paired {h.s}

part eight

"Damn, New York is pretty." I sighed, setting myself down on the white couch in our hotel room.

"It is." Harry nodded.

Harry and I had arrived in New York a couple of hours ago and we'd finally settled in, so it was the perfect time to start investigating.

"We should go sightseeing." Harry joined me on the couch.

"Not until we find what we're looking for." I smirked for a second at him.

The picture of the graffiti wall was brought up again and the two of us searched once more for anything that could tell us what the fuck we had to do here.

"Let's see here..."

"Co-ordinates!" Harry blurted out all of a sudden, zooming in on the top of the leaf to reveal a set of numbers that was just about visible.

"Finally!" A sigh of relief escaped me, fishing out the spy GPS.

I typed the co-ordinates in and what came up was unlike the one we had before. It was a location of course, but it was different.

"It's in a river?" I furrowed my eyebrows, Harry shifting over to view the GPS screen too.

"How the hell do we get to it?" His eyebrows furrowed also.

"Well, we're gonna need a boat." I stood up to begin pacing up and down. I did that when I had to think hard, it was a habit. "There's probably boats to hire around there.."

"Let's go and see!" Harry stood up abruptly and slipped on his shoes.

"Wait, now?" I tilted my head as I watched him put on the brown light blazer he'd been wearing originally.

"Yeah, why not?" I shrugged at Harry's request and got ready too.

Within 10 minutes, we were strolling out onto the New York streets, Harry trying and failing miserably to hail a taxi.

"Taxi!" He yelled, waving his hand out frantically. Annoyance clearly lined his speech before I gently tugged him away from the road.

"Let me show you." I gave out a cheeky smirk and stood with one foot off of the pavement, or sidewalk, as they say here. "Taxi!"

As expected, a typical yellow taxi came slowing down towards us. I turned back to Harry who was lost for words.

"But-"

"Amateur." I joked as we both clambered in, one after the other.

"Where to, babe?" The driver chirped, looking up at his front mirror and sending me a smile.

He looked in his early twenties at the most, very handsome too.

"The river, please." I replied, suddenly realising how english my accent sounded in the midst of all the American ones.

"English?" The taxi began to move at a moderate speed.

"Mhm."

"Your accent is cute." He laughed.

"Thanks." I didn't even realise when I had started to blush and looked over to Harry, who literally looked like he was about vomit.

"You two here on vacation?" He notioned over at Harry.

"Business stuff, actually." Harry stated, bluntly. I nudged him in the side and gave him a look.

A look that said something along the lines of 'Stop it and be nice or I'll hit you'.

"Business, ay? What d'y'all work as?"

"Uhm, I'm a model and he's my manager." I just uttered the first thing that came to my head.

"Model? Shoulda guessed, you're a beautiful girl."

Okay, now he was just flat out shamelessly flirting. But, not gonna lie, I didn't exactly mind it at all.

No, Danika. Stay focused.

"Thank you..." I gave another smile, this time is was awkward and tight-lipped.

Man, New York. Only spent a few hours in you and I'm already being hit on.

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After a slightly awkward end to our cab journey and a lot of negotiating, we finally got a little speedboat.

"Right, start going down the river." I ordered as Harry started up the engine and began speeding down the river.

"This is nice actually!" He stood up, placing his arms out like Rose from Titanic.

I chuckled at him and sat back in my seat whilst propping my legs up on the seat opposite.

"Near..." I began to sing, a silly smile on my face.

"Far..." Harry sang the next line.

"Wherever you are!" We sang at the top of our voices in unison, not exactly sounding like Celine Dione.

"I don't know the rest of the lyrics..." I sing-songed to the same tune, making Harry laugh and plop back down into his seat.

I looked down at my GPS to see the next point was very close by.

"Slow down a bit, we're getting closer." I told him.

"Where are we even meant to be looking?"

"In the water, I suppose?" I shrugged and stared into the water.

Nothing I could see. It was way too deep.

This would be harder than I thought.

Just as we were passing underneath a bridge, a loud gasp was heard and the engine suddenly switched off.

"Found it." Harry pointed to the side of the bridge where a fancy letter X had been graffitied, along with more co-ordinates.

"Great!" I cheered, taking a picture once again.

As soon as I had snapped the picture, Harry turned on the engine rapidly and sped back the way we came, giving me no time to even catch my breath.

I inhaled rather quickly and looked to see that Harry's face was not cheery and happy, like it was a matter of minutes ago. Instead, Harry's face was blank and almost slightly frightened, by the looks of it.

"Harry? Harry, slow down. What happened? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He called, eyes fixed on the water ahead of us.

"You look like you've seen a ghost or something?"

"I'm fine." He stated as we got to the dock.

What was that about?