I take the money out of my wallet and hand it to Julienne.
“It’s about time,” she says, taking it with a grin as she begins to count the stack of euros in her hand.
I shrug off her self-satisfied pleasure and put my wallet back in my pocket. “Well, Boss, as usual, you were right. We just became official the other day,” I tell her.
“Everyone knew it before you did,” Julienne says. She puts the money in her wallet before stowing it in her purse. “I almost feel guilty taking your money. How would you like the chance to win your money back?”
“Oh Julienne, you always find a way to bust my balls. What do you propose this time?” I’m intrigued, but I know that look in Julienne’s eyes. She’s going to make a bet that will just make me irritably aware of my feelings.
“Let’s have some fun and really up the ante. I bet you a thousand euros that you two love birds will be engaged to by the time her visa expires,” Julienne replies, holding my gaze confidently.
“Enh. You could easily do something to sway the outcome in your favor,” I counter. “Like sabotage her birth control or something.”
“C’mon, Jacques! Give me some credit. After all these years working together, you should know better than that. I would never stoop that low just to win a thousand euros from you.”
I smile. “Either that or you’d put it in her head to propose to me so that she can stay here longer,” I counter.
“You’d still be the one who has to say yes, and deep down, you know as well as I do that you would jump at the chance,” Julienne insists. “You’re more than halfway there already and it’s only been two months.”
“We only just now made it official,” I say. “I’m not ready to be engaged to anyone just yet.”
“You say that now,” Julienne says. “But in another six months, I promise, you’ll change your tune.”
“Six months isn’t going to change that,” I insist.
Julienne raises an eyebrow. “Fine, tough guy. If you’re so confident, then be a man and let’s make a wager,” she says.
I hold her gaze for a few long moments, deliberating this. I have to assume I know myself better than Julienne does, and that I know Nora well enough to know she probably won’t want to get engaged just yet—not even in the next eight months, which is when her visa will have to be renewed. But I had been just as certain that nothing would happen between Nora and I in the first place. Come on, Jacques. You know better. You haven’t been engaged to anyone in your life. Hell, you’ve never even come close.
“You have a deal, but I want to wager something other than money, and more importantly I’ll be damned if I cheapen what I have with Nora,” I suggest. “A thousand euros is a hell of a lot for both of us anyway.”
“Only for the loser,” Julienne counters.
“Look, I don’t want to take a thousand from you,” I say flatly. “So, let’s wager something else.”
“What do you have in mind?” Julienne crosses her arms over her chest.
“A tattoo,” I suggest. “Still high stakes, but no actual money.”
Julienne considers this for a moment.
“How about one of Nora’s designs,” she suggests. “That would be apt, wouldn’t it? Let’s face it, that’s a win-win for both of us. Her designs are gorgeous.”
“Yup. You read my mind, Boss,” I agree. I extend my hand to her and we shake on it.
“And considering that if you get engaged, it would only be appropriate for you to have one of her tattoos on your body as a tribute to her. That’s pretty poetic,” Julienne adds, once we’ve sealed the deal.
“And if we don’t get engaged, having one of her designs on you will be a reminder to never to bet against me again,” I tell her.
I wonder if I should mention this wager to Nora and decide against it—at least, not right away. Of course, if I tell her that Julienne and I wagered about my chance of getting engaged to Nora, I’m pretty sure she’d break up with me on the spot, and that would result in me winning by default. But there’s no way in hell that I want her to break up with me, even if I currently have no plans to get engaged in the next eight months.
I leave the shop and get ready to get my gear together for the show the band and I are playing that night. Crazy Hélène is going to be there, and so is Nora, so I’m a bit on edge; Julienne’s prediction about Hélène switching her attention back onto me once she saw I was involved with someone has proved to be as accurate as her wager that I’d end up dating Nora in the first place. I have to hope that Hélène will get over it within the next few months and go back to fawning over Pascal before she has the chance to try and get into Nora’s head and mess up my life.
The worst possibility I can think of is that Hélène might try to actually harm Nora in some way—whether in a minor way by cutting her hair off or playing some prank on her, or a major way by trying to fight her—or that she’ll file a false report to the police that Nora stole from her, and get the woman I care about deported from the country and her visa canceled. I keep trying to tell myself that not even Hélène is that extreme, but I know better.
I talked to Yann, Sam, and Pascal about the possibility of asking that Hélène be barred from our future shows, but we don’t want to create any friction with the bars that let us play there. She hasn’t really done anything that would justify us talking to the police, but we don’t want to give her the opportunity to, either.
I start getting my gear together and decide to just deal with Hélène when I see her. Hopefully, I can just tell her to get lost and it’ll be okay.
The intercom shrieks just as I’m getting the last of my gear set up at the door to take down. I pick it up, wondering if maybe one of my band mates has come to help me get my guitars and amp into the car. “Yo!”
“It’s me,” I hear Nora’s voice say.
“Oh, hey, babe! Come on up,” I tell her, pressing the button to unlock the door. Thinking about the bet I only just made with Julienne, my heart beats faster. There’s no way that Nora will want to get engaged anytime in the year she’s staying in France, is there? It’s ridiculous. She didn’t even want to date for six months, until things had happened spontaneously between us.
I unlock and open the door by the time she’s arrived in front of it and I pull her into my apartment, kissing her hungrily. I slip my hands up under her skirt and cop a feel of her ass. “This is a nice surprise,” I tell her, barely pulling back from her lips.
“I thought you might want help,” Nora tells me. “And...now that I’m your girlfriend, it comes with the territory, right?”
I laugh and kiss her again.
“Thanks,” I say, pulling back, “but I’ve got this.” I grab the two guitar cases with my left hand, and the handle for my amp with the right.
“Let me at least lock up for you,” she says and fishes the key from my pocket, pushing her hand a little further down so she can feel the ridge of the head of my cock and grins.
I think to myself that once it becomes fully obvious to Hélène that Nora is my girlfriend, she’ll have no choice but to back off and fully focus her attention on Pascal.