I nodded and felt very close to tears again.

“Blix, I told you he would take you back,” he snapped. “Stop looking so damn weepy. It’s a shitty look for you.”

His callous reaction was actually exactly what I needed. I laughed and punched his arm playfully. “Fuck you, Saxon.”

“Nice if you would,” he drawled, then helped me up. He took the sleeve of his hoodie and pulled it down, long and loose, then wiped at my face gently, sopping up the tears and even the snot. It was one of the most intimately kind things anyone had ever done for me. “It will all be different when we get back. Trust me.”

I put my arm around his waist and he put his around my shoulders, and I realized that as much as I hated having Jake out of my life, I loved the freedom to be with Saxon however I needed to without feeling any guilt. I leaned my head on his shoulder as we walked back, matching my breathing and eventually my heart rate to his. He had been there when I needed him, and that gave my mind a chance for real peace.

The rest of the day rushed by. It was mostly filled with Mom lamenting all the things we hadn’t been able to do and see, including the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. I was relieved that we had a reason to come back. Much as I had learned being here, I wanted the chance to experience Paris without the drama of Jake and Saxon looming over my head. And it would be great to see Paris in the spring or summer, when things were in bloom. When I pointed that out to Mom, she calmed down and we had a fairly peaceful night.

Mom turned in early, to better ready herself for a long plane flight and to take extreme precaution against jet lag. I was ready to be home, much as I dreaded what I might have to face when I got there. I was done packing, had my travel outfit out and ready and was about to crack into Raskolnikov’s story again when I heard a light knock at my door. I looked at the shut door for a minute, considering. I knew it was Saxon, but I wondered what he wanted.

There was no way I could just wonder for long.

“Come in!” I called.

He stepped into my room and looked around. I know they’re just dorms, but mine definitely had something his lacked. First of all, mine didn’t stink of smoke. It was neat and bright, the windows opened, the bed nicely made, my possessions contained. He dropped on the mattress next to me.

“You don’t hate me, Blix, do you? I mean, after all of this drama, we’re still cool, right?” His voice was low and uncaring, but I knew that he was covering.

I took his hand in mine. “I don’t hate you, Saxon. I thought I could, once, but it didn’t really work. No matter how much of an asshole you are, there’s something likable about you.”

He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “I thought I could do it,” he said quietly.

“What?” I turned my face up and looked into his.

He swallowed and I watched the tendons in his throat constrict. “I thought I could make you fall in love with me. I thought with you in Paris with me, and Jake so far away, it would all just fall into place. Man, I was wrong, huh?”

“I did kind of fall for you, Saxon,” I said, my eyes and our hands locked together. “You wouldn’t want me as a girlfriend anyway.”

He smiled. “If I had any chance of ever having a girlfriend, it would have been you, Brenna.”

“So you’re doomed to be permanently alone?” I felt the pressure of his hand as he squeezed mine.

“Maybe. Lose the long face. I’m going to have so much incredible casual sex, it will be unbelievable.” He kissed my cheek, then pulled back and took a deep breath. “But that’s not what I’m here for.”

“What do you want then?” Fear mingled with anticipation when I imagined what he might ask for and how I would possibly be able to say no to him.

“I want to help you,” he said, then fell back on the bed, his arms splayed out, his tattoos slightly visible from the place where his shirt sleeves curled up.

I turned and looked at his long, prone figure. “I don’t need any help from you.”

“Yes, you do.” He shut his eyes. “I drove you to this whole thing. I know you never wanted it.”

That irritated me. It was pretty much the reaction Jake had when I told him about me and Saxon. Why was it so inconceivable that I could make a decision to change something in my own life? Why did every decision I made get taken from me as if I were some infant who could only react to what others did?

I was the one, on the roof, who had pulled Saxon in and demanded we do something! I was the one who had initiated the whole thing! Part of me wanted to chicken out and hide behind Saxon again, but I was getting tired of living according to other peoples’ rules and expectations, no matter how good their intentions for me were. And no matter how huge and messy my own mistakes were.

“I did what Iwanted.”

“Yeah, I know, you’re your own person, blah, blah, blah.”

“So what big help are you offering me?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“I’m going to get you back with Jake.” He clapped his hands together like a genie granting a wish.

I felt my heart leap a little. “Jake?” I said. Just his name felt so good. “Saxon, what Jake and I had is gone. No more. Even if he agreed to date me again, it wouldn’t wind up working out.” Plus that, I didn’t like the idea of Saxon involved with any plan that also had to do with Jake.

“That’s because he doesn’t know the whole story.” Saxon looked up at me from under long, long eyelashes.

“What are you talking about?” I narrowed my eyes at what I felt in my bones was going to be a colossally bad idea.

“I’m going to make a story that works.” He shrugged like it was the easiest, most obvious idea in the world.

“What do you mean ‘works’?” Real dread poured over me.

“The truth is so fucking lame it’s not even worth telling. I’m going to figure something out that will make Jake blame me.”

“How many times do you think that will actually work, Saxon? Jake’s not an idiot.”

“When it comes to you, that’s exactly what he is.” He put a hand on my knee and ran it up to my inner thigh. I smacked at him and he did it again. “You’re so easy to piss off.”

“Only when I’m around you,” I snapped. “I told you we’d bring out the worst in each other.”

“Speak for yourself.” He drummed his fingers on my knee. “This is the best behaved I’ve been in a long time.”

“Are you kidding me?” I snorted. “You’ve been a complete jerkoff.”

He frowned. “Blix, there were several times I was pretty much a gentleman.”

“Really? Like when?”

“Like when you were in my room the other night, and I could have gotten you all hot and wet, but I didn’t,” he said, and he was only half joking. “I could have pressed the issue, and I bet you and I would have had a lot more fun than we wound up having.”

“Nothing with you has been fun.” I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sadness, because that was the truth. When I had been unobtainable, he had been enticing but nerve-wracking. And once I fell into his arms, he was high maintenance and unpredictable. I just thought the whole thing had so much more promise for…I don’t really know what I expected.

Maybe it was like when people heard I had lived in Denmark for a year. They just couldn’t help but imagine this sophisticated European experience, when in reality it was just fifteen lonely months on an old chicken farm. Not that it hadn’t had its moments, but it wasn’t all baguettes and berets.

Was I getting my European metaphors mixed up?

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, like he knew I was thinking something uncharitable about him.

“I was just thinking that I thought it would be more fun. Between us.”

He smiled a little. “If it had worked out, would you have been thinking about Jake so much?”

I took a few deep breaths and tried to phrase it correctly. Then I just gave up and said what I felt, no matter how husslike it made me look. “I don’t know. I didn’t really anticipate a certain outcome. I just needed to do it, so I would know. And now I do.”