Page 184 of Where the Snakes Sleep

“Tu es en retard.” You’re late.

Camille stops halfway through my new garden gate. He has one hand wrapped around a white bakery box and the other still resting on the iron latch, his expression shifting from mild surprise to immediate suspicion as he looks across the yard at me.

“Pardon?” Excuse me?

I lower my paintbrush. “You heard me.”

“I did.” His mouth twitches. “I am simply deciding whether I should correct you.”

My confidence falters. “Was it wrong?”

“No.”

“Then why would you correct me?”

“Your pronunciation.”

I narrow my eyes.

Camille steps through the gate and closes it carefully behind him, because the gate is new, the hinges are new, and I have spent the last three weeks making it extremely clear that anyone who slams it will be buried beneath my garden.

“Your pronunciation was understandable,” he allows.

“That is not the same as good.”

“No.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“And yet you continue inviting me over.”

“I don’t remember inviting you today.”

He lifts the bakery box, and I immediately forgive him.

“What’s in there?”

“Your French has disappeared remarkably quickly.”

“Qu’est-ce que…” I hesitate, mentally reaching for the rest. “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans la boîte ?” What’s in the box?

Camille’s eyebrows rise. That expression is far too pleased for a man who has done absolutely nothing to earn credit for my Duolingo streak.

“Très bien.” Very good.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I complimented you.”

“You complimented me in French. It sounded smug.”

“I am French. Everything sounds smug to you.”

That is unfortunately difficult to argue with.

I set my brush across the top of the paint can and climb carefully down from the short ladder propped against the side of the cottage. Six months ago, Camille would have put both hands beneath my ass and attempted to physically remove me from the ladder because he had decided anything more than eighteen inches above the ground constituted a fall risk.

He still wants to. I can tell by the way his eyes track my feet all the way down.