1 Week Until the Family Visit...

A buzz of anticipation filled the night air on a cobblestoned side street called Rue Saint Saveur. This tiny street dotted with cocktail and wine bars was just steps away from Rue Montorgueil, the bustling pedestrian street which during the day would tempt tourists and locals alike with fresh baked deliciousness, terrace dining, gourmet goods and much more.

The tourists could have their main street action, because the locals knew to follow the candlelit glow that would beckon from around the corner. These low-key side streets would also play host to new and exciting restaurants, like a modern concept Lebanese place that was opening its doors to friends and family on this very night.

Luc and Neela waited for their go-ahead to step inside the new restaurant, along with a handful of fashionably dressed Parisians.

"Are you sure we're invited?" Neela said skeptically.

Luc chuckled, confident and handsome in a finely pressed shirt, fitted blazer and khakis. "The owner and I are friends from school, so I am certain we are supposed to be here."

"Good," she said smiling, "because I only wear these uncomfortable heels to official pre-launch events." She turned her gaze towards the cocktail bar down the street. The bar was only identifiable by a painted black door and a security guard standing out front, but once inside, the potential for memories was endless. Neela reflected back on the bartender that worked there who she'd casually made out with. He was ranked number two behind another bartender at a different a bar on the opposite side of the river who she'd also made out with, albeit in a steamier way. Was it even an expat experience in Paris without at least two bartender makeouts? She couldn't help but laugh at the thought of her checkered Parisian past. The good ol' days.

"What is so funny?" Luc asked, his gaze locked onto her amused expression.

She immediately looked away and went serious. "Oh it's nothing; I was just remembering a funny viral video I saw this morning." She looked back at him. "You know the one with the giant baby that looks like it's fully an adult?"

He frowned. "An adult...that is a baby?"

"It's definitely a baby in the biological sense, but it's so large and also creepy-looking that people were saying it's basically a middle-aged man. And the way it was bouncing on its dad's lap? With baby powder flying everywhere?" She cringed. "Like seriously, where was all that baby powder coming from?! And how did avoid shattering its dad's pelvis with all that aggressive bouncing?" She sighed. "I'll never know."

"It?" he said with a look of confusion.

"Huh?"

"You said 'it.' But was the baby a boy or a girl?"

She shrugged. "I guess it was technically a boy or whatever, but definitely a freak of nature..."

He gave her a long stare. "All babies are innocent."

She punched him in the arm. "Come on! It's funny!"

He managed a smile, but she could tell it was only to make the awkwardness pass.

And it didn't work.

As Neela considered the ongoing (and lately more pronounced) disconnect between Luc's personality and her own, a twenty-something host ushered them into the restaurant.

Thank god.

***

If restaurants were becoming a dime a dozen, this modern take on Lebanese fare was doing more than enough to set itself apart. The small space was a cozy affair, with the seating limited to a single square bar top surrounding a flaming grill. It was there that the food was cooked fresh-to-order, with the chef's impressive plating process in plain view. The theatrics didn't exist to compensate for any failings, as the grilled vegetables, meats and side dishes were not only exceptional, but elegantly presented every time (each of them perfectly paired with a different wine).

Neela clutched her stomach as she took the last bite of her third course. "I am so full," she said. "I can't even feel my insides; am I still alive?" He tickled her and she almost puked. "Dude!"

"What?" he said innocently. "It was easier than checking your pulse to confirm that you are still alive."

She glared at him. "Anyway...now that we're done should we talk about the logistics?"

"I don't know what this means," he said casually as he took another sip of wine.

She leaned in closer, immediately grimacing at the toll it took to move her food-packed body in the slightest. "The logistics of my family visiting; it's only a week away, and you said we could figure it out before your business trip."

He sighed like it was the biggest burden in the world. "Okay, what do you want to figure out?"

"Well I'm obviously not bringing them to our place, since my parents will have double heart attacks if they know I'm shacking up with a dude."

Luc wasn't doing a very good job of masking his growing annoyance. "Yes, I know, you have mentioned as much before; but won't they want to see where you live?"

The nonchalant shrug that followed was the shrug of a person who had years of experience in lying to her parents. "I'll figure something out," she said, before pulling out her phone and opening up her calendar. "I'm thinking day four is when we make the big reveal and introduce you to them."

His eyes widened. "That long?"

"They'll need a few days to settle in first," she explained. "New country, new culture...in the meantime, make sure you don't call me in the first three days."

"Excuse me?" he said. "You can't be serious."

"Think about it; I'll be spending most of my time with them, so it'll be weird if you're calling me up when they like...don't even know you exist." She explained all of this in a tone so matter-of-fact, that it made him even more annoyed. He swallowed down a scowl. "Is everything okay?" she added, oblivious to what was really going on inside his head.

He was just about to say something probably-not-so-nice, when he noticed the dazzle from the ring on her finger. He was also a little bit drunk by now, so he shifted gears and kissed her ring-adorned hand. "Do you remember our second date? That party at the aquarium?"

She smiled. "Only the financial industry would throw a party that wild at an aquarium. And remember all the dancing?!" She shook her head. "We were so sweaty."

"We should do that more often," he murmured dreamily (and drunkily).

She ran her fingers through his hair. "Like get drunk and dance 'til six a.m.? That's what you wanna do more often?"

He drunkenly pointed a finger at a random spot on the table. "Yes; exactly that."

Now Neela was the one who inadvertently noticed her ring. "Well...I guess we'll have plenty of time to do that, won't we..."

"We will," he whispered. He pulled her face towards him and they kissed.

It was a kiss full of memories with an aftertaste of wine, and for a while at least, it made the looming stress of her family's visit fade away...

***

One NIGHT Before the Family Visit...

It was Friday night on the riverbank, a time when the 'Monnaie de Paris,' a.k.a. the Paris Coin Museum should've been closed and empty, the operating hours having come and gone long before the sunset.

In reality the place was anything but empty, as a frou-frou crowd filled the fancy museum lobby. And the occasion? A splashy fashion week soirée.

The crystal chandeliers cast a beautiful glow on the supermodels and the ageless—by way of Botox—elite who surrounded them. Bronzed skin and designer duds flashed at every turn, and somewhere between it all...there was Neela.

She wasn't rubbing elbows with anyone flashy, but for the moment that was perfectly fine, as she was very much on the workaday freelance clock.

She leaned against a wall while she furiously jotted things down in her leatherbound notebook. Her writing intensity clashed with her slicked back hair, red-painted lips, and the glass of champagne that was resting by her feet. Since she wasn't famous and wasn't elite, no one seemed to notice her nerdy soirée behaviour, which afforded her the invisibility she needed to really focus.

She stopped her furious writing to shake out a hand cramp. "Ow," she muttered. Her eyes focused in on the words she'd just written as she gave this latest section a whispered read: "It was a veritable who's who of runway stars and the ones who invite them on their yachts every summer, for that VIP spin around the glittering Amalfi Coast. As I stood in the back and watched them circulate, the question I was dying to ask all night was "Have you ever even docked that fancy yacht at Amalfi, and tried the restaurant next to the church that has the lemon pesto spaghetti that will live in your soul forever?"

Her whispered passion was building: "Or do you always go ahead and hightail it straight to Positano, leaving these decadent wonders undiscovered? Huh? Huh??"

She sighed before reading on: "It would've certainly been a question worth asking in the midst of this little soirée, but I couldn't help but wonder: if I did, would I simply be unheard and screaming into a void?"

She scratched out the line 'I couldn't help but wonder' and shook her head. "Nope," she said, "you are not a brown Carrie Bradshaw."

She scooped her champagne glass up off the floor, surveying the scene as she downed the rest of the bubbles.

Maybe it was the booze or maybe it was the magic of Paris, but the light of the furthest dazzling chandelier shone directly on a man who instantly caught her eye.

That flowy dark hair, that crisp tailored suit.

It had to be him.

Her eyes filled up with the warm nostalgia of that day on the métro platform. The laughs, the intensity, and the curiosity that lived on to this day.

Beyond all that...it was the 'je ne sais quoi' as the French would say that stuck out the most in her mind; that indescribable spark that could tell you a hundred things within a span of minutes.

Neela had always wondered if that feeling was rooted in a fable, but as she focused her eyes on the man that looked just like Antonio, she started to wonder if maybe such an abstract concept could actually be real.

Neela took a deep breath and approached him calmly.

But all of a sudden, the room went completely dark.

And a seizure-inducing musical light show began.

"What the fuck?!" she yelled into the void.

She was blinded by the strobes and as she stumbled along, she was pushed aside by models that emerged in plastic sacks for an impromptu late night fashion show.

When it mercifully ended a few minutes later, the venue erupted in a thunderous applause.

But any glimpse of the man that could've been Antonio was gone.

She circled the lobby once, twice, and a third time, but she couldn't catch a glimpse of him anywhere.

But how could that be?! she screamed internally. He was just here! Unless she was remembering his face wrong? She paced in a corner of the lobby now, questioning everything she'd ever known. How accurate was her imprint of a man she'd only spoken to for eight or nine minutes? Could she really know? Every word of their exchange was definitely tattooed in her brain, but what if the imagery was off?

A waiter approached with a tray of champagne and she gratefully accepted a glass.

She took one last look around the museum lobby, wondering if she'd seen a ghost, and questioning how real he'd even been to begin with. Maybe it was the idea of him that had captured her so much; the idea of someone so different from the man she already had.

As she finished her champagne, her phone buzzed to life with a calendar reminder that shook her back into reality:

-Eight hours until airport pick-up