French Wanker - Victoria Pinder Page 0,10
like her. I licked my lips and remembered her kiss from the train and how she woke the beast inside me that wanted to claim her.
Fresh air would help. “Would you care to stop in Lyon to see something?”
She took out her phone. “Let me research. What are you thinking?”
I didn’t visit Lyon often, but I did remember a pretty place I visited on a school tour. “Parc de la Tête d’Or is beautiful. The rose garden still has blooms, despite the season, and the zoo is nice.”
She made a non-committal hum as she read her phone. “That sounds nice, but can we see Institut Lumière?”
I think we went there, too. I remembered the gardens and movie reels as I asked, “Do you like movies?”
She lit up like a Christmas tree. “I love to lose myself in movies. Live someone else’s life for a few hours.”
American movies weren’t what I’d consider reality. “Super hero movies leave me pumped with adrenaline.”
She opened her window and took a breath of fresh air. “Those are good, but I’m a sucker for the rom-coms.”
“What’s your favorite?”
Her face went red. “Today, it would probably be When Harry met Sally.”
I followed the signs for the Institut and remembered the movie. Guy with annoying voice gets in car with pretty blonde, insults her for years, they become friends, and end up together on a holiday. “Why today?”
She sucked in her bottom lip and lowered her lashes for a moment. “They met on a road trip, shared a car, same as us.”
Perhaps a peripheral comparison wasn’t that bad. I batted my eyes in mock, though, and asked, “Do they live happily ever after, Kara?”
I followed the last road to bring her to the birthplace of movies.
She crossed her legs, and I realized she had actual muscle mass. Her shape was curvier but stronger than any other woman I’d been with. “They always do in a rom-com. I like that about them. It’s safe, not like real life at all.”
My grip on the steering wheel lessened. “What’s wrong with real life?”
She lowered her head like she needed to pray or something. Maybe I was corrupting a religious girl. I wasn’t sure, but then she said, “My mother died right after my father, and I thought for a long time that love weakened women, but rom-coms preach that love heals. It gave me the courage to get out there and date.”
So, maybe movies healed, too. I hadn’t needed respite from my life until recently. I drove into the parking lot as I said, “And get engaged.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, but that was clearly a mistake.”
I unlocked the door and rushed around to open hers. She’d half opened hers when I reached for her hand. “Your mistakes are harmless enough,” I said. “You survived.”
“I did. Is this the place where movies were invented?”
“I’ve never visited,” I said. I’d stuck with my friends and played frisbee in the garden until the tour had ended. This time I had a beautiful woman beside me. “Let’s go in.”
I quickly paid for two tickets and handed them to the attendant.
Kara sighed almost joyfully. “I always think of Hollywood as the birthplace of movies, if I’m being honest.”
I laughed. That didn’t shock me in the slightest. “Americans love movies, but Louis Lumière created moving pictures—the first movie with a beginning, middle, and end, comedies, drama, documentaries, and of course, the La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon which was the first movie people paid to see.”
She glanced on the wall and pointed to a sign near the front with the movie on replay as she said, “Oh, the one with people leaving a factory.”
We headed toward the display, and I quickly read the article and summarized. “There are three versions of that. One with no horse, one horse, and two horses.”
She tilted her head to watch the black-and-white feature until we noticed the wagon in all three small reels. “How funny.”
I read the wall that explained and then summarized again, “It says Louis wanted to experiment with changing the seasons on film, and his invention led to the modern movies we see in the theaters.”
She curtsied at the picture like she was meeting the Queen of England. “Well, I thank him then.”
No one else would mock curtsy like that, and I saw Kara was one of a kind as we strolled into the next room and I said, “So do I.”
She bumped her shoulder into mine. “You do?”
I tugged her closer, and a spark rushed