“Ashley,” Heather breathed out. “What’re you doing here?”
Ashley eyed us suspiciously.
“I can ask you the same thing. Anyways, I’m here to find you because Rachael is looking for you for God knows what reason so you better find her and talk to her right now before she goes berserk.”
Our synchronized sighs of relief followed. Ashley didn’t hear our talk.
Heather nodded. “I’ll go find her right away.”
Heather left and with a small smile in my direction, Ashley left for her room too. I closed the door and rested my head against it. That was close. If Ashley had heard us, we were bound to get in big trouble.
***
The next morning I found Ethan in the hotel lobby with his phone and laptop surrounding him. As soon as he caught sight of me, he instantly snatched his phone and held it protectively against his chest.
I chuckled and made my way to where he was sitting.
“Don’t worry, I won’t damage your phone.” I said, taking a seat next to him.
“I can never trust you with that.” For extra measure, he pushed his phone into his pocket.
“What’re you doing?” I asked as I eyed up the files in front of him and the various tabs open on the laptop.
Ethan glanced at the laptop and shrugged. “I don’t have much work to do today and that’s kind of boring. I don’t know what to do. I’m looking for any meetings or any other work I have in Paris but I think I did most of it yesterday.”
“Seriously?”
“What?”
“Why do you like to work so much? You’re such a workaholic.” I gestured at the table to prove my point.
“I’m not. I just don’t know what else to do right now and just because I like to work a little too much does not mean that I’m a workaholic.”
“Did you even have a little fun in the time that we’ve been here?”
Ethan cleared his throat and I could see the beginning of a smirk forming at the corner of his lips. “It depends on what you mean by fun.”
I threw a backrest pillow at him which hit him at the side of his face. “Not like that, you shithead.”
Ethan let out a laugh. “Well, then no I didn’t have fun.”
I pointed a finger at him. “That’s because you don’t know how to have fun.”
“Then teach me.”
I stood up and looked down at him. “Get up.”
“What? Why?”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him up. ” I’m going to make sure you have fun for once in your life.”
“Okay? Wait, let me drop my things in my room.”
I saw a man who was part of the hotel staff walk by and stopped him. “Here, take it to Ethan’s room. Thank you.” I said, shoving the laptop in the man’s hand who looked confused for a bit. I gave him his room number and he left to complete the task.
I turned back to Ethan. “Now let’s go.”
Ethan followed me out of the hotel. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. Do you know this area? If I take you anywhere will you be able to find the way back to the hotel.”
“I guess. I mean I’ve been here a lot of times and I think I’ll be able to find the way back.” He didn’t sound perfectly sure about that but I decided to ignore that.
“Good,” I grinned at him. “And anyway, you have your phone so you can call your driver if we get lost.”
“Right. Just don’t try to damage my phone.” The fact that he wasn’t teasing and was actually serious about it made me roll my eyes at him.
I hit his arm playfully and to my surprise, he hit me back softly on my arm.
We walked on the street for a bit before Ethan spoke up. “Where exactly are we going?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know yet. How about we go to the Eiffel Tower?”
“We have been there a thousand times.”
“But I haven’t gone there for almost two years now!” I protested.
“Fine, let’s go.” He sighed.
We took a cab, much to Ethan’s dismay, to reach there.
Ethan wanted to take the elevator but I simply pushed him towards the stairs. When he grunted about all the walking he would be required to do, I made a jab at him about his fitness. This seemed to rile him up as he suddenly started skipping up the stairs a lot faster.
“What happened? Can’t match my speed?” He taunted, seeing me panting for breath.
“Hell no,” I said in between gasps. “Race you to the top.”
With that I pulled myself up and started running up the stairs to catch up with him. He was confused for a few precious seconds during which I gained on him.
We bounded up the stairs, making sure we didn’t run into people or step on them. There were a lot of people, many of which were moving at a snail’s pace making me feel aggravated. I was soon starting to lose sight of Ethan.
After what felt like forever, I finally reached the top only to find Ethan causally leaning against the railing. I groaned.
“You really shouldn’t race with people you don’t have a single chance of winning over.”
“You were just lucky.”
“Yeah? How so?”
“The people in front of me were moving so slow!”
Ethan laughed, offering a hand to my hunched up figure. I stood up straight, ignoring his hand and looked at the world below.
I had never been here. This was my first time of being on the Eiffel Tower. It was amazing. The sight was breathtaking and I didn’t feel like getting off of the tower anytime soon.
There was a big set of binoculars and I grabbed it before anyone else got their hands on it.
“Wow. It’s beautiful.”
Ethan didn’t say anything as he just stared out into the distance with his arms resting on the railing.
We spent about an hour up there, talking and taking in sights until Ethan eventually had to drag me down. If permitted, I would’ve spent the whole night there. It would have been amazing to sleep under the stars and above the vibrant city lights. I would’ve felt on top of the world. But sadly all good things must come to an end and mine did a lot sooner.
After we got down, I was hungry. Ethan suggested we go back to the hotel because apparently this was enough fun for him but I wasn’t going to go back just yet.
I dragged him to a local eatery and Ethan’s face was worth a picture. I knew eating in a small restaurant wasn’t his first choice to have food at but he sat down on a chair nonetheless.
“I hope they have good food or I’m out of here.” He said, surveying his surroundings.
“Don’t worry, I think you’ll love it here.”
We ordered some local delicacies and although initially Ethan was hesitant to take a bite but when he did there was no stopping him.
His healthy food diet flew out the window as he mindlessly ordered more food and gobbled it up all. Even I didn’t eat as much as I saw him eating, like a pig, might I add.
This side of Ethan, who loved the food a small restaurant he would otherwise not glance at offered, who raced me to the top of the Eiffel tower and who wasn’t always talking about work was a fun side of him I didn’t knew existed.
I was more than glad he was having fun which did not include him working.
When we were done, we paid for the food and set out walking on the busy street. It was a little past three in the afternoon.
“What’s next?”
“I googled a while back about what else we can do and I was not disappointed. There’s a lot remaining to see. For now, we are going to The Contemporary Art Museum of The City of Paris,” I announced.
Ethan grimaced. “I’m not into art.”
“Too bad you don’t have a choice.”
We reached the museum which was totally free because it was a municipal museum. It was just a few minutes walk from the tower. It showcased permanent as well as temporary modern art from 20th century till present day.
The museum was so vast and so beautiful that we spent a few hours just looking through all of them. Ethan didn’t seem all that interested at first but then at the end I was the one who had to forcefully drag him out because he whined about how it ended so early.
“You act like a kid. Have you never seen a museum before?” I asked when we got out.
“No, I was never interested in it.” He stopped walking and narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t act like a kid.”
“Oh, of course not,” I said sarcastically which he chose to ignore.
“So, since when were you interested in these kind of things?” Ethan asked after a few minutes of silent walking.
“I just did,” I shrugged, lying through my teeth.
“This is so not like you. I mean two years back if you had taken me to have some ‘fun’ with you, I would’ve assumed you’d take me to watch a movie, or worse, take me to a mall for shopping. Nothing close to roaming the streets, visiting places like the museum or even the tower, eating at a small restaurant,” he said shaking his head. “That is so not you. I can’t help but notice that you are nothing like how you were before.”
“People change,” I said, avoiding eye contact as I was sure I would find it uncomfortable and hard to lie to his face.
He gestured to me. “Such a drastic change in two years?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I was saved by a local cotton candy seller. “Look, cotton candy.”
He looked at me weirdly. “Yes, I’m aware it’s cotton candy.”
“You idiot, I mean let’s go and get some.”
“Cotton candy? Are you crazy. Do you even know how many calories there might be in it.”
“You just ate a truckload of food a few hours ago.” I deadpanned.
“You used to be the one freaking out about the calories.”
“You won’t get fat by eating just one cotton candy.”
“It wouldn’t seem like that but it would take ages to get rid of that fat.”
I huffed, annoyed. “I can’t believe I’m fighting over eating a cotton candy. Can you let loose for at least a day?”
“Aren’t we a little too old to eat cotton candy?”
“No one is too old to eat cotton candy. Now let’s go,” I didn’t give him time to protest as I dragged him by his arm and towards the stall.
Once we got our cotton candies, I shoved one in his hand and took a bite of mine.
“This is getting really weird.”
“What is?” I asked.
“This is not you.”