Huit

The café Harry had driven me to was quite crowded, plenty of people sitting at small tables enjoying their brunch outdoors in the warm Parisian sun. Women with sunhats and large sunglasses enjoyed meals next to men in colorful shirts with gleaming gold wristwatches.

Harry had pulled up to the curb and gotten out, hurrying over to my side of the car and opening the door to help me out. His hand was held out to me as I stepped out of the car, my hand taking his politely and allowing him to lead me to the sidewalk in front of the café. A valet came to take the car away, but before the young man got into Harry's car, Harry had placed his hand firmly on the valet's shoulder, telling him something quickly in French. The valet boy had quickly nodded and continued to the car, driving it away carefully to be parked.

"What did you tell him?" I asked as Harry held the café door open for me.

"That there better not be a single scratch on that car when he brings it back." Harry informed me after we both stepped into the small café together.

There were tables and people everywhere, more than I could imagine would fit into the restaurant. Waiters and waitresses moved quickly yet carefully through the labyrinth of diners, silver trays being carried away and menus picked up as orders were filled and eaten. The occasional chatter of people or scraping of silverware against plates was abundant, people all enjoying their delicious smelling and tasting meals. A hostess in a white dress came over to us, looking us over.

"Deux?" She asked in a delicate French accent, Harry nodding before asking her something else, pointing over to a small table for two in the corner of the café.

"Oui, monsieur." She nodded before leading the way, Harry's palm pressing on my lower back to urge me forward as we walked over to the small table Harry had spotted. Harry pulled my chair back for me to sit down like a gentleman. I thanked him as I sat down, straightening out the skirt of my dress as I crossed my legs. Harry took his seat across from me, and the hostess placed two menus in front of us before taking her leave.

I had felt like banging my head against the table when the menus were all in French, but in reality all I did was sigh and bite my lip. I looked over it, hoping there was something in English I would recognize, but sadly there was nothing that was familiar. I looked up at Harry, hoping maybe he could translate some of it, but my eyes turned wide when I saw him smirking at me over his menu.

"W-what?" I asked, making Harry laugh. His dimples popped when he did and his emerald eyes sparkled with amusement.

"You can't read any of it, can you?" He continued to chuckle at me while my cheeks were slowly turning pink as Harry had caught onto me. I shook my head no and set my menu on the table as Harry continued to laugh. "You had the most serious face on while you were trying to read the menu, it was hilarious!"

"Glad to know I make you laugh." I grumbled, Harry smirking at me.

"You are quite possibly the funniest girl I have ever met. First you go into the men's room and then you pretend to read French?" Harry snickered as he shook his head, eyes returning to his menu for a second before flickering back to me.

"You can't blame me. I don't know French." I defended myself, Harry still smiling.

"And yet you're in France? How does that happen?"

I opened my mouth to answer him, but a waitress had come by and asked something, Harry asking me what I wanted to drink. I told him a water was fine, and after he told the waitress what we wanted, she left and we were back to our conversation.

"I'm spending the summer here with my grandfather before I go back to the United States to start college." I told him, setting my lips into a hard line and scrunching my eyebrows together to glare at him. I must have seemed as threatening as a kitten, sitting here in a pastel pink dress that almost matched the shade of my cheeks.

"Un américain à Paris." Harry muttered, rolling his eyes jokingly as he continued his smirking towards me. "Of course."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. I may not have known French, but I knew when I recognized certain words, and Harry said them like being American was a bad thing.

"You Americans are annoying. And fat." Harry said, setting his menu on the table before he fiddled with the rings on his fingers.

"We are no-...okay some of us may be fat, but we are not annoying." I argued, Harry laughing.

"Tu ne sais rien." Harry continued to laugh, but just then the waitress came back with two waters, setting them down on coasters on the table. I began to panic, surely she would ask for our orders next right? Harry's laughter died down when he saw the stressed look on my face, holding his hand out for my menu. I was confused as I handed it to him, Harry quickly ordering for both of us. The waitress nodded as she wrote them down on her notepad, taking the menus and setting off for the kitchen.

"What did you get for me?" I asked, still a bit stressed. My fingers were knotting themselves together, my heart pounding. I was never an adventurous eater, I usually ate the same thing over and over whenever my family would go out to eat. Grace would always tease me about it, but I had my foods I was comfortable with, and I never really tried anything new. I hardly ate anything with Grandfather that one dinner, if this was going to continue I was either going to have to find some kind of American food chain here or starve for all of summer.

"Just a few crepes. You'll like them, don't worry." Harry assured me, my lungs drawing in a deep breath to calm me down. If I starved, it was Harry's fault.

Thankfully, I didn't starve. I actually liked what Harry had ordered me, and Harry had nicely showed me where it was on the menu so I would know for next time. I was a bit surprised when he said 'next time', I figured this was a one-time thing. I had no doubt Grace would freak out over this.

Harry had paid and followed me out towards the entrance of the café, telling the valet which car was his so we could leave. Lucky for the valet boy, Harry seemed happy with the condition of his car when it was brought back and tipped him nicely. We both got into the luxury vehicle and put our seatbelts on before Harry stepped on the gas and sent us racing through the Parisian streets.

"Now, you said you wanted to see the Eiffel Tower?" Harry asked, replacing the sunglasses over his sparkling green eyes.

"Actually," I bit my lip as I stared at the outline of the Paris landmark in the distance, buses of tourists and plenty of people surrounding it. I wasn't in the mood to wait in line or walk up massive sets of stairs in these heels. "We can just drive around, as long as that's okay with you."

And so we went, driving through Paris and wasting time. I could see other landmarks from a distance as Harry navigated through the streets. The feeling of the wind in my hair was indescribable, like I was a bird soaring high through the sky.

I was brought back down to Earth when we stopped at a red light.

"So you're a model?" I looked over to Harry, who nodded.

"I've been modeling since I was eighteen." He replied, my head tilting to the side as he brushed his hair back with his hand.

"And how old are you now?" I asked.

"Twenty-one."

He was only a few years older than me, and he had enough money to probably go to my college three times over, plus graduate school. Harry had his life all figured out, and I was just hoping I made it through nursing school alive. How different we were, practically from two different worlds.

Two different worlds, yet here I was in Harry's world, driving through Paris in a car that I used to dream of being in. Maybe I could lose myself in his world, lose myself in a fantasy of fast cars and high dollar clothes.

That would be a nice change.

As we drove back towards Louis Vuitton, I couldn't help my smile from growing wider and wider, and by the time Harry pulled up to the front of the building I was beaming bright. I got out of his fancy car, my hand taken into his before I could walk up the steps to the entrance. A piece of paper was placed into my palm before Harry bid me goodbye and drove off along the streets.

I waved goodbye until I couldn't see him anymore, my hand unfolding the paper I now recognized as the receipt from the restaurant. It was completely in French, except for a small phrase handwritten at the bottom. It was a phone number, followed by a swirling thin letter H.

I blinked several times before looking up back towards the streets, amazed at the thought that a male model would give me such a thing.

Two different worlds...maybe they could collide after all.


A/N: Double update! Vote and comment your thoughts! -Maddie


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