Little Bit o' Chapter 18

Well, today is Thursday and I have no chapter to post.  Sorry.  Fear not.  I have an excerpt I'd like to share from the upcoming chapter.

Read after the break.

The train slid into Paris Gare du Nord station a little after noon.  Sarah took the lead as they disembarked and entered the main concourse.  After withdrawing euros from an ATM, they were informed by all of the kids—and Morgan—that they refused to go another step until they got to eat something.  Once food and drinks were devoured, Sarah purchased Métro tickets for everyone and led the family to the subway.  She demonstrated how to use a ticket to go through the automated gate.  She’d studied a map of the Métro system on the train from London, so she knew which line they needed to be on to get to their hotel.  However, she double-checked their route before they headed for the correct platform.

Once they reached the platform, she counted heads for the twentieth time that day.  As she did so, she noticed the older kids seemed a bit overwhelmed.  There wasn’t the usual teasing and joking around that normally accompanied them whenever they went anywhere.

Chuck dipped his head when Sarah stood on her tiptoes to speak into his ear.  “Is everything okay with the kids?”

He glanced at them and nodded.  “I think they’re a little disoriented, is all.  It’s the first time they’ve been someplace where they’re hearing something other than English being spoken all around them.”

“That makes sense.”  She eyed him.  “What about you?  Are you feeling that way, too?”

“A little. But with you as my tour guide, I’m not worried.”

She wasn’t able to respond since a Métro train came to a stop and a number of people stepped off.  They boarded the train and since it wasn’t rush hour and the car wasn’t packed, found places to sit.  Chuck sat down next to his wife and laid an arm loosely across the top of the back of her seat.

Once the doors closed and the train began to move, Sarah noticed the kids began to visibly relax.  After a couple of minutes, conversations started between them and smiles began to appear.  She supposed that their earlier apprehension was most likely a combination of the language barrier and the inherent stressful atmosphere of a busy train station.  And Paris Gare du Nord was very busy.  Now in a calmer environment, they loosened up.

Relieved that the kids were doing better, Sarah continued the thread of her conversation with Chuck.  “You had to have learned a foreign language in high school.”

“Well, I took the classes, although I’m pretty sure ‘learned’ isn’t the best way to put it,” he corrected.  “I can butcher Spanish with the best of them.”  He gave her a broad smile.  “I did learn some conversational Klingon.”

She patted his thigh.  “Of course you did.”  My nerd.  “So you don’t know any French at all?”

“Other than a few basic words, no.”  He moved toward to her and dropped his voice as low as he could while still being heard over the ambient noise of the train.  “Well, there was this one girl in high school who taught me a couple of phrases.  They might be perfectly innocent.  They might get me arrested.  My money is on them most likely getting me slapped.”

“What?” she laughed. “What makes you think that?  Didn’t she tell you what they meant?”

“Oh, sure. I’m not convinced she was telling the truth, though. She and her friends,” he paused to choose his words carefully, “weren’t very nice to people like Morgan and me.”  They both glanced over at the bearded man reading a comic book.  Looking back at her, his eyes twinkled when he said, “This might shock you, honey, but I was a bit of a nerd in high school.”

She snorted.  Across the way, Lizzie gave them a bored look and then rolled her eyes.  “Was?” Sarah replied with a chuckle.  After a moment of silence, she finally said, “So, tell me these phrases.”

He shot her a dubious look.  “I don’t think so.  You’re a heavily armed and dangerous woman, Mrs. Bartowski.  I don’t want to take the chance of offending you.”

“I can take it.  I can control myself.”  She pointed to her ear.  “Just whisper.”

He heaved a sigh in defeat.  The arm draped behind her back pulled her closer.  He hadn’t even said anything, yet when he crossed one leg over the other and rolled his whole lanky body toward hers, a shiver shot through her. When he gently hooked a bit of blonde hair behind her ear with a finger, electricity sparked between them.  Her breathing grew shallow when his lips touched the exposed ear.  He didn’t say a word, apparently trying to build up the anticipation.  It worked.  She could feel her heart beat thump harder as the seconds passed.

As he whispered the first phrase, the excitement of a moment before disappeared and disgust began to churn in her stomach.  His pronunciation was bad, as was expected, but she understood.  She wasn’t angry with him, of course.  He was simply parroting syllables that meant nothing to him. That girl wasn’t very nice, though, she quickly decided, teaching a sweet, harmless kid like Chuck to say such foul things about his own mother.  She’d better hope I never meet her at his class reunion.

When he finished speaking, he asked, “What does it mean?”

She shook her head emphatically.  “I’m not going to tell you.”

“That bad?” he asked, his eyebrows rising in question.

Pressing her lips together, she nodded.  “That bad.  Wipe it from your memory.”

“You got it,” he said without hesitation.  “It’s forgotten.  Those words will never again pass these lips.”

In the renewed silence, her curiosity began to build once again.  “Are you going to tell me the other phrase?” she questioned.

“Oh, no!  Not after whatever filth came out of my mouth last time.”

“Come on,” she cajoled.  “Maybe it’s not that bad.”

“Really,” he stated dryly.

“Okay, it probably is.  But at least you’ll know,” she said, giving him her most radiant smile.

“Or at least you’ll know,” he corrected.  When she bounced her eyebrows at him, she watched his will to stay silent completely crumble.  “You fight dirty,” he grumbled good-naturedly.  “You know I can never say no to you.”

Still grinning, she waggled her eyebrows again, triggering a deep rumble in his chest.  “Fine.”

Upon hearing the next phrase he whispered, her eyes rounded and her jaw dropped with shock.  “That girl had quite a vocabulary,” she chuckled.

“What?” he asked, shifting in his seat.  “What did I say?”

She leaned into him and whispered in his ear.  His face did exactly what hers had done a moment before.  Only he furiously blushed as well.  “So I should forget that phrase, too?”

“Oh, I never said that.  The only person you can ever, ever say that to is me, though.”  She eyed him coyly.  “And only if you intend to follow through with it.”

The rumble in his chest grew louder.