Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,35

“You are a storyteller,” he says.

“Thank you, my lord. I am simply trained in the ways of the serai, like all the other girls. The sun is setting. Shall I take you to the second courtyard? The courtyard of hollowed trees and jinn?”

He rises and offers me his hand; I take it.

“In my travels, I have heard many stories of jinn, but yours are told with, dare I say, affection and awe. Do you not fear them?”

I shake my head. “I have much more to fear from men than jinn, my lord.”

Khayyam

I’ve gotten a bunch of likes on my Instagram photo of Alexandre and me from yesterday afternoon.

But if Zaid saw my feed and if it made him even a tiny bit jealous, he’s certainly not admitting it to me, because his silent treatment continues. At some point I’m going to have to deal with the possibility that maybe he doesn’t care. But right now, I have other plans.

I’m standing in front of the peeling red wooden door to Alexandre’s apartment. I buzzed myself in again but texted from the street. The door is cracked open. I put my hand on the knob and hesitate. I know it’s normal to give friends the key code to your building in Paris, but it still feels, I don’t know, too new? Too full of possibilities? Too weird knowing we’ll be alone again?

I’ve been alone with Zaid a million times—but being alone with him, even after our first kiss, never felt awkward or new the way this does with Alexandre. My romantic relationship with Zaid felt like a continuation. With Alexandre, it feels like a beginning.

I raise the large brass ring knocker and tap it against the door. It might be open, but I still have some tameez.

“Entrez.” Alexandre’s velvet voice floats out the door that creaks as I push it farther open and step in, shutting it behind me. “I’m in the study,” he calls.

I walk by the Delacroix sketch in the entry foyer, pass the large front room where we sat last time I was here, and enter the central hall of the apartment. It’s dark and not helped by the overcast day. The air outside is humid and charged, like thunderstorms are approaching. It’s a little charged in here, too. I pass two closed doors and then come to a third on the right that opens into an expansive room.

The study (do they call it the library?) faces the street like the front room, but instead of wispy white curtains, heavy dark blue drapes are pulled back from the tall windows to let in what little light there is. The other three walls are all bookshelves, floor to ceiling. There are so many books, some of the smaller ones are stacked horizontally on top of the larger ones.

Looking around, I feel like I’ve stepped through a portal into the past. I know Dumas never lived in this apartment, but it’s easy to picture him smoking on the beat-up leather sofa that looks two centuries old or shuffling through piles of paper on the worn wooden coffee table that’s piled high with books. Alexandre sits cross-legged on the nearly threadbare scarlet dhurrie rug. He’s deep into a book, and I have to clear my throat to get his attention. He pops up to kiss me hello—on the cheeks.

A distinct old library smell wafts over me. “Are all these books, like, two hundred years old?” I ask.

Alexandre gently shakes his head, and his smile is a mile wide. I notice this uncharacteristically large smile gives him the slightest dimple in the lower half of his right cheek. He’s wearing a T-shirt that has a picture of John Lennon wearing a T-shirt that says New York City on it. He might be the hottest dork ever.

“That shirt is really meta,” I say.

“I got it on the street in SoHo when I was in New York last year.”

“The famous cheese-in-a-can discovery trip?” I ask.

Alexandre nods. “I want to live there one day.” He absolutely beams when he says this.

“I’ve been a couple times with my parents. It’s a great city, even though the pizza