A/N: thanks to Alenor and my anonymous reviewer! And Alenor, I hope to answer your question within the next few chapters. It was an oversight of mine not to bring it up earlier.

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Because He Said So
Chapter Two

The two surfaced from the Metro, the dankness dissipating on a wind of fresh air as the stairwell opened into a wide, busy street. Reanne gasped despite herself.

“That’s the Eiffel Tower,” she whispered breathily, eyes wide and mouth hanging.

Tyler chuckled. “Mate, good thing I’m bringin’ ya here firs’ thing. Be an embarrassment otherwise tryin’ to take ya aroun’ town with your mouth waggin’ every time ya see ‘er from afar.”

Reanne followed closely behind as Tyler crossed the street with great agility, easily dodging the cars as they rushed by. She scowled. “Well what did you expect? This is my first time in Paris.”

Tyler whistled, hands hooked in his belt loops as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Must o’ been pretty bad break up, then, eh, mate?”

Reanne squared her jaw and walked past him. Tyler’s shoes smacked against the pavement as he quickened his pace to catch up.

“Ya can’t keep runnin’, mate. Only way o’ gettin’ over it’ll be facin’ it.”

Reanne cleared her throat and stopped to face him, her eyes wandering across his open face, taking in the way his eyes seemed to beg her to be truthful, the way his lips parted just barely offering her an innocent invitation. Reanne’s lips flattened and twisted, caught between the budding desire to tell someone about her last month and the apprehension that had since kept her silent. How could he, some man who had only just met her, even begin to understand what it had been like? When her friends had simply laughed it off, when even her parents had encouraged her to shrug it aside -- as if she had been the only unsuspecting one, the only one stupid enough to think that Jamie Balinger, the handsome, charismatic, bigger-than-life Jamie Balinger, could really keep loving her.

Or had he? -- Of course he had, she thought quickly. -- Had he ever told her that? -- Every night, she thought again. -- Had he meant it? -- And there her confidence wavered, her thoughts halted by a murky, chest-deep swamp of denial, wretched hopefulness, and unwilling acknowledgement. Maybe the real question should have been -- did it matter now? Did any of that past matter now?

Reanne nodded slowly, working up the nerve to meet his gaze. “Can I have a few more days? So I can save up a little bit of happiness to see me through it?”

Tyler nodded in return, a confirming nod that reached out with an invisible hand and nicked her chin supportively. But his seriousness washed away with the next excited tourist group rushing past. He pointed over his shoulder at the Eiffel Tower. “All right, then? There’s a tower be waitin’ for our visit.”

---

Reanne leaned against the rail with her hip, fingers entwined, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth pressed firmly behind her teeth. She made an awed clucking noise at the landscape that spread out before her. There was an array of green, gray, and brown, a brick red smattered with fading blues and yellows, all embraced by a whitewashed blue sky that seemed to bob in and out of the cities corners, weaving through its streets and beckoning Reanne with a suggestive hand.

“You a painter, then?” Tyler leaned one elbow against the banister beside her, studying her face as she had been studying the landscape.

Reanne glanced at him skeptically before rolling her eyes back toward the Parisian horizon. “What in the world made you think that?”

Tyler shrugged and turned to face the city as well. “The way your eyes are scanning, it looks like you’re seeing somethin’ that I can’t see, like you’re noticin’ colors or somethin’ that I can’t. When I look out there? I see buildings. Streets. People, sometimes. No order to it, no secret to be picked out.”

Reanne eyed him sheepishly, a light blush coloring her cheeks and nose. “I always wanted to learn how to paint.”

Tyler laughed, planting his feet against the bottom of the fence and straightening his arms to lean back so their eyes were level. “Why wait to learn, mate, when you could be paintin’ now?”

Reanne laughed back. “What a waste of money! Investing in all of those brushes, easels, papers, and not even knowing how to use them properly? Let alone the time I’d waste trying to figure it out for myself. If people already did it once, why should I try to do it from scratch?”

Tyler shrugged. “You could be a natural. You could do it better.”

Reanne felt herself softening at the way he stroked her ego. “You really think so?”

He shrugged again. “I’m sayin’ I’m thinkin’ ya could be. Until ya prove me wrong, nothin’ else is gonna stop me from thinkin’ ya could be otherwise, right?”

“I -- I guess,” she stuttered.

Tyler sighed, flexing his arms to right himself. “People are always thinkin’ of the negatives, the things ya can’t be instead of the things ya could. What’s to say that everyone is stuck bein’ nothin’? Why’s that the normal? Why can’t we all be somethin’ till we prove we’re not? Instead of nothin’ until we prove we are?”

Reanne stood silently beside him, unsure how to respond to his sudden outburst.

Tyler turned quickly to her, a lighthearted grin replacing the deep, thoughtful look on his face. “Race ya to the top.”

---

The two strolled down the street towards the apartment. They had gotten off at a Metro stop several before the stop closest to the apartment so they could enjoy the slowly setting sun and the warm summer air. A waft of baked goods ran under Reanne’s nose.

“Mmm…” she murmured under her breath, unable to help herself.

“Ya like that?” Tyler said, pausing before the glass doors of a bakery they were passing.

Reanne shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “It’s alright.”

Tyler rolled his eyes and grinned. “Are all Americans as difficult to please as you are?”

Reanne pursed her lips. “I’m just trying to act more Parisian, is all. What with your complaining about my excitement over the Eiffel Tower, what condescending thing would you think of to say about my excitement about fresh pastries?”

“Well, for starters, no one can deny the jolliness of a fresh pastry. Second, we need supper.” He emphasized the British word.

Reanne smiled. “Alright, then, in we go.”

He put up a hand to stop her. “In I go, mate. I’ll treat ya.”

Reanne frowned. “It’s not that I can’t pay for it myself.”

“It’s jes’ a kind gesture” Tyler said it lightly, but Reanne could tell by the way he straightened his shoulders that she had offended him.

“Chivalry is dead and gifts are overrated,” she retorted gruffly.

“Ya mad at me, then,” he jeered at her. “Ya been mad the entire day ‘n’ ya just now showin’ it?”

“I’m not m--" she started, but he cut her off.

“Yer mad.” It was a statement of fact. “Why?”

Reanne pursed her lips and crossed her arms. She turned to look down the street away from him. An itching, nagging feeling had indeed come over her, clouding the happiness she had felt climbing the tower and spending the earlier part of the afternoon with him. It wasn’t anger, though. Frustration, maybe, mixed with a tinge of annoyance at his intrusion into so many barricaded parts of her life.

“What’re ya thinkin’?” He pressed her.

“Nothing.” She stated adamantly.

“I’ll keep pressin’ ya for more, if ya ain’t goin’ to give in easily.”

“What, so you’ve been purposefully annoying me all day?”

He tilted his head at her sharp tone. “All day, mate? I was meanin’ jes’ now.”

“You --" she started, but closed her mouth quickly.

“I what?” He paused to raise an eyebrow. “I bother ya? I ask ya things ya don’t want to talk about right now? I say things that make ya uncomfortable? I’ve appeared out o’ nowhere interruptin’ ya quiet, new life in Paris?”

Reanne stammered uselessly, opening and closing her mouth in shock.

Tyler shrugged. “It’s not rude to acknowledge the truth, mate. I didn’ guess that ya’d be up for livin’ with meh, but when ya didn’ say nothin’ this mornin’ I thought I mighta been wrong.”

Reanne glanced up at him, his shoulders up and his hands gesturing before him. She rubbed her bare upper arm. “I didn’t think I had a choice,” she mumbled.

“Ya’ve always got a choice. Ya’ve got the forms sayin’ ya own a two-bedroom flat, ya?” Reanne nodded, embarrassed. “Then why the bloody ‘ell would ya let me stay?”

“Well, you had keys…” she stammered.

“Ya, I had keys. But what’s that to say I didn’t jes’ not return ‘em from a previous time there?”

Reanne bit her bottom lip. The thought had never occurred to her. “You seem honest enough.”

He threw up his hands. “The world’s a dirty place, mate. Ya can’t trust every lad ya meet to be tellin’ the truth.”

Reanne frowned, looking up at him with concerned eyes. “So you’ve been lying to me all day?”

Tyler sighed. “The point is that ya shoulda put ya foot down earlier today, ‘stead o’ waitin’ to argue with me over some li’l point.”

“This was totally unrelated,” Reanne said sharply.

“But ya don’t want me in that flat with ya.”

“I--" But she stopped herself. The weariness from her long day of travel and trying to remain courteous to Tyler had thoroughly worn her patience. She nodded slightly without looking at him.

There was a jingle of keys. Tyler held them out to her, low enough so she could see them without raising her head. “Take ‘em,” he said, shaking them gently between his pinched fingers.

Reanne’s eyes flickered up. “I couldn’t --" she said instinctively.

Tyler grasped her hand, untwisting it from being folded across her chest, and pealed open her fingers. Dropping the keys into her palm, he closed her fingers around them. “Ya jes’ did.” He said. There was no trace of bitterness, just a small smile at the corner of his mouth. He stepped back from her, starting to walk down the street away from the apartment. “I’ll be by tomorrow mornin’ for my stuff,” he called over his shoulder with a wave.

Reanne stared at his retreating back in disbelief, the weight of the keys heavy in her hand.