One p.m.

Mira took the lead in navigating the route through the winding streets of Paris. For Jake, that was a welcome relief, as it spared him from looking at his phone screen and having to see another text from Colette. Yes, Colette, not a text from the imaginary trader he'd
described to Mira. His on-the-spot lie was a hell of a lot easier than explaining what was really going on.

Just a casual request for a dick pic, he thought. Isn't that great, Mira?

While Jake had experience in taking specific photos at flattering angles, the timing had been horrible. He just couldn't see himself jumping into the bathroom for an X-rated photo shoot, not when Mira had been so generous with her storage space, her shower, and now, her time.

Or maybe she would be cool with it. He began to imagine bro-ing out with Mira over his hookup, but some muddy details from last night's dinner started filtering in. Like how Mira had been disgusted by the moves he was putting on the waitress. Or maybe she'd been disgusted this morning, when he'd stumbled into the hotel lobby and told her about his one-night stand. He struggled to determine which scenario was true.

Maybe he was still a little drunk.

For now, his goal was to avoid spoiling Mira's afternoon, which included steering clear of awkward dick pic conversation.

With that in mind, Jake decided on ignoring Colette, with the plan to apologize later.

Mira sprinted a few yards ahead. "Ready for a little exercise?"

His long strides slowed to a stop, as he fully absorbed the looming set of stairs that stood between them and the next street up.

Jake was glad they'd traded in the sidewalk garbage and cell phone repair shops for quiet streets, corner cafés, and cobblestone—which people always seemed to be obsessed with when dreamily referring to Paris. What he wasn't glad about? The hellish staircase that seemed to go on forever.

"Well?" she urged, jogging up the first few steps and staring down at him. "Come on!"

Jake watched as she continued her ascent, making no move of his own. He hadn't slept at all the night before, and now that

he'd seen those stairs, he was even more certain that the alcohol he'd consumed the night before was still swishing around in his bloodstream. "Isn't there a shortcut that's flatter?"

She stopped and looked back at him. "We're in the real Montmartre now, Jake. Embrace the hilly charm."

"But I'm tired," he whined. "And it's hot." It really was.

She pulled the hotel key out of her pocket. "You could always go back to the room and take a nap."

"On that bed? No, thank you."

"Then hop to it!"

Mira took her own advice and started hopping up the stairs two at a time. Jake tried to guess what sort of drugs she was on, or if her normal state was hyperactive. Based on the handful of times he'd seen her in the elevator, or bored and antisocial during company events (not to mention last night's dinner), he was leaning toward narcotics.

By the time he'd struggled to the halfway point of the staircase, he noticed that Mira had already finished the climb.

"Let's go," she said, clapping her hands in encouragement. "Don't tell me you've been skipping out on leg day at the gym."

"I always do leg day!" he gasped, finally reaching the summit.

She tried not to laugh. "I can see that."

"Tell me," he said, huffing and puffing, "what kind of supergenes are you made of?"

She casually stretched her legs. "My genes are standard issue, but I hired a personal trainer a little while ago, to make sure I'd fit into my . . ." She trailed off and looked away.

"Fit into your what?"

"My jeans," she said quickly. "I bought a bunch of jeans last year, back when they were uhh . . . buy one, get two free."

"Wait a minute," he said, bent over and clutching his knees. "There's a place that was selling jeans for buy one, get two free? Isn't that illegal for women's fashion? Don't the markups make the clothes seem cool?" He had a sudden flashback to a second date in Soho, when a girl he'd met on Bumble had dragged him around shopping for a whole afternoon. He distinctly recalled her picking out a plain gray T-shirt that was somehow priced at seventy freaking dollars. The thought of that T-shirt and the stilted conversation made him shudder.

"I didn't buy the jeans at a typical women's clothing store," she explained, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

He finally caught his breath. "No? Out of the back of a van then?"

"A flea market."

Jake had a sneaking suspicion she was lying, but he didn't know why, and he didn't want to press it. "You've got to hand it to flea markets; they always have the best sales."

"Mmhmm; I love a good flea market deal."

Despite having given Mira an out, a part of him harbored a sick curiosity for seeing where her lies would go. And that was the part that won. "What happened then? You bought the jeans in a size too small, and then you needed a personal trainer so it wouldn't be a wasted purchase?"

"No." She frowned and muttered something under her breath. "What happened was . . . I got hooked on the cronuts they sell at that bakery on Spring Street, and the next thing I knew, I had like this"—she gestured to her hips—"dump-truck ass." She shook her head at the thought of this alleged memory. "I mean, I could've pulled it off, but for the jeans . . . it was a lot."

He stifled a laugh. "Right, kudos on the dramatic transformation."

Jake thought back to those times he'd encountered Mira, and he didn't recall her ever having a dump-truck ass. He certainly would've remembered a physical trait like that, which made it clear she was lying but he didn't know why, and he wasn't sure why he was curious.

Jake didn't have the energy to solve the dump-truck puzzle, so he settled for changing the subject. "Now where's this place we just have to try?"

She instantly relaxed. "It's just around the corner; c'mon."

*

Mira and Jake sat across from each other at a worn wooden table in a tiny restaurant, with paintings of waterfront sceneries lining the walls, and sunlight pouring in through the windows. There were only two other people in the dining room, which gave the place a familial and homey quality. He didn't mind it.

"This is probably the only place in Paris that has house-made cider," Mira said. "Which is cool, you know? Because it's not what you'd typically expect."

"And they also have the famous crêpes you were talking about, right?" He rubbed his stomach. "I could definitely use some of those."

"What's even cooler," she went on, "is that the best crêpes in Paris are somehow here, at the top of Paris, when the famous street of crêpe restaurants is literally at the bottom of the city."

"Famous street of crêpe restaurants? Is that a thing?"

"You better believe it's a thing."

"How did that even come about? A bunch of people just said 'yup, this is where we're making crêpes?'"

She did a double take. "That's exactly what happened. How did you know? Have you read the blog about the origin of crêpes?"

"Can't say I have," he confessed, getting a sense of how Mira spent her time.

"It's kind of amazing how it all unfolded." She leaned in like she was about to share some intriguing culinary secret. Even though it was apparently detailed on a public blog. "The 14th arrondissement is where you'll find the famous street of crêpes, but why that particular location, you ask?"

"Yes, Mira, why?" he said, finding himself eager to play along.

"Because the 14th is also where you'll find the Montparnasse train station, which is also where you'll find the trains coming in from Brittany, which is also where this famous style of crêpe was invented." She took a sip of water and shifted her attention to the view outside the restaurant window.

"Don't stop now," he said. "I want to hear more."

"Oh, the rest of it was obvious. Like in conclusion: it was destiny." She finished with a simple shrug.

Jake took a moment to marvel at this strange conversation.

He leaned back. "I have to say, you are so . . ."

As much as Jake was used to being the life of the party in every room, he didn't quite know how to finish that sentence. And he certainly didn't have a frame of reference for these kinds of conversations.

"I'm so what?"

He ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm not even sure there's a word for it."

"That's fine," she said casually. "I don't feel the need to be described by preexisting words in a dictionary. It's kind of basic."

"That's not a bad way of looking at it." It was getting even harder for Jake to put Mira in a category. Maybe that was a good thing.

"Ooh . . ." she said, her focus suddenly shifting.

Her eyes lit up at the sight of the server carrying a tray with two glasses of cider.

She looked from the glasses to Jake. "Are you sure you're not too hungover for this?"

"Are you kidding? It's just what I need." Maybe it wasn't, but if he was still a little drunk, it was better to keep on drinking.

They raised their glasses in the air.

"Cheers to a really messed-up day," she declared.

"There's nowhere to go but up."

They clinked their glasses before each taking a glug. And he had to admit, it was pretty good.

Jake realized this was his first official time drinking cider that was made on location in a restaurant in Paris. To his surprise, he really liked the idea of having done that. And he really liked how comfortable he felt around Mira. What he couldn't figure out was why they weren't already friends.

He set down his glass and studied her. "What's your deal, then?" She looked at him strangely. "I mean, we've worked at the same place for what, two years now?"

"I've been there for three, but I guess we've shared an office for that time."

"Then how come I'd never even spoken to you until today?"

"Technically it was last night," she said. "When I was repeatedly annoyed with you."

Maybe his memory of the night before had been right after all. "You were very sarcastic, but that's not what I mean. What about before? How come you've never been to the company parties?"

"You mean the parties hosted by the sales team? Like the one in March where an ambulance was called?" She shook her head disapprovingly.

"That was a total false alarm!"

The raw and unfiltered story was that Jake's coworker Pete had ended up getting his stomach pumped, but it wasn't exactly a detail he felt he needed to share. Still, as he thought about the shit show that had led to calling 911, he was starting to see it from her point of view.

Mira rotated her glass of cider on the table's surface, clearly done with the party talk.

"Last August," he blurted out, as the memory took shape. "The company barbecue at that hotel rooftop in Brooklyn. You were there that time."

"Oh, was I?"

"I distinctly remember chatting in a circle with Frank, a couple of sales guys, that dipshit from finance, and you." He frowned. "You ignored me the whole time."

She scoffed. "I don't remember that at all."

Maybe she didn't remember it, but he was certain that was what had happened. Everyone had laughed at whatever he had said that afternoon. Everyone but her. He'd even tried to include her in the conversation, but she'd only looked away, her long strands of dark hair getting caught in her face whenever the wind kicked up.

As he watched Mira now, he could see that she was avoiding his stare yet again. He wanted her to admit it, but he wanted to get back to the pleasant conversation even more. "What do you do for fun? And who do you do it with?"

She stared at him like he'd asked her something incredibly awkward. Had he? Maybe it had sounded like he was asking her if she was single. "I may have worded that wrong."

He wasn't even sure why he'd asked her a question like that. He didn't care if she was single. Especially not when he was hours away from a second hookup with a French hottie.

"What do I like?" she finally said, throwing him a bone. "I guess I like reading, and—"

Before things could really get back to normal, the server arrived with two big plates of savory heaven.

She gasped. "Oh . . . my . . . God."

Jake silently stared at his plate, not wanting to interrupt her special moment. Finally, he spoke: "Looks pretty solid."

"You know what I love most about the savory buckwheat Crêpe bretonne?" she said, eyes never leaving her plate.

"The runny egg?" He shook his head. "No, the cheese."

"The shape!" She outlined the shape of a square around her food. "Look how it's folded up on every side; it reminds me of an envelope, but instead of having a phone bill or a threatening notice from the IRS inside, it's a gooey love letter to your stomach." She folded her hands against her chest, clearly infatuated.

"I take it you're a foodie."

"Ever since age three, when I tried my first vegetable pakora."

"Those are so good," he said, feeling glad they had something in common.

"Right? And living in the city only made my love of food a full-blown obsession. I now think about food during most of my awake hours."

"You and me both. I mean, when I was a kid . . ." He trailed off before sharing the memory.

Those shows. Every day after school.

He could barely grasp that he'd almost shared a heartfelt, intensely personal childhood memory with someone he barely knew. Which could only mean he was absolutely a little drunk.

"You were saying?" she asked with an expectant look.

"Let's put that on pause and eat this before it gets cold."

She shrugged. "Don't have to ask me twice."

Their conversation dissolved into the comfortable silence of chowing down. Jake tried to remember the last time he'd eaten something this delicious. He almost wished he'd taken a picture of it before he'd started eating, so he could post it on Instagram and describe how amazing it was. But then he remembered that he never posted food on Instagram. What the hell was going on with him today?

In between bites, he snuck in glances at Mira.

In less than two hours, she'd made him obsessed with crêpes, and had almost gotten him to talk about his childhood. It was weird.

"Why are you looking at me?" she mumbled as she covered her mouth with a napkin. "Do I have food on my face? Or in my hair?"

He set down his knife and fork. "In your hair?"

She finished chewing and moved the napkin away from her face. "I don't always get food in my hair, but sometimes when I'm all up in it, foodwise, it winds up getting here, there, and everywhere." She gestured to various body parts to complete the imagery. "I mean, who among us hasn't found a pile of Dorito crumbs in their cleavage on a Friday night in?"

He smirked. "So that's what you were doing instead of coming to our parties."

"Not always," she said defensively. "Like for most of the last two years I've been really, really busy. I'm talking social calendar jam-packed full."

"And now, not so much?"

She avoided his gaze—a move that was becoming standard
practice—but before he could change the topic to something lighter, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was another text from Colette, only this time she was telling him her second appointment had been canceled. In other words, he could come on over whenever he was free. She added an eggplant emoji, which made the implication crystal clear.

It was settled then. He and Mira would finish their meal, walk back to the hotel to get his stuff, and then he'd call a car to drive him to Colette's. It really couldn't be simpler.

"Everything all right?" Mira asked. "Was that Colette messaging you? Did she say you can meet her now instead of later?"

He stared at her in a stunned silence, wondering if she'd somehow read the texts in the reflection of his eyeballs. Or maybe it was a woman thing, the way they could creepily read minds sometimes, or know what you were thinking before you even realized you were thinking it. She waved her hand in front of his face. "Hello? Earth to Jake?"

All he had to do was tell her she was right. Then pay for the meal, go back to the hotel, call a car, and wish Mira well.

"It wasn't her," he said casually. "Let's order some more cider."