The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 2

📖 The Story Continues

The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 2

The hotel door closed behind Sophie, but Justin continued staring at it as if she might return and admit the entire scene had been a joke. The cash she had left lay on the table in a neat stack, absurdly out of place in a suite that belonged to one of his own hotels. Of all the ways he had imagined meeting Sophie Swift again, being mistaken for a call boy had never occurred to him.

He picked up one of the bills and let out a quiet laugh. Offense should have come easily, yet what he felt most was disbelief mingled with curiosity. Sophie had rushed away without recognizing him, while he had known her almost from the instant she appeared at the bar the night before.

The truth was, he had met her once seven years ago. It had been his first day in Paris for a foreign exchange program, and the city had greeted him with rain, impatient crowds, and a thief more skillful than he was prepared for. By the time he noticed what was missing, both his phone and wallet were gone.

Young Justin had stood on an unfamiliar street with no money, no local contacts, and only an address he could barely pronounce. His French was useless under pressure. Each passing minute made the city seem larger and colder, while everyone around him moved with the certainty of people who belonged there.

Desperation finally overcame pride. He approached a man near the curb and asked, “Excuse me. Do you speak English? Can I borrow some money?” The stranger looked him over with open contempt, as though Justin were running a particularly unconvincing scam.

“Go fuck yourself,” the man snapped before turning away. When Justin failed to move, the stranger repeated each word with cruel emphasis. “Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

Justin stood stunned in the drizzle, anger and humiliation burning beneath his skin. He had never felt so helpless. For one reckless second, he considered grabbing the man’s shoulder, but starting a fight without identification or a working phone would only turn disaster into catastrophe.

“American?” a woman’s voice asked behind him. Justin turned and found a young woman holding a small camera, her expression bright with concern rather than suspicion. A loose strand of hair clung to her cheek from the damp air, and she looked as out of place as he felt.

“Yes,” he answered cautiously. Hope arrived so quickly that he was afraid to trust it. “You speak English?”

“Yeah, and let me guess—your wallet and your phone were stolen?” Her sympathetic smile softened the embarrassment of being so easily read. When Justin asked how she knew, she shrugged as if having one’s life dismantled on a Paris street were merely an initiation ritual.

“It happens,” she said. “I was in your shoes not too long ago.” There was no mockery in her voice, only the easy compassion of someone who remembered exactly how frightening the experience had been.

She opened her bag and searched through it while Justin tried to explain that he did not need much. The last thing he wanted was to take advantage of another stranded student. Before he could finish protesting, she pressed several bills into his hand.

“This should be enough to get you a taxi to wherever you want to go,” she told him. The amount was generous enough to cover more than a single ride, but she dismissed his concern with another smile. “Good luck.”

Justin glanced down at the money, then back up, stunned by the contrast between her kindness and the hostility he had met moments before. He wanted to promise he would repay her. More than that, he wanted a reason to see her again once he no longer looked like a helpless tourist.

She was already moving away when he called after her. “Wait. I didn’t get your name.” His voice rose above the traffic, and for a moment he feared the city would swallow her before she heard him.

The woman turned while continuing to walk backward. “Sophie Swift,” she called. The name fixed itself in his mind before he had the chance to offer his own.

She lifted her camera, framing him through the viewfinder. “Smile for the camera!” she teased. Still bewildered, Justin obeyed, and the shutter captured him standing beneath a gray Paris sky with her money clenched in one hand.

Then a group of pedestrians passed between them. By the time the sidewalk cleared, Sophie had disappeared into the crowd. Justin searched the nearby corner, but he had no phone with which to find her and no useful information beyond her name.

He never forgot the young woman who had rescued his first day in Paris. Years brought wealth, power, and hotels of his own, yet that small act of generosity remained vivid because Sophie had offered it when he had nothing to give her in return. He had often wondered whether she remembered him at all.

Now Justin looked at the two thousand dollars she had left beside his bed and received his answer. Sophie Swift did not remember the stranded young man from seven years ago—and unless he stopped her, she would leave Paris believing their reunion had been nothing more than a paid night with a stranger.