LUNCH WENT WELL, considering Preston’s previous mood. When he ordered practically everything on the menu at the café they had chosen, Nathan knew all was right in the world. The fight, forgotten. Especially after the ravenous swimmer tried to steal a bite of Nathan’s quiche, which he valiantly defended.
They had always been that way. Heated words meant nothing stacked up against years of loyalty and trust. Add to that the fact that Preston had calmed down significantly after a session in the pool. Expending excess energy always did him good.
Moods lighter from the hearty combination of carbs and excessive amounts of cheese, Nathan suggested they take a walk around the city to burn off some of the calories.
The pleasant and calming scent of baking bread seemed to waft straight from the bakeries into the air. It mixed with the delicious aroma of roasted chicken slathered in the most decadent butter. Both intermingled with the lingering acrid, musty fog of cigarette smoke. And underneath it all was the pungent odor of piss. Nathan breathed in deeply, banishing a case of nerves that knotted his insides.
This was his chance. What had he been afraid of, anyway? One fight meant nothing in the grand scheme of their lives. And that thing Natasha had said about love being acid? It was her way of looking out for him. It didn’t mean he should turn away from confessing how he felt.
He moved his gaze toward the swimmer ambling along next to him and said, “When Caleb and I started planning this trip, I came across this really interesting bit about love locks.”
Preston made a thoughtful noise as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
Taking the gesture as a sign, Nathan continued, “You see, couples etch their initials on the face of the lock. Then they attach the lock to the railing of a bridge for the entire world to see. Isn’t that romantic?”
No response. Preston kept walking, face forward.
“Anyway,” Nathan said in his most cheerful voice, “throwing the key is said to be the ultimate symbol of forever, because the lock can never be opened ever again.”
On and on he spoke, telling stories he had read on the Internet about couples who had traveled to Paris from all over the world just to attach a lock. Some of them had even used their life savings for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show their love for each other. Nathan practically swooned on the spot, he was so caught up.
After about a block, it finally dawned on him how one-sided the conversation had become. He stopped. When Preston didn’t stop along with him and actually made it a few yards without noticing anything, anger replaced the nerves in Nathan’s belly.
Preston finally turned around with a look of utter confusion on his face, as if to ask what the hell Nathan was doing just standing there. As if it had been Nathan’s fault that they were not walking anymore.
“You’re not even listening to me.” Nathan charged him and slapped his friend’s chest with both hands. A double high five it was not.
“Hey!” Preston took a step back. Not that the impact had hurt. Nathan knew the swimmer could take more punishment than a couple of palms on his pecs. “What’s with the violence?”
“See!” Nathan poked him. “That’s the problem with you.”
“Whoa!” Preston raised both his hands. “Where the hell is this coming from?”
“I’m so tempted to tell you to figure it out, but I know you have to be in the pool to do that.”
What once was calm confusion turned into mild annoyance in those sharp green eyes. “What the hell are you talking about? I thought we were walking?”
“Duh! We were walking.”
“So why’d we stop?”
“Because you’re not listening to me.” All the hurt from their earlier fight came rushing back. “That’s the problem with you. If it doesn’t have anything to do with swimming, you tune it out as if it’s not important.”
The snort that followed brought Nathan’s rising anger up a couple of notches. Wary glances were tossed their way from people passing by, tourists and locals alike. He didn’t care. Let them look.
“That’s why I wanted to take your phone,” he spat out.
Preston rolled his eyes. “Are we back to that? I thought I made it clear that I need my phone as much as you need yours.”
“Yeah, and you called me—”
“Look”—Preston scratched the back of his head—“I don’t want to fight about this anymore. I’m sorry for calling you a hypocrite. I’m sorry for zoning out. I was just thinking about needing to hit the gym when we get back to the hotel.”
“Is that what this whole trip is going to be about?” Nathan’s stomach fell, deflating some of his previous excitement. “All you’re going to think about is the pool, the gym, and when that stupid e-mail is going to come?”
“It’s not a stupid…” Preston let out another breath. Nathan could see that his friend was trying really hard not to engage in the fight, which knocked some of the wind out of his sails. “Just tell me what you were talking about and I promise I’ll catch up.”
That did it. No use fighting anymore. Preston made the face that never failed to soften Nathan’s heart. The same lost look he had while hiding at their Fort of Solitude during his thirteenth birthday party.
Nathan’s shoulders drooped as he said, “I was talking about love locks and how romantic it is that people go out of their way to express their love for someone special.”
“That’s complete bullshit,” came Preston’s immediate response. “Imagine what people could do with the time they spend on that kind of crap.”
“Crap?” This time Nathan’s stomach fell for a whole different reason. He had to force himself to speak around the hard lump that had formed inside his throat. “You think a romantic expression of love is crap?” His heart joined his stomach in the bottomless pit. “I seriously can’t believe this. Caleb I would understand, because he once avoided love like the plague. But from you? I thought you were better than that.”
“It’s just locks. The tradition didn’t even start in Paris.”
“Just locks?” Nathan’s head whipped up to pin Preston with a withering stare. “Just locks! They aren’t just locks! They mean something to all the lovers who placed their initials on them and threw away the keys so their love would remain true forever.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so upset. If you want, we can fly to Serbia and visit the Ljubavi Bridge, where this thing really started.”
“I don’t appreciate you patronizing me, Preston Ulysses Grant.”
Preston shoved his fingers into his hair. “I’m not patronizing you. I just don’t understand why you’re upset over something so trivial.”
The hurt caused by Preston’s callousness poisoned all the hopes Nathan had for a confession. Was this really what his friend thought about love? That it was trivial? Nathan knew that Preston didn’t go on a lot of dates, but he never seemed the type to be so cavalier. It scared Nathan to think of what his friend’s reaction would have been if he had succeeded in telling Preston how he felt.
“I can’t do this,” he whispered, taking a step back.
“What—”
A head shake cut Preston off. Nathan took another step back. The space he created between them felt like a great chasm. He couldn’t help but wonder if that divide had always been there and he had been too blind to see it.
“Nate?”
Nathan raised a hand to stop Preston from moving forward. “I just want to walk around. Shake off this funk. I’ll be fine.”
“All right, let’s go.” Preston inclined his head toward the opposite bank. “Want to walk around the Louvre? I know you like looking at the Mona Lisa and telling me how fake her smile is. What do you say? Ready to criticize her until a tourist cries?”
Nathan’s refusal came so fast that Preston was momentarily shocked by it.
“But you like art. You always drag me to the DoCo Museum every time they have a new exhibit on display.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” he said, not sounding like himself anymore.
“Okay. Uh … so what do you want to do now? Go back to our hotel? Or we can get that perfume your mom—”
“I just want to be alone right now.”
“Nate, come on.” Preston closed the gap between them but kept his hands to himself.
“Don’t…” Nathan hugged himself and began taking several more steps back. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel, okay? You can go to the gym. You’re probably itching for a run on the treadmill. I shouldn’t have suggested sightseeing after lunch.”
“Nathan.”
“Just leave me alone for a bit, Pres. I promise I’ll be fine.”
Still skeptical, Preston said, “All right.”
Without a word of good-bye, he turned around and headed back the way they had come. Nathan’s heart broke while staring at the back of the guy who he’d thought he knew from the inside out.
Goes to show. No one really knew everything about anyone. Years of friendship didn’t guarantee that.
Swiping at a stray tear, Nathan kept walking in the direction they’d been headed. For the first time, he admitted to himself that maybe this trip hadn’t been such a great idea. He passed bridge after bridge that connected the right bank with the left. There were thirty-nine in total, if he remembered the article he had read correctly.
When he reached the Pont des Arts, he stopped. A sign with a picture of a lock encircled and crossed out was planted at the entrance to the bridge.
“Where are the locks?” he asked no one in particular, voice small.
A couple dressed all in black who had been passing by paused in front of him, obscuring his view.
Having heard his question, the woman said in French, “The locks have been removed because they were making the bridge railing collapse.” She glanced at the man in a long trench coat beside her.
He shrugged and said, “If you ask me, good riddance. Those locks were an eyesore. They finished replacing the old railing with some kind of material where nothing can be attached. They are doing the same thing with all the other bridges.”
The couple spoke so fast that Nathan almost wasn’t able to catch everything they were saying. Their cadence threw out words like bullets from a machine gun.
“Since when?” he finally found the courage to ask in French.
The woman exchanged a few words with the man, then said, “I believe they completed this yesterday.”
“So if I’d only arrived days earlier…,” he said, his gaze dropping to the ground, spotting a glob of used gum on the cobblestones.
“Actually, no,” the man said. “They have banned the attachment of locks for over a month now.”
Unable to help himself, Nathan started laughing, then covered his face with both hands.
Great, just great.