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Sixteen

"I'm so glad we're finally doing this. I was beginning to get worried that you weren't interested." Louis smiles over his glass of wine at Nikki.

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I've just had some things going on."

"Your brother that showed up to the club the night we met?" He chuckles, overemphasizing the brother part of his sentence with a smirk.

"Um... yeah. He's actually kind of an ex." She shrugs, rolling her eyes. "Or we were done before we really began. Either way, it doesn't matter. I'm moving on."

"We all have exes, don't worry about it. So, you work at the Louvre? How long have you lived in Paris?"

"I moved here last November. Left New York and never looked back."

He laughs, nodding. "So you moved to the most romantic city in the world and haven't found love yet?"

"Oh..." she blushes, shrugging slightly, "Frenchmen are full of love. I've found love more than a few times. Just not any that lasted longer than a night."

Her response makes him grin, raking his lip through his teeth. "I bet. But," he shrugs, "you get to a certain age, and it's no longer about the only one night. It's about the morning after, all the mornings after. Finding the one that you long to wake up to every day."

"Is that what you're looking for? The every day?"

"Oui... et toi?" He sets his fork down, locking eyes with Nikki.

"Yeah, me too." She rests her hand on his as he smiles, bringing it up to his lips, kissing softly before releasing it. "You men here, I never know if you truly are as romantic as you seem, or if you just know the right words to say."

Louis laughs as Nikki wipes away a stray tear. "I mean what I say, always."

She watches him for a moment, gauging his sincerity before nodding. "Okay...so, tell me about you, Louis. What do you do?"

"Well, I'm thirty-seven, and I'm a physician. You just have the one sister in the US? Does she live in New York?"

"Yeah, she's twenty-four. She's my only sibling. I'm thirty-four in a few months. Our parents are gone. What about your family?"

"Big age gap between you and your sister."

Nikki chuckles slightly with a shrug. "I think she was an oops, but it doesn't matter now. We're real close. She's the one that encouraged me to move to Paris and follow my dreams."

He smiles at that, squeezing her hand on top of the table. "That's great. Um... I have an older brother. Our dad died a few years ago, but we are close with our mother. Dinner every Sunday."

"That's sweet. I always wanted an older brother."

"My brother will love you." He grins as she laughs.

"Will? You're so sure we will be together long enough to meet."

"I am." Louis smirks as Nikki lifts her wine glass to take a drink. She inspects his eyes, relaxing in his presence as she smiles back at him.

***

Nikki glances up at the door of her office as someone knocks and enters a couple weeks after her date with Louis. She smiles at her friend and coworker; Claire enters the office. "Bonjour, Claire. Ça va?"

"Bonjour, Nikki." She smirks, hovering in the doorway. "There is a very attractive man here asking for you."

"Brown hair? Big, puppy dog, brown eyes?" She asks, standing up to follow Claire out of the office.