want to."
"I do. Thank you, Charlie." He squeezed Charlie's hand, and they walked back together, talking about the lightest things they could think of. It had been a heavy day for them both.