Echo Of Us • Zarry

G 3

Paris during summer is magical. It's a world of its own, with heat creeping up on you everywhere as you walk the tiny streets of the Latin Quarter, sweat dripping down your spine. The sun sets well after nine o'clock and the sunsets paint the entire city with colours of love and awe. At night, you rarely feel like sleeping, whether it's because of the heat or because you prefer to sit by the Seine with wine and watch the moonlight both in the sky and its glimmer on the water. Even if you're not in love, in Paris in the summer, you will feel like you are.

Well... maybe Paris isn't so magical when you're at a playground and there's two dozen children screaming bloody murder around you.

It's boiling , as it tends to be in Paris in July and Harry's grateful for the partial shade a small tree affords him on the creaky bench. He just wants to take a nap, as one usually does in the afternoon in summer. He'd kill to be on a beach. But he can't sleep, or swim, because he's watching Dario as he runs at a worryingly high speed, playing catch with some of the other children at the playground. Plus, he had to fend off a few influencer mums who tried to chat him up. He probably needs to make sure they don't make Dario pose with their kids. Usually, Harry likes talking to strangers but today his gene for that has sadly abandoned him so he put on sunglasses and partly detached himself from the world.

An eternity, or a couple of minutes later, Dario runs up to Harry, panting and excited. He climbs up to the bench next to Harry and pulls out a juice box from the canvas tote bag.

"I won the catch, Harry!" Dario says excitedly. He wrangles with the juice box and when Harry sees it's a futile attempt, he takes it out of Dario's hands and opens it for him.

"Did you, babe?" Harry smiles at him. "Did you make any new friends?"

Dario shrugs as he sips on his juice box. "I don't know. I don't speak French."

"Aw," Harry tries not to laugh. Children are hilarious without even trying. "When I was little and we'd go on holiday, I would always play with kids from like, different countries. Sure, we didn't understand each other but we still had fun. I think you had lots of fun today."

"Yeah," Dario says. "When can we go pick up mommy?"

Harry looks at his phone. "Well, mommy said she would be done with the shoot at four, we still have a bit of time. Do you want to get a snack? Something to bring to mommy too?"

Dario nods enthusiastically and it's decided.

A few minutes later, they're at a bakery a few blocks away. Harry momentarily thinks about Dario's sugar intake but Lucrecia most likely raised him very well because he doesn't try to convince Harry to let him eat 20 macarons, which is something Harry definitely would've tried at his age. He gets himself and Luc coffee and some pastries and they're off to the studio.

"Do you like your snack?" Harry asks Dario as they walk.

Dario nods as he takes another bite of his pan au chocolat. There's chocolate smeared all over his mouth.

They walk in silence for a good while, Dario eating his pastry and Harry drinking his iced coffee. Paris usually seems so deserted in summer, people retreating inside or to the country.

"You know," Dario speaks up a while later around the last bits of his pastry. "Every summer, I'm with mommy and you. And you watch me a lot. And you live with mommy like my daddy used to so you're like my summer daddy. You're my friend, but you're also like my daddy in summer before I go to daddy in New York and I go to school. My friend Kayla has two daddies. Is it the same?"

Harry's dumbfounded. He nearly stops walking but he perseveres and keeps his cool. He's never thought of it this way. He doesn't really see himself as Dario's step-dad. They don't spend nearly enough time together for that and Luc hasn't told Harry anything about being a fatherly figure to Dario. Harry's pretty sure she hasn't told Dario anything of the sort either because since the very beginning, she's had Dario refer to Harry by his name.