Page 90 of A Summer of Stars

“Okay, okay, I get it. I thought we could celebrate,” he explained, his fingers still around mine.

“Your movie?”

“No. God, no, not that.” Horror washed over his face. “You’re the French Open champion.”

“You’re serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? I thought we could walk around. Enjoy Cannes before we have to leave in a few days. Get ice cream, maybe. Unless you’d prefer your freezer-burned pint.”

I was… dumbfounded. He was serious. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d celebrated a win, let alone it being someone else’s idea.

“Well, if you had started with ice cream…”

A smile parted his lips. “You’re a pain in the ass. You know that?” He shook his head. “You’re down to two scoops now.”

The cobblestone path outside the quaint hotel followed a narrow walkway downward. It filled the gap between the pale yellow homes, which looked a mustard yellow under the starry sky. Each home had terraces floating above us, filled with planters of red roses and clothing lines draped across the street. It was difficult not to absorb every detail, from the color of the shutters to the Vespas zipping by and the conversations echoing outside the windows. A living, breathing postcard.

Slowly, the homes faded into restaurants and shops. Candlelight and clanking silverware came from open doors of late-night cafés. Kieran navigated the area as crowds of bar-hoppers spilled out into the street and cluttered the sidewalks. He reached for my hand to guide me through.

I tried to let the gesture pass while watching him order us ice cream at a small window in a brick wall. But the skin of my palmwas hollowed out. Tired from paddling through warm water, yet still craving the ocean.

Burying the feeling and steering my gaze away from his hand, I accepted the cone of caramel ice cream. The dim light from the lampposts continued to shift their focus across his face, caressing the waves of his hair and the curve of his cheekbones.

“I’ve never seen anyone so excited about ice cream. Maybe my brother, but he’s lactose intolerant, so that whole situation is tragic from the start.” He laughed.

“I can only imagine what it was like sharing a bathroom together,” I said, cringing, thinking of the bathroom Walt and I shared growing up. It made me physically recoil.

“Don’t even get me started.” He wiped mint ice cream from his lip. “My sister, Mila, used to wake up an hour before him to get in the bathroom. One time, she had woken up late, and instead of waiting, she walked next door to use the neighbor’s toilet.”

“That’sgenius.”

“She walked over in footie pajamas with bunny ears attached to her feet. Because that’s what she wore to bed at seventeen.”

Laughter bubbled under my tongue. “Your family sounds like a lot of fun. I’d love to meet them sometime.”

“I think they’d love that.”

“I just realized that I don’t even know where you’re from,” I pointed out, turning to him. Our walk was cut short by a river running through an aisle of stone homes, similar to Venice, forcing our path to the left, following the stone-sandwiched stream.

“Spain,” he responded, no emotion on his face. Or at least no emotion I could pinpoint.

Each time I learned something new about him, it took me by surprise. “What part of—boats!Finally!” I cheered, throwing myarms up. My ice cream scoop flew off my cone. The salted caramel melted into the cobblestones.

“You’ve got to be the clumsiest tennis player on this planet,” he noted. He took the cone from my hand and pressed it against the ice cream on his, scooping a dollop off. “I think we can share ice cream, seeing as we’ve kissed already.”

My face warmed. I accepted the cone. “We need to get on one of those boats.”

I jogged down the stone steps where the sidewalk kissed the top of the water.

“I don’t see anyone who will be driving this boat!” he pointed out from behind me.

I turned. “I didn’t say we needed someone to drive the boat. I said that we needed toget onthe boat.”

“Who is going to drive—Oh, no, no.” He was laughing, but he also sounded horrified. This was going to be great.

“You don’t think I’m capable?” I approached the man who guarded the several small speedboats bobbing in the water, handing him cash, and accepting the key.

“I think you’re capable of lots of things, including drowning us.”