Chapter 6
“This,” Nathan threw his arms out in a sweeping gesture, “is the Notre Dame Cathedral in all its glory.”
Cathreese titled her head as she studied the gothic masterpiece. It was magnificent! Cathreese was in awe. She had never seen something as beautiful as this. The Notre Dame was indeed better than what she saw in pictures.
“Awesome, huh ?” Nathan sent a tumble of small stones into the grainy depths. “So I assume you like it then. ”
“Like it? No, I love it!”
Nathan laughed at her enthusiasm, his tiny dimple slicing across his cheek. “You’re just brainwashed by the idea of being in a foreign country. Get back to me in a few weeks; you’ll have changed your mind. Paris is not that fun when you’re actually from it.”
“Paris IS gorgeous.”
“So IS America.” They were walking along the path that ran parallel to the canal. A group of grandmother types smiled when they passed and Cathreese heard a whisper of ‘such a cute couple.’ The old woman was obviously losing her eyesight in her last few years because Nathan was gorgeous, but Cathreese paled in comparison to him.
Nathan was watching Cathreese out of the corner of his eye, a small smirk spreading across her face as he waited for her inevitable reply. She knew exactly what he was expecting. He thought she would say that America was boring, which would back up his ‘Paris isn’t fun when you’re from it’ theory. But she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, and besides, she wasn’t much of a liar.
“America is absolutely beautiful,” Cathreese said honestly, loving the way the confusion playing across Nathan’s face made him even more adorable then before.
“Where are you from? Like what state?”
“Seattle.”
Nathan nodded to himself and Cathreese could see a new argument forming behind those soul searching eyes. “Do you think Seattle is beautiful?”
“I know where you’re going with this. No I don’t think Seattle is that great, but I do think Oregon and Yellowstone National Park and the Carolina beaches and the Florida Keys and the California redwoods and Maine’s fog and the plains of Oklahoma and Michigan’s lakes are beautiful. Just because I don’t think my city is exactly picturesque doesn’t mean the rest of the county isn’t.”
Nathan’s eyes were alive with something that Cathreese usually ran from; mischief. He had a plan, one that Cathreese didn’t need to hear to know it wasn’t something she would go along with. Cathreese was a thinker; she thought over important conversations for days before they actually happened. In the fifteen minutes it took her to meet Nathan this morning she had over ten different ideas in her head of how their day would go. Cathreese was not the kind of girl who went and did things on a whim, but the spark in Nathan’s baby blues told her that he was.
***
***
The email that Cathreese received from Nathan that night put her even more on edge.
To Cathreese (you’re gonna need a nickname, I love your name and all but it’s too much of a mouthful)
Cathreese fiddled with the mouse, fighting the urge to keep scrolling. She knew what was coming wasn’t going to be good due to the fact that Nathan had up and run on her that morning at the canal. He had left her stranded with a call of “Check your email tonight. I’ve got a plan.” Cathreese hated those words ‘I have a plan.’ Phoebe had gotten her involved in one of her schemes once and the two of them had ended up locked in the freezer of the local McDonald’s for over an hour before the firefighters came and broke the door down. After that incident Cathreese had turned into a goody two shoes. Her idea of a wild night was extra butter on her popcorn.
They say the best way for people to truly get to know each other is to throw them into an unexpected, sometimes life threating, situation. So that is what I propose to you (not the life threating part). I have already talked to your aunt and she’s given her approval. Meet me at the graveyard tomorrow at 9:30. Bring a backpack with a few changes of clothes, a camera, and money if you have any. You won’t need much else.
We’re going on an adventure.
Nathan didn’t bother to sign it, so his last words kept ringing in her head. They screamed to her as she ate dinner, danced across her mind as she showered, and settled on the edge of her thoughts as she tossed and turned in bed.
What did he mean adventure? What had she gotten herself into?
Cathreese didn’t just do big things, like adventures, without at least a month’s worth of planning. She didn’t go on adventures with guys she just met, period. No matter how cute and trustworthy they seemed. She lived for uniformity, for the structure of a routine. It had taken a lot of persuading from Phoebe just to get her on the plane to London. She knew Paris would be good for her, but she still thought it through and changed her mind almost every day for the four months leading up to the trip. If Caiden hadn’t dumped her two weeks before her plane was due to take to the air above the Atlantic, she probably would be tanning by his pool right now. Cathreese had really just entertained the thought of Paris for her mother and Phoebe’s sakes, but losing the only boy she had ever felt anything for had changed her mind. So here she was, expecting to relax and forget about her lost love, but now finding herself sucked into a crazy, unknown adventure with the most attractive boy she’d ever seen.
There was no way this was ending well.
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Author's Note: School has been hectic. That's all I can say T.T
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When in Paris
Teen Fiction"Walk with me under the Parisian sky through the dimly-lit streets and beyond the winding lanes. Travel with me through the intoxicating Parisian air through the serpentine roads that tell ancient stories of fading heroes and mist...
