Fall in Paris was just as lovely as spring and summer. I'd impressed my chef with my creative spin on macarons, even if he'd shuddered before the first time he'd tried the chocolate bacon version.
He'd asked me to make a batch specifically for him every week ever since.
But now that it was November, damn it was cold. Far colder than it had been in January when I got here and I was freezing all the time. I spent most of my time after work in layers, leggings under sweats and at least three shirts under Cam's sweatshirt if I wasn't hanging out in the kitchen. We'd discovered that our rooms had some pretty severe drafts at the windows and despite our vows to fix the situation, we never had time or more accurately, we never remembered that we needed to take care of them on weekends. So we kept the heat down, shut the doors, lit fires in our fireplace when we were home and had spent more than a few nights cuddled up together on the couch.
I think Eiffel thought it was the best thing ever. She had both her parents to cuddle with overnight as we slept on the couch in an effort to keep our heating costs down and conserve some body heat by being cuddled together.
I'd been lucky enough to get some shopping and baking done so that I could send a box home with presents to mom. Yes, it was mid November and I was sending the presents home already. The baking would be long gone before Christmas but the presents would be secured. I just didn't want them to get stuck in holiday international shipping.
But now I only had two things on my agenda for the month.
How to celebrate Thanksgiving in Paris and Cam's birthday. Well, maybe there was three because I wanted to try and figure out a good balance of holiday traditions to have our Christmas together be one of the best ever. I had just over six weeks until Christmas so hopefully I'd get some ideas. I was absolutely delighted to partake in Parisian holiday traditions and we were planning on a visit to Disney to take in some holiday magic in a way that only Disney could bring but there were going to be plenty of times that we'd be home and needing to make our own traditions.
Even if they were only for this year.
Cam got home as I was working with bread dough. We were probably going to be plump butterballs of our own doing by the end of the year. The kitchen stayed warm while I was making, proofing and baking bread. And we tended to eat a lot of bread after it was done.
Hot and fresh from the oven.
Couldn't beat it with French butter. And cheese. Bottle of wine.
"Hey." I smiled over my shoulder at him as he slid his arms around my waist, hugging me. "Good day today?"
"Meh." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head before moving to check the fridge. "It was okay."
"Uh oh." I raised an eyebrow at him.
"What? No uh oh." He shook his head and grabbed a beer.
"You're drinking beer before you change your clothes." I stated. "You haven't asked what's for dinner or anything, just straight into the drinking."
"Like you're any better." He retorted, nodding at my half full wine glass.
I rolled my eyes at him. "Dude, I've been home for three hours." I sprinkled the board with flour and turned out the dough to begin kneading it. "I've changed my clothes, got dinner and bread dough started. What happened?"
He rolled his neck, smiling slightly when his neck cracked. "Entitled American tourists." He grumbled.
I laughed. "Oh, come on, they couldn't have been that bad."
He made a face. "Probably worse than you've ever imagined." He said, taking a swig of beer and rolling his neck again.
I winced when it cracked again. "I'll give you a neck and shoulder rub after dinner." I said. "You've got to be in pain if it's cracking like that."
"It's not the worst its ever been." He shrugged, slipping his suit coat off and heading to his room to change.
"It's not the best either." I called after him. "You know you carry all your stress in your neck and shoulders." I punched the dough, mulling over his tourist issues as I worked on the dough. I made cloverleaf rolls, rolling the dough into balls and dropping three of them into the cup of my greased muffin tin before setting them on top of the stove to rise again before baking.
"I know." He finally replied to my previous statement when he showed back up in the kitchen, wearing sweats and a few layers. "It'll be okay. They just..." He shook his head. "Didn't like the chef offerings at last nights cocktail hour and then spent hours berating the concierge off and on all day today because all of their suggestions apparently didn't work out. I mean, they'd go to one, probably have a lovely time but just not nice people. I told them to go to Disney tomorrow and leave my people alone."
I laughed. "I'm sure you did."
"I did. Only it was in much prettier French words because I've been speaking French to them the entire time I've had to deal with them because I don't want to let on that I'm American."
I laughed harder. "Oh, you poor thing. So it's not only their attitude and the stress all of you are under at the hotel while they're there but you're speaking French all day whenever they're around." I teased. "You poor, poor baby."
He pouted. "The struggle is real, mon ami." He flicked the tip of my nose before draining the rest of his beer. "So what is for dinner? It smells amazing."
"Well, I have chicken simmering in a lemon artichoke and white wine broth. There's artichoke hearts and lemon in there with it, plenty of butter too." I smiled.
"I can just feel my arteries clogging."
I shook my head. "We'll go for a walk after dinner. It's going to be fine. Fabio... you know, the Italian guy at the patisserie?" He nodded. "He taught me how to make gnocchi this week so once I get the rolls in the oven, I'll be dropping homemade gnocchi into the broth to cook while the bread's baking. Then we're going to feast."
"Totally sounds amazing. I mean, it's not my coq au vin..."
I snorted. "Yes, you do make your two dishes very well and I appreciate the effort." I wasn't kidding. He'd mastered coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon by using Julia Child's recipes. It had been a great project for us earlier this year and he made one of them every six weeks or so when he decided he wanted to take over the kitchen instead of getting take out or having me cook. We did eat a lot of take out. And I tended to cook ahead a lot so it wasn't a big deal to cook. He was still cleaning the bathroom in exchange for me doing the bulk of cooking so it was fine with me.
He smiled. "I'm being honest though, it sound amazing, it smells amazing. I can't wait to try it."
"Good." I turned, grabbing the rolls to slide them into the oven before setting the timer. I busied myself finishing the final steps on the gnocchi before I could put them into the boiling liquid. "We need to talk too."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, just a few things. Like holiday decorating and what do we want to occupy ourselves with during December. I mean, you may be busy with hotel work if there's more tourists and I'm going to end up working extra shifts because of holiday baking that's already starting to be ordered for future dates but I want to take advantage of this time. It's entirely possible this is my only Christmas in Paris and I don't want to let it slip away."
He frowned at the idea. "I guess that's true, right? If you've done enough hours and they sign off on you passing the course and internship then you'd be leaving."
I nodded slightly. "And if it lets me get back to Charleston for Christmas next year? I'd want to do that because I am missing home."
"Okay, so we'll plan and plot the December activities to take full advantage of our time here. It's my second Christmas but I really didn't leave the hotel much last year. I'd only just arrived in November so I was trying to really get caught up on processes." He admitted.
"And we need to talk about Thanksgiving, that's only two weeks away." I said. He nodded. "And..." He raised an eyebrow at me. "Your birthday. Is next week. What do you want to do?"
"Can't you just surprise me?" He asked.
"Cam!" I protested. "I mean, sure, I'd be happy to just surprise you if that's what you want but you're going to be turning twenty three. Surely you don't want to just do nothing...?"
He shrugged slightly. "It's on a Monday." He pointed out. "I don't like Monday birthdays."
"Monday birthdays are the best. You either get to party it up all weekend or for the entire week afterwards to make up for it being a Monday."
He frowned. "I hadn't considered that. Okay. So is that what I need to choose?"
"Yes, choose how you want to celebrate it." I nodded. "We'll discuss your choice after dinner."
He smiled. "I guess I can accommodate my bossy roommate." He teased, leaning over to tilt my chin up. "You're seriously the best thing in Paris, you know that, right?"
I smiled before leaning up on my toes to brush a soft kiss across his lips. "Right back atcha." His smile widened. "But could you set the table?"
"I can do that." He said with a laugh.
After dinner, we sat on the couch, enjoying the fire and the rest of the bottle of wine. "Okay, so the gnocchi was good." I said.
"A total winner." He agreed. "I think baguette would have been better with it though."
"Agreed." I nodded. "I guess I was a little homesick while I was planning my bread." I laughed.
He rested a hand on my leg and glanced at me. "I understand that." He said, giving me a slight squeeze. I knew he understood. That was the one thing we'd always been clear on. We were both used to having many more friends we consider family around us at all times.
I'm sure he didn't find his to be somewhat stifling but when you're a girl who has a Professional Russian for a bestie and you have an older brother who ended up with eight other guys he considered brothers, then well, you have me.
Without Sang, I'd be screwed.
I'd also be remiss to not acknowledge that she's ended up running a lot... a LOT... of interference over the past nine years. I'm going to be forever grateful to her for it. But I miss her. I'm so glad she's my sister, she's the only girl I really count as a friend.
"It's a tough time of year to be away from home." Cam said.
"I think we'll be okay as long as we don't freeze." I joked, taking a long sip of wine.
"Yes, well, apparently two southerners don't fare quite that well in Paris in winter. Even if I have spent parts of the previous two winters in Chicago and New York instead of in Charleston."
"Parts of the winters?" I asked curiously.
He nodded. "I only managed about three weeks in Charleston last year... I was between jobs. Transferred if you will from a hotel in Chicago to one in New York before the opportunity opened up to come here."
"That's really interesting. I'm almost completely shocked that we've never managed to cross paths." I smiled.
"Ah, well, for as small as the world seems, Charleston really isn't that small of a town."
I laughed. "No, not when you start breaking down all the different areas, I suppose." We finished the wine in our glasses and he took mine to set them both out of the way on the end table. "So..." I smiled.
"Sooo...?" He raised an eyebrow at me.
"Birthday talk." He groaned and rolled his eyes. I poked him in the side. "Hey, I avoided asking about it all through dinner but now we really need to plan. I have to know what I'm going to whip up for you." I gave him my best version of sad puppy eyes.
"Noooo!!! Not the puppy eyes." He complained before heaving a huge sigh. "Fine..." He drew the word out to almost five syllables. I was very impressed.
"Twenty-three." I smiled. "Want to have your birthday cap off a fun weekend or kick off a week of celebrations?"
He pursed his lips, watching the fire pop and crackle in front of us for a long moment. "Cap off a fun weekend." He said.
"Sounds like a plan. Especially since we're both off all weekend. Did you take your birthday off or anything?"
He shook his head. "I didn't think about it in time. So typical work day for me."
"Okay. So..." I pursed my lips and thought for a long moment. "Special dinner for your birthday, I'll have plenty of time to fix it for Monday... I'm not telling you anything else I want to plan for Monday." I smiled.
He laughed. "I suppose that's fair."
"Do you want to do Disney on Sunday? Seems to me that we're here, the parks here... we should definitely birthday at Disney."
"Absolutely in total agreement with you on that. Yes, please. I would love to Disney on Sunday."
"I guess that just leaves a couple decisions. Dinner and dancing? Friday or Saturday night?"
His eyes lit up. "If I say Friday... can we just do a completely lazy day on Saturday? Brunch spread at home and watch movies all day?"
"You want to do that on Saturday instead of Sunday? We could Disney on Saturday instead."
He shook his head. "If we're out late dancing on Friday, I want to just recover all day on Saturday." He teased. "I don't want to walk around all day. We'd be better off to do that on Sunday which is also why I don't think I want to go out dancing on Saturday."
"Can we at least go to the market on Saturday? Because there will be a shopping list for Monday and I won't want to have to go special on Monday." I suggested.
"Okay, sure. So we eat late and are lazy until around noon, go out to lunch and hit the markets you want to hit and then we'll pick up takeout and come home to eat dinner and watch movies the rest of the night."
"I love that." I said. "So, dinner and dancing date on Friday, lazy with market trip and movies on Saturday, Disney on Sunday and birthday dinner on Monday." I ticked off what he'd asked for on my fingers.
"Absolutely." Cam smiled before leaning over and kissing me lightly. "Perfect."
"And do you want a cake for your birthday dessert?"
"Actually..." He shook his head. "Any chance you can do something lemon?"
"I can do that. Lemon tarts? Lemon pie?"
"I'd love lemon tarts but I'm totally down with pie."
"I can manage that." My brain was already reviewing what I knew I could make without having to look too much up. Probably lemon sour cream pie. But the more I thought about it, the more I just knew he'd love it and if I ever needed to, it would be lovely as a tart or tartlets. "I'm just going to have to make sure that I have the right sort of dress ready to go for Friday night."
His eyes lit up. "Something short and sexy, I hope."
"We'll see." I smirked at him. "I know it's your birthday and all, but do you want to arrange for Friday?"
"Please. I think I know just the right place for dancing."
"Sounds good to me." I shivered slightly.
"Pardon me, you're cold and I'm failing my job as the one to keep you warm." He teased before grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch and shaking it out before settling it over both of us. I curled into him, resting my head on his shoulder. "Okay there?"
"Perfectly fine." I murmured before brushing a kiss against his jaw as I wrapped my arms around him, happily snuggled into him as he stretched out and adjusted the way he was able to hold me while we started to discuss what we'd like to try and accomplish in December to bolster our holiday cheer and ease our homesick feelings because of being so far away from home at Christmas.