All for You (2 page)

She bounced on her toes and had to flip her braid back off her shoulder. The thing was a pure pain in baking—she should really cut her hair off—but Joss liked to tug it sometimes. Recently, she’d dyed it burgundy, just to make it catch the eye more. More tugs that way, maybe.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she forced herself to say.

Because … he wasn’t.

Never had been.

Never shown the slightest interest in taking on that role.

Louis rolled his eyes.

“He’s just … a friend,” she said. She’d almost said “a friend of my brother,” but nobody liked her brother anymore.

“He’s a good friend,” Louis said dryly.

“I know,” Célie said smugly. It wasn’t every girl in their
banlieue
of graffiti and concrete and burned cars who had a
good
friend, a guy she could trust, a guy she could count on. Célie was lucky. Or Joss was just that good a guy. Or maybe she was even … worth it, a little bit? The friendship of a good guy? Maybe there was something about her that was
likable
and good and deserved it?

Of course there was. She stuck her chin up, determined to believe it.

“You’d better go,” Louis said with half-pretend exasperation. “You don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“He’ll wait,” Célie said confidently. Steady and patient, he would wait as long as it took for her to get off. But she was already unbuttoning her chef’s jacket.

Because no matter how bad the world outside this bakery, when Joss showed up, Célie couldn’t wait to get off work.

She boxed up her favorite thing she had done that day, a fig tart with balsamic caramel gleaming so prettily over its brown-red fruit and pale custard cream, and ran across the street to him with it.

Joss shoved whatever he’d had in his hand into his pocket as soon as he saw her and straightened from the wall as she got closer to him, so that he was so big, and she was so small, and a girl definitely felt
protected
. Safe. She loved it when she could walk home with him. No one ever messed with her at all. Maybe it was the size of him, or maybe it was the way he carried himself, or maybe it was the way that stubborn jaw made your fist feel fragile, as if it would break if you tried to punch it.

She grinned at him and bounced up on her toes for kisses on each cheek. Damn. He didn’t smell of motor oil again today. Meaning still no new job after association with her brother had gotten him fired from his last one. That probably explained the tension in him, too.

A kiss on each cheek and a tug of her braid. “Célie.”

Just her name. He had a way of saying it that made her come true.

“Hey, Joss,” she said sassily, so he would know that she was just the kid sister who teased and taunted him. So he wouldn’t know how those steady hazel green eyes of his caught at her heart every time and how she had to keep squashing her unruly crush down into the bottom of her stomach where it wiggled nonstop whenever he was around. All her friends had crushes on him, too, it wasn’t like she was weird. But he was
her
brother’s friend, so she got to keep him. Even if not in a crush way.

“Hungry?” She held up her box to him. She liked to keep the reward system going:
If you stop by when I’m getting off work, I’ll feed you something yummy. So … stop by.

He smiled a little. “I’m always hungry when you’re around, Célie.”

She grinned in triumph. Pavlov had nothing on her. “Wait until you see this!” She opened the box.

He looked at the fig tart and then at her face. Joss’s face was always a hard read—he kept such an adamant control over his expression—but something moved across it, intense almost to pain. “Célie,” he said, with unexpected roughness, “you’re the best part of my day.”

Damn it. Joss was having such a hard time. And all because of her damn brother. That his friend’s brat sister had become the best part of his day was proof enough of how shitty the rest of his life must seem.

But at least it was nice to know she helped make it better. She was having a hard time, too, and Joss
helped make her better.

She hugged herself proudly as he lifted the tart to his mouth. As his teeth sank into it, she bounced on her toes again and made a little humming sound at the flavors and textures that must be bursting in his mouth.

“Mmm,” he said, his voice deepening, his eyes warm on her.

It was looks like those that made her crush squirm so much she couldn’t stand still. So she pivoted out and back and took a step in the direction of their HLM, the giant tower of broken-windowed concrete and rarely functioning elevators that housed all the people the Paris government had wanted to keep around as a workforce, but not badly enough to let them live in actual Paris. Well, that was its immigration history anyway. Back in the sixties, Parisian government officials had actually patted themselves on the back for building those HLMs. After all, they’d been such a step up from disease-ridden shantytowns where workers had lived among rats and mud and rubbish.

The problem was, you could make a giant step up from rats and mud and still have quite a way to climb.

But
Célie
was going to climb it. She was not going to get stuck here, no way. Her favorite dream of riding out of this place on the back of a motorcycle behind Joss washed through her, and she tried to stamp that pesky dream back down in with the rest of the wiggles in her stomach.

But … it would be so perfect. They could go find some little town in the south of France that needed a baker and a mechanic, far away from drug trades and gangs and hopelessness, and, God, would she be happy.

“Coming, slowpoke?” she challenged over her shoulder, sticking her tongue out at him. Any time her crush tried to take over, she had to make sure it was obvious that she was just his friend’s impudent kid sister and
not
stupidly in love with him.

His gaze flickered up from—her butt? Could it possibly be? Had he actually
noticed
she had a butt? But his expression was calm, neutral. “I’ll try to keep up,” he said, amused, reaching her with one long stride. “Célie, I still think pink is more your color.” He tugged her braid again.

She frowned at him. “I’m far too tough for pink. Burgundy, now, burgundy makes a statement.” A
tough
statement. Vibrant but not to be messed with.

They passed a
tabac
and a waft of cigarette smoke came through the door as someone left it, carrying a fresh packet of cigarettes. Célie craned her neck to take a breath of the smoke.

Joss closed his hand over her nape and kept her going. “Bad for you.”

Célie rolled her eyes. “I
got
it, Joss. I’m not going to start again.”

“Promise?”

“I already promised ten times!”

He didn’t say anything at all, just kept walking, not letting go of her nape. Joss could out-stubborn her any day.

“I promise!”

“Even when I’m not around, Célie. Don’t do it behind my back either.” He held her eyes, something troubled in his.

God, did he blame himself in part because Ludo had gone so wrong?
Nobody
could have stopped Ludo. She could personally attest to that, as the little sister who had tried. Plus, plenty of guys his age did time for drugs or theft or assault around here, it wasn’t like he was the worst guy in the world or anything.

Joss was, in fact, the only really good guy she knew. But he made up for all of them. In fact, he seemed to take it as his personal responsibility to make up for all of them—always the guy who shielded her from her brother’s most irresponsible actions and kept her brother’s other friends in line as she was growing up, growing more female and therefore more vulnerable. When she tried to learn how to flirt, she mostly practiced on him. He was safe. As she grew older, the safety stayed reassuring but it grew more and more frustrating, too.

“I
promise
, Joss,” she said, holding his eyes in return, putting everything of her in it.

He held her eyes one more moment. Then his hand squeezed the nape of her neck and dropped away. He shoved it into his pocket, hiding that warmth from her.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

He moved his shoulders in a minimal shrug.

She crinkled her nose. “No … uh … no luck on the job search?” she tested, and winced internally. She knew Joss’s pride. She knew how much he hated looking like a loser in front of his friend’s kid sister. And she never could figure out how to convey to him that she thought the world of him, no matter what. Didn’t it show at all, when she brought out some special dessert for him every day and her whole self lit up just to see him? She couldn’t
tell
him. If she exposed her crush too openly, he might distance her. For her own good, of course. Every time Joss did something that hurt her heart, it was for her own good.

His lips pressed tight, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. But then he said, “I’ll probably have to leave here, to have any chance.”

Instantly, that vision flooded back: her clinging to him on the back of a motorcycle,
blowing
this place as that deep, powerful motor roared them out of here to a new life.

Her nails flexed into her palm, trying to drive that dream back.

It was kind of hell having such a crush on her brother’s friend, when she knew it wasn’t reciprocated. But she still hadn’t managed to get up the courage to just
leave him
and go find her own way in the world, either.
Come on, Célie, you’re eighteen now. You’ve got to just do it.

They reached the worn-out green space in front of their building that once upon a time had been some architect’s idea of bringing nature to fifteen-story towers. All three of the limp, exhausted trees had their trunks covered with initials, bottles broken at their bases, here and there a syringe. Giant concrete towers rose above them, as if they’d been set there to turn humans into cockroaches and then crush the life out of them. Célie’s apartment was up there, floor fourteen, its windows unbroken. Joss’s was on floor seven.

A lot of stairs, when the elevator broke down.

“Where would you go?” she asked.
Maybe I can tag along.

“Away from here,” he said flatly.

Yeah. That was pretty much where she wanted to go, too.

She touched his wrist gently. Once in a while she tried something like that.
I’m sixteen now, all grown up. I’m seventeen now, all grown up. I’m eighteen now, all grown up. Are you ever going to notice?

He turned and faced her, in front of the doors to their tower, under a lonely tree scarred with so many initials that there was even one that said
J + C
that didn’t mean them at all. Over it, someone had carved an obscene symbol.

“Joss.” Her heart broke a little for him. Sure, he tried to keep his expression neutral, but she’d known Joss a long time now. Behind that stoic expression, he held so much tense determination not to be beaten down by this place. And yet it was trying to break him. He was a
good
mechanic, she knew he was. He was a
good
guy. A
really good
guy. And yet just by association with her drug-dealing brother, he’d lost his job. He couldn’t even find another one. It hurt her, every day that he couldn’t. “Joss. You know you’re amazing, don’t you?” She felt so shy to say it but
somebody
had to tell him.

“Célie.” His eyes closed a second, and he shook his head.

She stuck her chin up. “Well, you are.”

“Célie.” He lifted his hand to cup her cheek, and she stilled. Even her heart tried to stop. Her lips parted, and she stared up at him.

Had he—was he—had Joss finally noticed her? As something other than his friend’s pain-in-the-neck kid sister? Had Ludo’s removal from their relationship somehow allowed him to
see
her?

“I’m
never
going to let you down,” Joss said, low and fierce. “I swear it, Célie.”

“No,” she agreed firmly, making a fist of encouragement, cheering him on. “You won’t. I know you won’t.”
You’re such a good guy. My only good guy. And
behave,
you stupid wiggles.
“You can do anything.”

“Right,” he agreed, that monosyllabic intensity of Joss’s that turned one short word into a vow. He shifted his hand to her chin, still holding her eyes.

She held very still. She kept her lips faintly parted. Just in case that was all the encouragement he needed to bend his head and …

Kiss her on the cheek.

Damn it!

The other cheek.

Her heart sank in disappointment.

But he didn’t let go of her chin, after the good-bye
bises
were finished. “Célie. I’ve got to go.” That deep voice of his made her want to curl up with it so badly. Most nights, she pretended Joss and his deep voice were in her bedroom with her, just to comfort her enough so that she could fall asleep.

Something about the intensity in his eyes made her want to step forward and curl up in him now—press herself against his chest, get him to fold his arms around her, as if he was going to be wrenched from her if she didn’t. But other than the time when she’d started crying after her brother was arrested, he never did hold her. She was the kid sister.

“I know,” she said wistfully. Of course he had to go. He probably had a date or something. She was such an idiot.

His other hand shifted in his pocket. As if he was clenching it and unclenching it.

“You’ll be all right?” he said.

Up went her chin. “Of course I will!” This place could
not
get to her.

He bent again. And—

Damn it.

A third kiss on her cheek. A fourth.

The full four
bises
, as if they came from some extra-affectionate part of France, the kind of regions where arriving at a party and greeting all the guests exhausted your cheeks. Not so common here, unless for a greeting after a long absence or a long good-bye. Or maybe, to give each other courage.

Or
maybe
because … he was noticing her? Maybe
liking
her? Not quite ready to move straight to a kiss on the mouth, but getting interested? Wanting an excuse to touch her more?