I Want to Kiss You in Public Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One - PARTY BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD, AS I KNOW IT

  Chapter Two - I'M SO HUNGOVER

  Chapter Three - THIS IS WHERE IT GETS WEIRD

  Chapter Four - NOT MY KIND OF MUSIC

  Chapter Five - SO, I'M IN A BIT OF A PICKLE

  Chapter Six - I'M TRYING OUT NEW THINGS

  Chapter Seven - WHAT DO DORIAN, SHAKESPEARE AND FRANCOIS HAVE IN COMMON?

  Chapter Eight - WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER?

  Chapter Nine - RUFUS GOT TO IT FIRST

  Chapter Ten - HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT

  Chapter Eleven - IS IT YOU OR IS IT ME?

  Chapter Twelve - I'VE GOT THIS

  Chapter Thirteen - THIS IS WHERE IT GETS EVEN WEIRDER

  Chapter Fourteen - TIME OUT

  Chapter Fifteen - THOSE WERE THE DAYS

  Chapter Sixteen - THE ONE THAT SAYS M&M

  Chapter Seventeen - IMPROBABLE ODDS

  Chapter Eighteen - THE ORIGIN OF TERROR

  Chapter Nineteen - THE TEST THAT WENT DOWN IN HISTORY

  Chapter Twenty - YOU ARE MY FAVOURITES

  Chapter Twenty-One - SEVEN IN THE AFTERNOON

  Chapter Twenty-Two - RUNNING AROUND IN CIRCLES IS NOT GOOD FOR THE SOUL

  Chapter Twenty-Three - I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M SAYING THIS

  Chapter Twenty-Four - WHAT ELSE DID I MISS?

  Chapter Twenty-Five - THE TRUTH IS SO OVERRATED

  Chapter Twenty-Six - NOW I CAN REALLY FOCUS ON BEING MISERABLE

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - HERE'S THE TRUTH, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - DON'T CALL HIM A SECRET KEEPER

  Chapter Thirty - THE ART OF TRAIN CATCHING

  Chapter Thirty-One - XOXO

  Thank you for reading

  Getting in touch

  SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

  I WANT TO KISS YOU IN PUBLIC

  Zelda French

  Copyright © 2020 Zelda French

  All Right Reserved

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by copyright law.

  CHAPTER ONE

  PARTY BEFORE THE END OF THE WORLD, AS I KNOW IT

  “YOU’RE LATE AGAIN, traitor!”

  Wearing a deep scowl, Tony shakes his head, but slaps a beer in my hand anyway.

  Accepting the beer, I give a little shrug. “Rockstars never show up on time.”

  How late can I be? It cannot be that bad. I remove my sunglasses to check my phone. It’s 2007, for at least another half-hour, or so.

  All right. I might have overdone it this time. I take a large swig of beer. It’s nice, cold, comforting. I’m already at the limit, just beyond tipsy, not yet trashed, perfect to endure the god-awful music blasting through Sacha’s speakers.

  Tony groans, but he can’t help smiling. He agrees with me. Of course, he agrees. He’s the one who taught me that line. Among many others. Once, his name was Anthony, but no one calls him that anymore. He’s my best friend, my mentor, and in his own words, a prophet.

  “I think you may have broken your own record.”

  My girlfriend Lucie, blonde pigtails, Japanese schoolgirl skirt and Sex Pistols’s t-shirt, small in stature but as dangerous as a mongoose, is watching me with her arms crossed, her beautiful face flushed with anger.

  The booze swirling in my stomach turns even her irritation into a thing of beauty. Laughing, I take another swig of beer. Tonight’s gonna be a good night.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  “Yes!” I try to kiss her cheek, but she shoves me away.

  Of course, it’s funny. Ridiculous, in fact.

  Have you never wanted to be special? Really special? To enter the room and your presence stops time? All eyes are on you? Everybody desires to be with you, look at you, touch you, hear the sound of your voice?

  I can imitate this effect by entering a party with my favorite songs playing on my iPod and imagine everybody else moving in slow motion, their smiling faces turned to me, their arms stretched out in the hope the briefest of contact. But when I arrived at this party, time didn’t stop, and certainly didn’t rewind, and my friends are legitimately pissed off, and for all my time slacking and avoiding this moment, I haven’t thought about a good excuse to justify myself.

  Tony’s squinting at me suspiciously. “It’s almost midnight, fuckhead. What the hell were you doing?”

  “I took my iPod to the store” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “They gave me a new one, you know.”

  “That explains nothing.”

  I wasn’t always like this. Once I was a scrawny kid and I had no friends and a girl like Lucie would have never looked at me. I genuinely wanted to be invisible, but the gods have decided to put Tony and I together. Tony taught me everything, wrapped me in the right clothes and told me to grow my hair long and soon the scrawny kid turned into something more palatable.

  I assume an air of nonchalance. “I was making a playlist for tonight and got carried away.”

  Lucie’s angry flush vanishes from her face. She flings her arms around me and swallows half my face in a hungry kiss.

  “You taste like booze.”

  “I may have gotten a head start at home.”

  She is too herself inebriated to wonder about that. “Your playlist. Did you put our song on it?”

  “Sure did.”

  Her face brightens up. Of course I don’t have a clue as to which song she’s referring to, but no need to panic. I put every good song in the world on it, playing it safe.

  “Come,” Lucie says, pulling me to her. “Come with me to the bathroom.”

  Lucie said the first time she saw me, she thought I was so handsome, she couldn’t get through high-school without being mine. This is the sort of thing I’m talking about. She wanted me so much she couldn’t think straight.

  I chuckle into the crook of her neck. “Isn’t it a girl’s job to go with you to the bathroom?”

  “Not unless a girl can do this…”

  Whatever she whispers in my ears is not for the faint of heart. Which informs me she’s drunker than I thought.

  “Sounds great. Maybe later?”

  She scrunches up her pretty nose. “No. Now.”

  “I need to put on the playlist first.”

  Tony still looks sours. “Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes up. The security here’s tighter than my butthole.” Nodding toward the crowd, he takes the beer from my hands and finishes it.

  Lucie punches him in the shoulder, looking disgusted.

  Twisting my neck to get a good look at the hi-fi in the living room, I attempt to locate the source of Tony’s worries.

  Growing out of my ugly duckling phase has been our ticket to an invitation to every party at school, no exceptions. Tony can complain all he wants. Without me, we would be playing video games together like two virgins instead of mudding Sacha’s beautiful parquet floors on the top floor of a grand Haussmann building in the center of Paris.

  Sacha’s legendary parties occurring several times per year, so by now, I know the layout of the flat by heart. The sound-system is locate under the TV, on the other side of the crowded living room. To get past the dancing crowd would be a feat onto itself. At least the Persian Rug is gone this time, but only because her parents had to send it away for restoration. Even if I survive swimming amongst the sharks dancing to Rihanna , I’d still have to step over people sprawled onto the deep leather sofas, and then wo
rse.

  François and Yasmine, Sacha’s best friends and guard dogs, are flanking the TV. Plastic cup in hand, they’re protecting the sanctity of the mediocre sounds of the party with their life. Together with Sacha, our host, they form what Tony calls “The Golden Fork”. The three of them are filthy rich, their parents are powerful enough so that they can have ours killed, and despite their lack of academic prowess, everyone knows they will rule us one day.

  Am I really liked? I don’t think so. But growing out of my ugly duckling phase has been our ticket to an invitation to every party at school, no exceptions. Tony can complain all he wants. Without me, we would be playing video games together like two virgins instead of mudding Sacha’s ancient wood floors on the top floor of a grand Haussmann building in the center of Paris.

  How will I convince the two sharpest tines of the Fork to replace their bland end-of-year soundtrack with my own very end-of-the-world tune?

  François’s a classic case of uninteresting people. He’s almost ginger but not quite, almost nice but not quite, almost a friend, but who am I kidding? We’ll never be friends. He’s as arrogant as his father is rich, which mean a whole lot.

  Yasmine’s like a brown Xena and everybody’s terrified of her, for good reason. She’s by far the smartest of the lot, but also the fiercest. No one dares messing with her. An example: she’s the one who threw up on the Persian Rug a few months ago, everybody saw it, and no one piped a word.

  However, though nothing’s easy, nothing’s impossible.

  Rubbing my heads together, I stick out my chin, ready.

  “I’m going to need a drink before anything else.”

  I put my sunglasses back on and I leave Tony, still scowling, and Lucie, to elbow my way to the large modern kitchen, blindingly bright compared to the rest of the flat. It doesn’t sit so well with my vodka-filled stomach. Grabbing beer from the fridge, I pop it open using my lighter. The takes flight and bounces off the head of a brunette in a black dress in front of me.

  She turns around, snarling, ready to send me packing, but her face transforms when she sees mine. I’ve never seen her before, but from the way she smiles at me, her large brown eyes shimmering, I will assume I’m her type.

  “You have really cool glasses.”

  I let out a drunken giggle. “Thanks. It was a gift from my best friend.”

  She’s very pretty. Tony would like her. He should come here, take his chance before anyone else sees her. I glance at him, but he’s in great drunken conversation with Lucie. The brunette doesn’t follow my gaze.

  “How do you know Sacha?” She asks over the music.

  “We go to school together.”

  “Oh, are you going to that English School too?”

  Colette International School for Bilingual Students.

  CISBS.

  Because BS sounds like Bullshit, we usually stick to Colette International.

  “I am,” I say with a lot of pride, for somebody whose only skill is to be able to lie both in French and English. “But technically it’s a French school, it’s just that lessons are delivered in English.”

  I can tell she’s not really interested where I go to school, but she wants someone to talk to. I glance around at Tony and Lucie back in the living room. They’re turning their back to me.

  Brunette clutches her beer to her chest, her cheeks pink. “I’m Agnes, by the way.”

  “Lou.”

  Her cheeks grow darker. “I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  I hope I haven’t made a complete fool of myself in front of her a one point or another, like I usually do.

  “I mean, I’ve seen you before. We went to the same college. Everybody knows you there.”

  “How so?”

  “You’re the guy that looks like Kurt Cobain.”

  Ok, let me stop here. For those who might have no clue who Kurt Cobain is. Frontman of the band Nirvana, huge in the nineties, still huge today. Kurt committed suicide at the age of 27 and entered the hall of rock and roll afterlife fame, drinking kegs for eternity with the likes of Jimi Hendricks, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.

  Do I look like Kurt Cobain? Vaguely. We do share the same shoulder length, unwashed blond hair, bright blue eyes, and grunge style of clothing. On purpose?

  Yes, yes, of course, yes.

  There might be a time when I might regret this decision. Obviously, tonight’s not the time. After all, she just said everybody at my former college know who I am? I spent four years there and the only times people took notice of me, it wasn’t to shower me with compliments, believe it.

  “Did you come here alone?” Agnes asks, drawing closer.

  I have no intention on cheating on my girlfriend tonight, or ever. But a pretty girl throws you a look and something tugs my heartstrings. Suddenly I want to give her whatever she wants, be whoever she wants.

  Somewhere, though, somehow, Lucie has sniffed out the situation and before I can answer, she has teleported from the living room to my left flank.

  “What’s going on, here?”

  Lucie’s got enough booze in her bloodstream to act nasty. Agnes and I better watch out.

  Agnes feels the same threat in the air. She even takes a step back and her back meets the kitchen island.

  “We were talking about that English school.”

  “Ah, Colette?” Lucie takes my hand. “I go there too.”

  Tony, who has followed Lucie to the kitchen, raises his finger. “So do I, by the way.”

  Tony clearly doesn’t think Agnes is the enemy, from the look of it. He would prefer to ask her out. But I know he won’t. As brave and bold my best friend is on so many aspects, girls is not one of them.

  Lucie pounces on me and flattens me against the fridge while Agnes looks away.

  “You look so hot tonight.”

  “Thanks, baby.”

  Lucie always tells me I’m hot. It’s either flattering or it just means I have literally nothing else of interest to offer. But you don’t know Lucie like I do. When a girl of her caliber calls you hot and pins you against an appliance, you thank her and you do what she says.

  Rich, super smart, gorgeous and athletic, she could have anyone in the world, but when she arrived at Colette last fall, she gave up her fancy mates in favor of Tony and I. So I let her squeeze and probe me without complaining, even as the amount of booze I have drunk is starting to make me feel completely wasted.

  “What’s going on?” she asks.

  I press my lips together. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, really?” Her forehead creases. “You’re two hours late, you don’t want to go with me to the bathroom, you disappear into the kitchen and I find you flirting with some bitch minutes after you’re arrived.”

  “Oh come on, don’t call her a bitch. We were just talking.”

  “Just say it. You’re interested in her.”

  Here’s the truth: when you’re as anxious as I am, keeping up an air of nonchalance demands a lot of energy, which means I sleep a lot. I either sleep, or run, to make up for all the sleeping. It’s as simple as that.

  Who has time to have a mistress when one’s married to chronic anxiety?

  But I say nothing. My silence, which she cherishes on so many occasions, now only serve to antagonise her.

  “Forget it.” Her tone sounds like the gavel after a death sentence. She whips around and walk off, eyes blazing, toward the dance floor.

  “Hey Agnes?” I turn to her and gently nudges Tony between us two. “Have you met Tony? He’s a legend, an absolute rockstar.”

  Tony puffs up his chest. “Why, thanks, my dear Lou—”

  “Do you guys have a band?”Agnes’s face lights up.

  Tony snorts. “No need for that. It’s the attitude that counts, you see.”

  She seems a little disappointed by his answer, but he doesn’t notice.

  “It’s an act of rebellion, a way of being truly unapologetic about who you are, you know. Fuck the system, th
e patriarchy, and everything in between. Let me start at the beginning. Have you read Marx?”

  Agnes’s shoulders sag, but she’s stuck with him now. I know this stuff by heart, being his first and best student. I quickly slip out of the kitchen. Now, changing the music is of critical importance, or Lucie’s going to stay pissed off all night, and I’ve already pushed her too far tonight. She’s dancing on Beyoncé, flailing her arms around and spearing me with her pale eyes at the same time. I’m going to have to go in. No looking back.

  I wish I had more booze.

  “Lou, baby, you made it!”

  As though she heard my plea, Sacha, our magnificent hostess finally makes an appearance, clad in sequins and wearing loops like ferry’s wheels.

  She pushes her hips into mine, holds a shot under my nose.

  “Why don’t you have a little fun?”

  She smells of Malibu. Sacha’s a horny drunk, and the sequins of her dress are digging into my skin even through my clothes, but she’s all right, really. She’s got a tenacious spirit, and can take rejection like no one. Oddly enough, that doesn’t apply to women. If a girl hurts her feelings, she’ll never be forgiven. I like Sacha, we’ve been acquainted since he were in diapers.

  I take the offered shot, toss it back. I love the way it burns on the way down.

  “Thanks, Sacha. Can I change the music?”

  She giggles. “If you can get past François. He’s made the playlist.”

  “Yes, I can hear that.”

  She shakes her head. Her massive earrings catch the light like a disco ball. “Be nice to François, he thinks you’re so cool.”

  The hell with François. I need Lucie to like me again. With a grimace I toss back the second shot she offers me, then slowly wade my way through the flailing limbs, laughing mouths and glittered hairspray.

  Near the sound system, François is trying, and failing, to light a cigarette. The ridiculous hat perched on top of his almost red head says “2008” in gigantic gold letters. He’s drinking from a blue cocktail with a paper umbrella in it.

  Behind me, Lucie is pretending to have fun dancing to Enrique Iglesias and rubbing her ass against Lars, our only Danish student. He looks both mystified and terrified she might disappear if he makes the wrong move. A side glance informs me Agnes has had enough of Tony. He’s hovering on the edge of the crowd, his brow furrowed. The responsibility to save this party is solely mine.