~Chapter 10~
Paris had always been one of my favourite cities. The bustling atmosphere coupled with the history and beauty of the place never ceased to amaze me.
Before today, I would have confidently told anyone that I had done almost everything possible to do in the city, from the general tourist things like visiting the Eifel Tower to partying at raves in underground warehouses to joining in on public marches and protests.
However, one thing I never thought I'd experience was being inside of a Parisian jail room with a toddler crying in my arms, a child doing a jigsaw puzzle next to me, a policeman snoozing at his desk and a guy pissing into a bucket in the corner of the confined space.
How did this happen? One word: Zack.
~*~*~
It all started at eight o'clock this morning when I had heard banging at my hotel door.
Today was my one day off so, naturally, since I didn't get many of those, I planned on sleeping in. Of course, Zack had other plans when he showed up at my door, grinning like an idiot with my niece, Olivia, in his arms and our little brother, Carter, by his side.
He knew if he brought Carter I wouldn't be able to refuse to spend the day with them because I had a massive soft spot for the kid. He was a redhead like me, although I was pretty sure his hair would become much darker as he grew up. It had already darkened significantly since the last time I saw him but he was still the same adorable little brother I remembered.
Carter was the calmest in the family and I'd always thought he had an old soul even if he was only nine. He was a triplet to my brother Noah and sister Brooklyn and it was obvious he was the peacemaker out of the three. Although, he did make an exception when it came to terrorising my oldest brother, Nathan, alongside Noah. He just couldn't resist and I didn't blame him; Nathan was fun to piss off.
Apparently, Nathan was in Paris as well as Zack, Carter and Olivia to support mum and I for the next week. He had to help mum today though so Zack had agreed to watch the kids and let me tell you that was not a good idea. He was terribly irresponsible so there was no way I could leave him alone with them. I'd be lucky if they all made it back in one piece if he was supervising.
So, I had reluctantly agreed to go out with them for the day to help him babysit — that, ladies and gentlemen, was my big mistake.
"Let's show them around the city, it'll be so much fun," Zack suggested once we'd left my hotel room.
"Or we could take them to Disneyland."
Zack's eyes seemed to glow at my suggestion and he nodded vigorously. I laughed at my brother's excitement, getting my phone out to check the train times. Honestly, he was more childish than the kids.
~*~*~
"Harper, can we get ice cream?" Zack asked once we'd been moving around the park for about an hour.
Partially ignoring Zack, I smiled at Carter, who was looking around in excitement at all the things going on around him. Tugging on his hand that was clasped around mine, I pulled him out of his trance and gained his attention. "Do you want ice cream?"
He smiled, showing all of his teeth except for one on the right that had fallen out two days ago. "Yes please but can we go and talk to Goofy first?"
I nodded at him, encouraging him to talk to the character standing no more than three metres away from us. "Looks like you'll get your ice cream after all, Zack."
He fist pumped the air before lifting Olivia up into the air and spinning her around. "We're getting ice cream, Liv-liv," he chanted at her while she giggled, waving her hands about wildly.
I flicked him on the arm but he paid me no mind, continuing to play with Olivia.
"Oh my god. You're Harper King. I'm a huge fan. Can I please get a photo?" I heard someone say from behind me so I turned around to be face to face with a woman who looked to be in her late twenties.
I grinned at her. "Of course."
A few more people seemed to notice me after that and asked for photos and I happily obliged. Contrary to what you'd think, I actually loved taking photos with my fans; it felt amazing if I could make them smile.
About ten minutes later, I made my way back over to Zack. "Come on then, let's get ice cream. Carter co—" I cut myself off mid sentence, eyes widening.
"Zack," I said slowly. "Where's Carter?"
He gave me an incredulous look, motioning over to the person pretending to be Goofy. "He's right over— shit. Fuck. Harper, where the hell is our brother?"
I didn't even bother to reply, already going up to the person pretending to be Goofy in the hopes that they'd know where he was. Unfortunately, they just shook their head at me before turning to the next child waiting to talk to them.
I ran my fingers through my auburn locks, running back to Zack. "How the hell could you lose our brother?"
"You lost him too. Don't blame all this on me."
"But yo—" I started but stop myself, knowing that our bickering would be pointless. I'd kill him after I found Carter. "We'll talk later. Just keep an eye on Olivia. We can't lose her as well," I said, sprinting away from him, shouting Carter's name as I ran about the massive park like a mad woman.
After fifteen minutes of no luck, I started to get more and more desperate, stopping random members of the public in the hopes that they'd seen my little brother. Unfortunately, since we were in France, a lot of them were a bit confused with what I was saying, seeing as I was speaking ridiculously fast. I tried talking to them in French but I was a bit rusty and in my panic all my words seemed to slur together and made even less sense than when I was speaking in incomprehensibly fast English.
Most of them just gave me strange looks before walking away. Not even caring at this point, I started pulling on my hair, still running around looking for my brother. "Carter! Carter!" My eyes scanned over the vast crowds, trying to spot the nine-year-old with hair and eyes akin to mine but to no avail.
With the panic fully settling in, I continued to run about the place, not paying attention to where I was going so I wasn't surprised when I ended up colliding with a large body. However, what I didn't expect was for them to scream out in obvious pain.
Worried, I looked up and noticed that I'd bumped into a security guard and made him spill scalding hot coffee all over his front. I cringed, worry pooling in my eyes as I fished around stupidly for the tissues in my purse. "Je suis désolé. Je suis désolé," I told him frantically, bobbing my head apologetically.
He cursed me and waved his hand in dismissal when I finally managed to find my tissues in my mess of a bag and offered them to him. He turned on his heel, muttering something about 'stupid young people' in french and started to walk away.
He didn't get very far before I heard Zack screeching my name as he charged over to me, his feet thundering on the paved ground. "Harper, wait! Harper!"
Not realising that he wasn't slowing down, I didn't move out of the way and his body collided with mine, sending both of us tumbling to the ground as well as the already angry security guard because he hadn't moved far enough away to evade the commotion in time.
Luckily, Zack had Olivia on his shoulders so managed to stop her feeling any impact from the fall. Instead, she just giggled as we both clambered to our feet, apologising profusely to the security guard.
"That's it," he said in a thick french accent. "Come with me."
Zack chuckled nervously from beside me. "Now, now, this is all just a misunderstanding. There's no need to take us anywhere."
The man shook his balding head at us, the sun reflecting off of it. "Come willingly or I'll have to force you."
Knowing there was no point in arguing, I took Olivia from Zack so she wasn't put in danger by the idiotic decision he was about to make and took a step closer to the security guard.
"Look, we're just looking for our little brother. He ran o—"
The man's demeanour changed from annoyed to threatening instantaneously. "I do not care if you are the Queen of England. You are coming with me. Now."
Before Zack could object and get us into even more trouble, I elbowed him in the ribs and whispered harshly at him. "Zack, just listen to him or we'll never find Carter."
He was going to protest but decided against it, shutting his mouth, realising our brother was more important than hassling an already pissed-off security guard.
~*~*~
"Harper, I can't hold it," Zack whined in my ear.
I groaned, banging my head on the wall as Olivia fussed in my arms, crying for a nap — I think we could both do with one. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"How do you say can I use the toilet in French?"
"You do know I understand English," the security guard piped up, still looking irritated. "There's a bucket in the corner."
Zack looked from the bucket to the security guard and back again, his jaw dropped and eyes wide. "You've got to be joking," he exasperated.
He shrugged. "Take it or leave it. Wet yourself for all I care," the man grunted, putting his hat over his eyes, presumably to go to sleep.
Zack eyed the bucket, looking very uncomfortable before finally sighing and walking towards it.
"You can't be serious."
"It's this or wet myself. Carter can you turn around and finish your jigsaw puzzle facing that way please."
It turned out that security had found Carter wondering about on his own in the theme park and has brought him here to take care of him until someone came looking for him. In hindsight, I really should have considered asking security but it didn't even cross my mind at the time because I was in such a panic.
Carter stuck his tongue out at Zack, shaking his head defiantly.
"Please Carter," I said softly, knowing Zack had probably faced enough turmoil for one day.
He stared at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes that I didn't like nor trust. "Only if we can still get ice cream." That seemed too easy.
"Sure..." I trailed off uneasily and he grinned.
"And you buy me any three games I want." There it was.
I eyed him suspiciously. "Just ask mum. I'm sure she'd get them for you."
"As a nine year old, there's games even she wouldn't let me get. Something about them being too violent," he dismissed with a wave of his hand.
"You sneaky little—" Zack cut in, swaying from leg to leg so he didn't piss himself.
"Otherwise I won't turn around and I'll tell Anna about you both losing me in Disneyland."
Anna was our nanny. She essentially raised us all because our parents were both very busy with work all the time and were never home much to look after us. She may have seemed like a cute older lady but she was definitely not someone you wanted to cross.
"Well played. I knew there was a reason you were my favourite. Deal."
Carter grinned, turning to face away from Zack but even he didn't miss the look of utter shock and betrayal on Zack's face. "Carter's your favourite! What! Since when? I've been there—"
"Shhhh," I said, cutting him off, trying to conceal my laughter. "Now hurry up and pee before you actually do wet yourself."
I could tell Zack was desperate to argue with me on this but it was clear he couldn't hold it in anymore so reluctantly turned around, dropping the conversation.
In truth, Zack probably was my favourite because he had been there for me when no one else was and helped me through so much. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be half the woman I was today in more ways than one. Even if he was annoying and stupid I wouldn't have wanted him any other way but, obviously, I would've never actually told him this. At least, not any time soon but maybe when we were both old and grey I'd reconsider.
Just as I heard Zack doing up his zipper after finally relieving himself, the door bursted open.
The security guard, who had been contently snoring behind his desk, jolted upright, pretending to look sharp and awake.
In walked none other than Axel Knight, a shit-eating grin on his face.
"Well well, what's going on here?" he asked, clearly far too amused by the whole situation.
"What are y—" I started but was cut off by Zack.
"Finally, mate. What took so long? I had to piss in a bucket 'cause you took your bloody sweet ass time," he groaned.
I stared at Zack, baffled by what was happening. "What are you going on about?"
Zack finally stopped glaring at Axel and turned his head to face me, looking at me like I was the most clueless person alive. "Well obviously he's here to get us out. The security guard never took our phones off of us so I texted Axel to come and get us out 'cause he's here for the week as well and we both know he's a great sweet talker."
And he didn't bother to tell me? Here I was worrying about how we were going to get out of this and Zack already had a plan — his first good one in a long time — that he didn't think to mention in the three hours we'd been stuck here. Typical.
However, I didn't bother berating Zack, much too tired to actually kick up a fuss about my brother's stupidity and instead chose to focus on Axel.
"You speak French?" I asked and internally facepalmed when he nodded. That's what I decided to say first? I must've sounded so freaking dim.
"So we can go home?" I asked after a short pause, sounding hopeful, trying to drive attention away from my embarrassment — successfully it seemed by the grin on Axel's face.
Axel nodded, smiling from ear to ear. "Yep. I talked to a few of the guys and you guys are free to leave."
"Axel, you really are my knight in shining armour, you know that?"
He grinned bashfully, his ears slightly pink. "I try."
~*~*~
Fully love Zack so much can't lie... and I guess Axel is great too 😂
Anyway, sorry it's been a few weeks. Life's been pretty hectic at the moment and I've literally not had time for anything (didn't think I'd even get this out ngl) but things should be calming down in a week or two so everything should be going back to normal soon.
Either way, I hope you liked the chapter and it made you smile :)
Until next time my amazing readers, bye xx