Playing to Win (The Complete Series Box Set): 3 romances with angst and humor

by Alix Nichols

  We give Martin a couple more examples of how challenging water polo is before Lucas declares it’s enough for one day and sends everyone except Martin back into the pool.

  When practice is over, I grab a sandwich and go home, where I head straight to my home office and work until it’s time to read Sam his bedtime story.

  Normally, I’d cook and have dinner with Sam and Uma, but that means seeing her, hearing her voice, dying to touch her…

  What a mess.

  After Sam has shut his eyes, I tiptoe out of his room and downstairs to the kitchen. We keep a box of delicious artisanal chocolates in one of the cabinets above the sink, and my intention is to treat myself to one as a consolation prize for not having laid eyes on Uma since this morning.

  Making as little noise as I can and without turning the light on, I open the box. A lonely champagne truffle stares at me from the bottom.

  The last one.

  I’ll have to buy a new box tomorrow. Given how much both Uma and I love these chocolates, I’ve been buying a box every week since Uma discovered the shop on a quiet street behind the market square. We keep them hidden not to tempt Sam and help ourselves to one or two every night after he’s gone to bed.

  “My preeecious,” I whisper to the truffle in Gollum’s voice.

  Uma giggles behind my back.

  I didn’t hear her come in.

  “So, what do we do now?” she asks, looking up at me. “Clearly, we’ve both sneaked in here with the same gluttonous intentions, but there’s only one truffle left.”

  “I got here first,” I say.

  “Only by a second!” She pouts. “I really need that chocolate at this particular juncture in my life.”

  “Me, too.”

  She puts her hands on her hips and jerks her chin up. “That’s not very chivalrous of you, Zach.”

  “Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you always get your way.” I arch an eyebrow. “Besides, chivalry was made redundant in the sixties.”

  “OK, forget chivalry—what about fairness? I’m a featherweight next to your… King Kong weight. As a pro athlete, it would be sporting of you to withdraw from the competition.”

  I guffaw at her resourcefulness. “Nice try, Uma. But not a chance.”

  She huffs in frustration.

  “Well,” I say. “At least, now you’ve seen my true colors and how thin my veneer of gallantry is.”

  “Yes. Whatever.” She pinches her chin. “Can we cut it in half?”

  Tenacious little thing.

  I almost give in, but sparring with her is too much fun to put an end to it by showing mercy.

  “Hmm…” I tilt my head to the side and peer at the tiny cocoa-powdered confection as if I were considering her proposition. “Nah. It’s too small.”

  “So, you’re really going to eat it now all by yourself?”

  I nod. “Exactly. And you can console yourself with a Toblerone.”

  She pulls a face. “How can you even compare industrial milk chocolate to this… fountain of flavor and well-being?”

  “Fine,” I say, smiling. “Don’t eat a Tob—”

  She snatches the chocolate from the box and darts out the door into the garden. I drop the box and run after her. She shoves the chocolate in her mouth.

  “Cheater!” I narrow my eyes in what I hope is an intimidating glare. “You’re going to pay for this.”

  She bolts, trying to get back into the house.

  I block her way, towering over her. Uma retreats, turns around, and runs to the other end of the garden. I follow, hot on her heels. She doesn’t shriek, no doubt, so she won’t wake up Sam, whose window is open above us.

  For two or three minutes, I chase Uma around the garden in silence. I’m faster, but she’s nimbler. Besides, I’ve no clue how I’m going to make her “pay” for her theft, so I’m not really putting my heart and soul into the pursuit. On our third round, Uma ducks under my arm and hightails it into the house, across the kitchen, and toward the stairs.

  She’s hoping to make it to her bedroom and lock herself in.

  Not happening.

  Accelerating, I close the distance between us. She scrambles up the steps. I grab her shoulders from behind, putting an end to her delusion that she can outrun me. Giggling, she tries to break free. I wrap my arms around her to hold her. She stops thrashing. I pull her into me, tightening my hold. She stops laughing.

  For a few moments, neither of us moves or makes a sound, pressed against each other, panting.

  Her chest heaves underneath my forearms.

  I press them lightly against her little breasts, her nipples…

  My heart throbs in my ears.

  A caveman’s impulse to sling her over my shoulder and carry her somewhere private where I can have my way with her surges up somewhere in my gut, both shocking and tantalizing me. To resist it, I plant my feet firmly into the step and refuse to move a single muscle in my body.

  With Uma one step higher on the staircase, her nape is perniciously close to my face, making my struggle harder than it already is. Her silky black hair is gathered into her usual bun that’s gotten messy from all the running.

  I stare at her delicate neck.

  Want to kiss it.

  Dying to kiss it.

  Can’t.

  Because… reasons… good reasons… if I could just recall them.

  There!

  She’s Sam’s nanny.

  That’s good, but not good enough…

  She’s my friend’s almost fiancée. She’s inexperienced and clearly not thinking straight right now.

  Very good. I relax my embrace enough for her to duck and slip away.

  Only she doesn’t do it.

  Instead, she leans back into me.

  Jesus. Christ.

  If we do something now, we’ll regret it in the morning. Uma will hate me, and perhaps herself, for this weakness. I’ll hate myself. She’ll probably leave, and while that’ll be a blow for me, it’s Uma who’ll suffer more of the consequences.

  I suck in a sharp breath and let my arms drop to my sides.

  She remains motionless for a moment and then scurries to her room and pulls the door shut.

  EIGHT

  Uma

  “We made it to page twenty-five yesterday,” I say to Mathilde as I snatch up my things and head for the door.

  “Can we skip it today?” Sam makes Puss in Boots eyes at Mathilde and me.

  Reading is an activity young Samuel enjoys best when performed by a third party for his benefit and from a book of his choosing. Not the other way around.

  Mathilde puts her hands on her hips. “You start school next year, remember? We can’t send you there unprepared.”

  “But we have a whole year!” he protests.

  “Exactly,” I say before pointing to his primer. “It’s designed to be completed over the course of a year.”

  Mathilde and I exchange determined nods, and I dash out.

  Today is a special day.

  After my classes are over, I won’t be heading home, but to the chamber of commerce in central Paris. Zach will take care of Sam this afternoon so I can attend a free workshop on launching a small business in France. It was recommended by one of our teachers at Ecole Lesage in case some of us have considered staying in France after we’ve earned our certificates.

  Am I considering it? Maybe.

  Freja is. What with being a citizen of the European Union, she doesn’t need a work permit for France. If I decide to try my luck here, I’d have to deal with the catch-22 situation other non-European students have warned me about. It goes like this. When you apply for a work permit, you’re told you must have a contract first. So, you start looking for job… only to be told you need to have a permit before applying.

  It’s daunting just thinking about it.

  And, honestly, what chance do I have?

  Wouldn’t it be smarter to go back to Nepal and look for openings there? My certificate from Lesa
ge and all the advanced techniques I’m learning will no doubt give me a considerable advantage. Launching my career in Nepal rather than in France would be a smart move.

  Problem is, Giriraj is waiting for me in Nepal.

  And Zach is here in France… avoiding me.

  What a mess!

  It’s Noah, not Zach, I should be thinking about.

  If only my mind had more control over my body!

  I contemplate all of that throughout the morning, unable to focus on my lessons. On the way to the chamber of commerce, located in the lovely Les Halles neighborhood, I share my doubts with Freja, leaving Zach and Noah out of the picture.

  “It will be much harder for you than for me to set up shop here,” Freja says, candid as ever. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a shot. When does your student visa expire?”

  “Next June.”

  “We graduate in December. That leaves you…”—she counts silently—“five months to try your luck. If it doesn’t work, you can always go back to Nepal and start over. What have you got to lose?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  My heart.

  Freja gives me a little shrug as if to say “it’s a no-brainer” just as we come to the chamber’s entrance. We pass through the metal detector and head to the basement where our workshop will begin in a few minutes.

  When Freja and I enter the large room packed with people, we find two seats in the back. Facing the crowd of wannabe entrepreneurs are two serious-looking staffers. One of them sifts through his notes. The other is firing up her laptop and the projector. People in the audience open their notebooks and laptops to record the words of wisdom they’re about to hear.

  Freja and I do the same, our pencils sharp and our minds focused.

  “My name is Stanislas Balanchivadze,” the staffer with the notes says in a dull voice.

  Freja scribbles diligently.

  “What?” she says, smiling in response to my quizzical look. “He’ll appreciate my pronouncing his name correctly when I ask him a question.”

  I nod and make a mental note to learn some tricks from my clever friend.

  “This is an introductory lecture on starting a small business in France,” Stanislas says. “Feel free to jump in if you have a question.”

  The first slide his colleague shows us promises good things. It’s a photo of a smiling young woman in a green apron standing in front of a flower shop. The caption says, “Céline Mathieu, businesswoman, owner of Fleurs d’Inry.”

  I nudge Freja. “Inry—that’s my town! I mean, Zach’s town, where I live.”

  “You know the shop?”

  I shake my head.

  “This picture,” Stanislas says, “was taken two years ago. Last year, Céline Mathieu closed her flower shop and went back to her old job as a substitute teacher.”

  Freja and I exchange perplexed looks.

  Stanislas lets out a sigh. “All of you dream of becoming an entrepreneur, obviously.” He nods and sighs again. “But the truth is, it’s tough out there. Very tough. And it is my job to make sure you realize that.”

  “Isn’t his job to give us useful information to get started?” Freja whispers in my ear.

  “I’m sure he will, eventually,” I say, determined to stay optimistic.

  “Three years ago, Céline Mathieu quit her day job to pursue her dream,” Stanislas says. “She knew a good deal about flowers, and her parents and husband were able to support her financially, which is more than most of you can boast.”

  Freja hems. “I don’t like where he’s going with this.”

  “What Céline didn’t realize was the hours she’d have to put in over the first couple of years. With two young children and a husband who had a full-time job, she started to feel she was sacrificing her family life.”

  In the middle of the room, a woman raises her hand. “Are you saying young mothers shouldn’t do this?”

  “I’m saying they should be aware of what this would do to their family life.” Stanislas purses his lips. “There’s no such thing as family life balance when you start a business.”

  There are murmurs in the room, but no more questions.

  “Another thing you must realize is there are costs,” Stanislas says ominously. “Even if you’re starting small or from home, you’ll end up investing more than you’d planned.”

  “That’s why I’ll be doing this with a partner,” a man in the front of the room says.

  “Is he or she a friend?” Stanislas asks.

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Six months from now, he won’t be—mark my words.”

  “Our friendship is solid enough,” the man says defiantly.

  Stanislas shrugs. “Wait until you start arguing about money and blaming each other for your failures. Trust me, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance your friendship will be ruined.”

  “Are you saying it’s better to start out solo?” someone asks.

  “Not really.” Stanislas looks so depressed now I’d give him my last champagne truffle. “It’s lonely to do it solo. Especially if your business is a service that’s done online.”

  Freja rolls her eyes and sticks her pencil and notebook in her handbag.

  A few others do the same.

  Stanislas surveys the room and shakes his head. “Some of you seem disappointed to hear all of this. It’s understandable since you came here for a pep talk.”

  “I came here for guidance and tips,” a petite woman says, standing up to draw his attention. “Can you tell me how to go about finding a locale in Paris with at least four, preferably five, medium-sized rooms? I’m planning to open a language school for adults in January.”

  “Good luck with that,” Stanislas says. “I’ll eat my hat if you’ve found that kind of space inside Paris a year from now.”

  The woman sits down, frowning.

  “I’m not trying to scare you into giving up before you’ve even started,” Stanislas says.

  I perk up.

  “That’s exactly what you’re doing,” Freja mutters.

  “He just wants us to be realistic,” I say. “It’s a good thing, no?”

  “I just want to impress on you,” Stanislas says, “that you will most likely go under and call it quits in your second year after you’ve lost your family, money, and friends.”

  Freja turns to me, wide-eyed. “What the fuck?”

  I shrug. “No idea.”

  “Here’s a theory,” she says. “He started a business a few years back, and then all of those things happened to him. He lost everything. So, he had to go back to his old job teaching about how to start a business.”

  I smile, struggling not to let on how much this “introduction” has disheartened me.

  “Hey,” Freja says, patting my hand. “I don’t know about you, but I really need to see a screwball comedy now.”

  We grab our handbags and tiptoe out of the room with a few other wannabe entrepreneurs close behind us.

  Luckily, there’s a huge movie theater just five minutes’ walk from the chamber of commerce. We pick the least brainy movie playing this afternoon, buy our tickets and a big tub of popcorn, and prepare for an hour and a half of cheap thrills.

  Only I can’t focus on the movie.

  Poor Stanislas’s anti-pep talk did bring me down, no matter how hard I try to remind myself I’m tougher than him, tougher than most of the people in that room. I’m a low-caste cobbler’s daughter from a shanty town on the outskirts of Kathmandu—not some pampered Parisienne who’s never seen hardship and who’d give up at the first serious obstacle. Aama and Baba didn’t raise Priyanka and me to expect things to be easy.

  Besides, I know from experience that good things do happen to people, even to the likes of me. Just the fact that I’m here in Paris, taking an expensive course at the most prestigious embroidery school in the world, is proof of that. It shows that gods—and humans as in Marguerite—can be magnanimous. It shows that the universe can be benevolent. There�
�s no question in my mind that a Dalit girl can enjoy some luck. The question is how far can she push it?

  I say a quick prayer to Lord Ganesh and then to Goddess Lakshmi and try to concentrate on the movie.

  But nothing doing—my attention wanders again, this time to Zach.

  It’s been three weeks since the “truffle incident.” Both of us have been acting like it never happened, but it’s getting harder and harder to do that, at least for me.

  Every time I look at him, I remember the exquisite sensations that coursed through me when he held me and the way my body responded to his touch. Instead of moving away, I sought more contact, I needed more contact. I was ready to allow him more.

  Much more.

  My heart quickens, just thinking about it. All I need to do is picture his arms around me, hugging me tight, and his chest pressed against my back, and I know.

  I want him.

  When the movie is over, Freja and I head to the left bank of the Seine near Jussieu where we meet up with her gang. My well-informed friend has discovered a lively open-air “dance floor” on the river’s edge where people gather May through September for improvised outdoor parties.

  When we get there, funky sixties music is playing, and couples whirl in the center while groups of people stand around nursing their drinks, watching, and chatting. There’s a carefreeness and childish joy in the air that reminds me of Renoir’s Bal du moulin de la Galette that Freja and I saw at the Musée d’Orsay last weekend.

  Ariel, a Spanish guy from our group, holds his hand out to Freja as soon as the music changes. “You said you could tango.”

  She gives him a sly smile and takes his hand. “I did.”

  My jaw drops when the pair of them begin to move with such grace and coordination you’d think they did this for a living. A part of me envies their European polish and savoir faire, but mostly I’m just awed by how good they are at the tango.

  When a man tries to pull me into the dancers’ circle, I shake my head and explain that I prefer to watch. Truth is, I’m so bad at dancing, I only do it on my own or with Sam. The man tries to persuade me, gives up, and finds another partner.