The leaves rustled in the early evening breeze, as worlds collided and destiny reigned supreme.

Dante stood in front of Neela and Antonio with hands firmly on his hips; he was nothing short of triumphant.

Neela jogged her memory for details of the long-forgotten métro man quest. "Before you rock my world, I have to know; it wasn't the composite sketch, right?" She frowned. "Oh my god; was it the sketch?!"

"A Sketch?" Antonio said with sudden interest. "There is a sketch of me?"

Dante patted Antonio on the shoulder. "Shhhh...just sit there and look pretty while I explain."

Antonio nodded. "I will try my best."

"Great," Dante said, before shifting his focus back to Neela. "Remember how all the leads were dead?"

Neela nodded. "I mean yeah, you said you weren't even checking the accounts anymore. And then we said we would never speak of it again, remember?" She frowned. "So how did this even happen?" She crossed her arms. "Explain yourself."

"Well know that's what we said, but I may have kept the DM alerts on." He smiled innocently.

Neela smiled back. "Aww; you did that for me in case destiny pulled through?"

He avoided her stare. "I'm gonna be honest here...I left it on in the chance that there'd be unsolicited dick pics."

Antonio nodded in understanding. "That is prudent."

Dante nodded in approval. "I like him Neela; well done!"

Neela grabbed Dante's arm with force. "Focus."

"Ok ok!" he cried, before wiggling his arm free. "So I didn't get any DMs—dick or otherwise—but apparently there were retweets that I didn't see, since that wasn't included in my notification alerts." His eyes widened. "And one of those included one particularly life-altering retweet from a French account."

"Oooh what account?" she asked, wanting to know who to send her regards to for altering the course of her life.

Dante shrugged. "I think it was a bot," he said, ignoring Neela's frown. "Anyhoo...then another bot shared it, and then a couple of other bots shared it...I mean it's weird, they must've thought your 'missed connection' story was anti-democracy or something." He shook his head. "I mean who can really say."

"Or maybe it was a bot that believed in love," Antonio said, his eyes all gooey and intense.

When he noticed Neela and Dante staring at him in shock he immediately blushed. "And by love, I of course am simply referring to...the pursuit of human connection."

Dante nodded sarcastically. "Oh of course!"

Neela stifled a laugh. Antonio was every bit as extra as the typical French guy, but she didn't want to scare him away with excessive mocking. "That was really profound," she somehow managed to say with a straight face.

Dante clapped his hands to recapture their attention. "So fast forward through the interconnected network of the world wide web, and eventually..." he gestured to Antonio, "...this very much not a bot A: saw the thread, B: apparently remembered your fine ass..." he wiggled his eyebrows at Neela, "...and C: he DMed me last week!" He leaned in towards Antonio. "F-Y-I, it would've been fine if you'd sent an unsolicited dick pic."

"Thank you," Antonio said. "I will remember that for—"

"For what?" Neela said suddenly. "For next time?" A stag-five clinger level of thirst inadvertently swept across her face. "How many random 'hos in the city are you currently trying to find?" Like coming out of a weird hypnosis, the thirst quickly drained away and she smiled as casually as ever. "Just joking; obviously."

Dante gave her a weird look before clapping his hands in triumph. "Alright my work here is done!" He dragged them up off the bench and squeezed them into a group hug. "Have fun you two!"

As Dante broke away from the hug, Neela pulled him aside. "Thank you immensely for all of this," she whispered, "but umm...why couldn't you have made us meet on another random day when I'd be looking all glamourous and shit?!"

"I'm going away for a few days with my new beau," he whispered back. "So did you really want to wait and risk Antonio getting scared or backing out?"

She shrugged. "I guess not." She smiled. "Okay go! Meet your beau!"

Instead of leaving, he leaned in close for a final whispered message: "I photocopied his driver's license, so if he kills you, we'll find him."

Neela frowned. "Uhh...thanks I guess?"

With one last wave, Dante turned on his heel, and happily skipped off into the literal sunset.

And then there were two.

They sat back down on the bench.

This was really happening.

What an exciting moment!

So naturally, Neela stared at her shoes.

"So..." she said.

"So..." he replied.

She had a sudden flashback to the first time they'd met, and then the moment when they'd parted, with his face smooshed against the dirty métro window as the train rolled away.

She also remembered getting out at the last stop, and her first realization that she'd probably never see him again for the rest of her life.

Her memory now switched gears to the many moments that had followed, when he would randomly reappear in her thoughts, haunting her like a ghost.

"Wow..." she whispered.

"What are you thinking?" he said with genuine interest.

She peeled her gaze away from her shoes and looked into his eyes. "You really remembered me after all those months?"

His smile was a mixture of relief and nostalgia. "It may have only been a few minutes that we spoke, but it was a very difficult moment to forget."

"It was," she said quietly.

"It is extremely rare to meet anyone who stays in your mind so much," he added. "Who you can be yourself with, even from the very beginning."

She nodded. "It's true; it doesn't happen very often."

They smiled at each other. Until she frowned.

"What is it?" he said.

"It's just...I mean everything you said is right, but jeez...when I think about it now, we talked for what...five minutes?" She shook her head.

"Three minutes in the station and five minutes on the platform," he stated matter-of-factly.

Her eyes widened. "Wow; that is very exact."

He smiled. "Like I say...I remembered."

She started shifting uncomfortably on the bench. Why was this getting weird? Wasn't this the one thing she'd fantasized about?

He watched her squirm. "Now that we are finally here, you are unsure."

She shot him a look. "Wow; that was accurate and scary." She studied his face. "And...yeah, we're here now, which makes me think...now what? Like all this time when I didn't know where you were, it seemed normal to be endlessly curious. And when you're endlessly curious..." she sighed, "...I guess what I'm saying is, it's easy to build up a fantasy in your head when reality has this unknown potential. Like eight minutes is more than enough to whip up a dreamy fantasy!" She frowned. "But what if that eight minutes wasn't anything real?"

She couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. She, who had commissioned a composite sketch to find him. She, who had set up social media accounts in the hopes of getting a hit. It had all seemed so necessary at the time...

"I think you are totally wrong," he suddenly said.

She smirked. "Excuse me?"

"It seems you are saying that eight minutes wasn't enough time to build up anything; is this what you claim?"

"I mean it's not a claim really, more of like...a present-day concern." She smiled innocently. "You know?"

"Okay fine. But I now ask you this: in the past, when you were on those dating apps, and you spent more than eight minutes—maybe triple or ten times that amount—exchanging messages with a guy on the app, what was the usual quality of those many more minutes?"

She scowled. "Ugh don't remind me, I hate those apps." She shuddered. "I am so not looking forward to using those apps again. How was your day? What are you up to? What'd you have for dinner? I don't give a fuck, you're a stranger!"

He laughed. "Exactly! So many minutes, but none of it special." He leaned in a bit closer. "None of it coming close to our eight minutes; do you not agree?"

She let out a long breath, and with it released almost all of her apprehensions. "I agree." And then she frowned again.

"What is it?" he asked, no less patient than before.

"Were you at a fashion week party in June? At the Monnaie de Paris?"

He shook his head. "Definitely not."

"Huh...could've sworn it was you." She started muttering to herself. "Guess all white guys look the same..."

He was too confused by what she was saying to realize he should've been offended.

"I have an idea," he suddenly said.

"I'm listening."

"Maybe we can forget about the past," he suggested. "And perhaps as an alternative...focus on this moment now."

She nodded. "Sounds good to me."

To his surprise she stood up and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" he called out.

She turned back. "Wanna go for a walk?"

He smiled. "It seems you are already doing it, so I suppose I must join."

"Yep; join or die."

They began a slow stroll along the quai. The water shimmered in sunset pink, and the rustle of the trees created an antidote to distant traffic.

It was perfect.

After a minute or so of taking it all in, he finally spoke. "I just realized something," he said.

"What's that?"

"I've never been properly introduced to you. In fact, it was Dante who told me your name."

The realization hit her. "Wow; that's so crazy but you're right." She stopped to extend a firm hand. "I'm Neela, nice to meet you."

He accepted the handshake and it hit them both: their first touch.

His hand felt big and strong, and it enveloped hers in an instant warmth.

She easily could've kept this handshake going for several minutes.

But that would've been weird; very, very weird.

She let go of his hand and started walking again. "C'mon."

He followed her and stumbled on an unseen rock.

She glanced back and burst into laughter. "How's your leg by the way?!"

He couldn't help but laugh at himself as he caught up to her stride. "Actually...the injury became much worse after the stairwell accident where we met."

"Then why are you laughing, weirdo?"

"Because sometimes you can only laugh to get through a difficult experience; like for example, when you meet an exciting person...and then lose them within a few minutes."

She glanced up at him. "You know what I'm glad about?"

He looked at her intently. "Tell me."

"I'm glad that you're not going to disappear in a few minutes." Their stare lingered, but she shifted her gaze to the horizon before he could make a move.

Or maybe he had a back-up move in store.

He cleared his throat nervously before putting his arm around her shoulders.

"Is this okay?" he asked.

She smirked. "Well, you already did it, perv."

He laughed again and kept his arm firmly around her. It made her glad.

Now that he had made his move, she couldn't think of what to do with her own idle arms. Put her arm around his back? Hold his hand? Stroke his hair? She was rusty at this dating thing.

After weighing all the options, she glanced down at his leg instead. "We probably shouldn't keep walking; you look like you're limping."

He nodded sadly. "Yes well...after my leg had to be cut off from the accident, it was then replaced with a log."

She fully started to cackle. "A log?! I don't think you know what you're saying."

"Well..." he squeezed her shoulder, "...maybe you can help me with my English."

She responded to his tender words with a smirk. "I charge a hundred euros an hour," she declared, before adding in a lowered voice: "Or you can just pay me in D..."

He furrowed his brow. "What did you say?"

"What? Nothing!" She looked away in embarrassment before pointing at the sky. "Oooh, look at the pretty sunset; isn't it pretty? Look. Look at it. Now."

"You are a little bossy," he observed.

"A little? That's so cute."

She wrapped both her arms around his waist and sighed; the perfect thing to do with her arms.

As the sun set on Paris, it was only the beginning of another sweeping love story in the city of lights.

Ugh, puke.

Or maybe...it would simply be the beginning of a single date that would end in eventual boredom.

Not a chance.

Neither of them knew what the future would hold, but finally having more than eight minutes to find out?

It was even better than a perfect Paris sunset... 

*** 

[Thank you SO much for reading! 

I hope you enjoyed this story where life is messy, where best friends can be soul mates,  where hope isn't lost, and where being in love isn't the "be all and end all," but rather a nice bonus to adopting a one-eyed cat ;-). 

I wrote this story first as a screenplay, and it made the top 3% of  2020 The Big Break International Screenplay Competition—out of thousands of scripts! 

Would you like to see this story as a movie one day? Then help me spread the word on Wattpad and maybe we can do it!

Thanks again for reading! If you'd like to read more of my stories, I have a paid story called "24 Hours in Paris" which is full of humor and romance, or if you can't afford a paid story right now, I have a hilarious fun, and romantic spin-off to Cinderella called "The Next Cinderella" which is totally free!]

PS: a whole new version of 24 Hours in Paris is being published by W by Wattpad Books, and will be available in bookstores on May 10th! Follow me on social media for all the updates. 

And one last thing: 

It's great interacting on Wattpad, but I'm trying to figure out how Wattpaders would like to connect outside of the platform too! To help get some clarity, it would be great if you could take a couple of minutes to fill out this very short questionnaire about which social media platforms you use, and what type of content you'd like to see from me on there; thank you!

Link to questionnaire: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfIhuFkmLn5Qqy4w4yg3GXkS-TnuI0T768yV54gmlMrfcxQyQ/viewform