He glances at me. “I might have kicked it.”
“On purpose?”
“Yeah.”
“Were you angry?”
“No.” His face scrunches up. “It was a stupid reason.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t hold out on me now.”
Josh groans with good nature. “Fine. I kicked the lock last winter to break it so that my ex-girlfriend – girlfriend at the time – could come and go as she pleased. And before you ask, yes, I did try to get a duplicate key made first.”
I can’t help but laugh. “That’s…kind of ingenious. Kurt and I just trade ours around. Sometimes I forget to get mine back, and I get locked out of my own room. Well. I used to. Oddly enough, it hasn’t happened this year.”
He snorts as he holds open the main door for me.
“Using your hands this time,” I say. “A novel approach.”
As if on cue, he flinches and looks at his right hand. But it’s a moment of genuine pain. My smile disappears. “Are you okay?”
“It’s nothing.” But my expression must be so bullshit that he laughs. “Really, I’m fine. I’ve been drawing more than usual—”
“Because of the holidays?”
“Exactly.” He grins. “It’s just a little tendinitis.”
“Tendinitis? Don’t you have to be old to get that?”
Josh glances over his shoulder. “Can you keep a secret?” He lowers his voice. “You have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?”
“Okay…”
“I’m eighty-seven years old. I have terrible hands but amazing skin.”
I burst into laughter. “Scientists should study you.”
“Why do you think I’m in France? Because it’s the home of the world’s best dermatological universities, that’s why.”
His straight face only makes me laugh harder. He glances at me, pleased, and then smiles to himself. We cross the narrow street. Somehow, our strides are in sync despite our difference in height. His entire body is lean and lovely. I want to lace his long, gorgeous fingers through mine. I want to bury my nose against his long, gorgeous neck.
Josh is overly focused on the cobblestones.
Something is happening between us. Is it friendship? It doesn’t feel like friendship, but it’s possible that I’m projecting my own desires. And I’m ashamed for even thinking about him like this after what happened last week. Because I’m not thinking. I’m hoping. People aren’t supposed to be able to change, but…I’ve never bought that. Maybe Josh could learn to like Kurt. Maybe I misinterpreted his actions. There could have been any number of reasons for him to want to escape from Kurt so quickly. Maybe.
“So tell me what you’re working on,” I say.
“Oh, man.” Josh rubs his neck. This seems to be his most frequently used gesture of unease. “It’s always sort of embarrassing to tell someone new.”
“What is it? I promise I won’t laugh.”
“You say that now.” He grimaces and keeps his eyes on the jumble of bicycles and scooters parked alongside the road. “I’m making a graphic novel about my life here at school. A graphic memoir, I guess. There’s not a phrase for it that makes it sound any less egotistical. Unfortunately.”
So it’s true. “How big is it?”
“Um, about three hundred pages. So far.”
My jaw actually drops.