"Last night in Paris. I'm gonna miss it," said Ace as he toted the straw basket full of vodka and cheese in the warm summer night. "Should we come back?"
Robin smiled. "Of course. I want to visit the catacombs again."
Ace paled at the thought of having to walk in the underground tunnels that reeked with the damp, decaying smell of thousands of skeletons buried miles beneath Paris again.
"Right. The catacombs," he said and turned his head to look inside the various little shops opened to all tourists that squeezed their way to buy souvenirs themselves and loved ones.
And that's when Ace saw it: a black T-shirt that had "J' Paris" written in white, bold letters, except for the cherry-red heart.
"Check it out, Robin!" he said and ran toward an empty little store at the street corner. A little old man with well-combed white hair put down the book he was reading and smiled at the young man.
"Bonsoir, m'sieur," said the old man with a soft grin on his face.
"Bonjur, monseur!" Ace said with all the speaking ability of a man who'd only taken two years of French in high school six years ago. He bowed and pointed at the t-shirt, "J'ai besoinne—le, eh, I mean, la chemise femme…er, por un femme."
Robin had caught up to Ace by the time he told the old man the sizes he neede. She looked up at the shirt he was pointing at and frowned.
"You're not getting that shirt, are you?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light.
"Oh no," answered Ace. "I'm getting you one too!"
She blinked. "What?"
"So that way we'll both have matching shirts."
"Oh, m'sieur? J'ai les chemises…" said the old man with the folded shirts in hand.
"Ah, merci, merci! Comment..eh…comdent…" Ace took out his wallet and held out a ten-euro bill. "Euros, euros?"
The man chuckled and took the ten euros, even though the shirts were worth fifteen. After that Ace and Robin continued their walk down to the Seine, which was lit-up and cheery with the noisy crowds of couples and families and friends all picnicking out on the concrete walkways and watching the small, glowing boats float along the dark waters.
"Maybe we should get a houseboat here," said Ace after he finished his fifth Styrofoam cup of vodka, "and float along the river forever."
Robin poured him another cup before refilling her own. They bumped cups and drank again, then leaned on each other's shoulder for support. As she closed her eyes, Robin glanced once more at the plastic bag containing the ugly shirts sitting in Ace's lap.
She resolved to have Ace spend a whole week in the catacombs next time they visited Paris.
A/N In case you're wondering, yes, I did visit Paris and get to see the catacombs (freakin' loved it!) and picnicked at the Seine. The shopkeeper is based off the shopkeeper I got all my Paris souvenirs from (William Zed), and he was kind enough to give me a discount and help me out a lot. Merci encore un fois, m'sieur! And yes, my friend whom I was traveling with got a 'J'3 Paris' shirt, but her sister asked for it. As you can probably tell from the story, I'm no fan of the shirts, but whateves.