Page 48 of Love at First Sighting

El

Six Months Later

“Now, tilt your head up just a little bit. No, less. Less .”

When I hired my own personal photographer, finally, I didn’t think he’d be this bossy. It’s early enough in the morning that the Champ de Mars is not full of tourists and the summer heat isn’t ravaging my hair and making me regret obtaining a beret. Yet.

The birds chirp and city life bustles with the morning rush, and Carter’s camera faintly clicks as he lines up test shots for lighting and composition.

“If your head is tilted too far down, you look kind of evil. Like a hot, evil mime.”

I frown. “Wow, thanks.”

“I said ‘hot,’?” he corrects, looking between me and the backdrop and his viewfinder, smirking.

To be fair, I am wearing a red beret and a black-and-white-striped sweater.

I look like a cartoon girl from the kitschy Paris designs on plates, greeting cards, and wall prints from T.J.Maxx. But I’m having fun.

“Oh, comforting. You have an evil mime kink.”

“I will admittedly be happier when we can get back to the hotel and I can take your little hat and sweater off of you.” He glances up from the camera with a devilish grin that tells me his agenda looks something like: photos, another café for snacks, and then sex.

I can’t complain. It doesn’t sound like a half-bad day.

The last time I was in Paris, I came with a group of influencer friends I didn’t even like, and instead of hopping on tour buses and learning everything about the city, we had a full list of the most photo-worthy spots in the city.

We bounced from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe and the Luxembourg Gardens, snapping the photos we needed and finding not the best restaurants to eat at, but the ones with the cutest patios and most aesthetically pleasing wineglasses.

I captured every moment of that trip, but I hardly remembered it.

Instead, on this trip, we’ve packed our schedule full of museums and tours and food.

Of course, there are photo stops along the way, like right now, but it’s less for the content and more to cement memories the two of us are creating together.

Carter wanted to make sure we made it to the Louvre (obviously on my list) and the Paris Catacombs (cool, but not on my list).

I informed him that the Mona Lisa is actually very small, and he asserted size isn’t everything.

I’m excited to hop on tour bus after tour bus and do all the tourist activities and soak it all in like this is the first time.

It might as well be. I’m not worried about appearances, because we’re here to have fun.

Instead of calculated sponsored content, we’ve been running an impromptu series that’s gaining some rapid traction on our socials: Croissants with Carter, where we embark on a bold mission to find the best croissant in all of France.

So far, of the three cafés we’ve stopped into, they’ve all been a ten out of ten.

I have no idea how he’s rating these, but I think his bar might be quite low.

We’re getting good at this by now. We’ve been jaunting around Europe for the past two months, with stops in England, Iceland, and Spain so far, and we have no plans of returning to the States anytime soon.

Once Carter’s photography business was up and running, he gained several regular clients and started making decent money.

He’s managed to snag a few photo shoot gigs in LA, as well as some across the pond, while dodging the people in his DMs asking him to take feet pics for them.

There’s a lot of flexibility for both of us to keep making money to fund our travels.

I oblige Carter’s request, tilting my head back a little with a smile and raising my chin.

“Take one step to the right,” he orders.

After surveying the screen one more time, he backs away from the camera and approaches me.

Carter places a finger below my jaw and nudges my head exactly where he wants it, trying to catch the strongest light for my hair to shimmer in the sun.

He’s excellent at finding the parts of me he loves most and putting them on display.

He finds new things every day—things I have never thought about or ever loved—and he makes me love them, too. He’s made me like posing on my left because he says my smile quirks differently on that side.

Then he tilts my hips for me, his fingertips slipping underneath the hem of my sweater. I shiver at his touch, but it makes him grip my sides harder and press a kiss along my jaw.

“Do you actually have feedback for my pose or are you just trying to touch me?”

“Maybe both.”

I clutch his denim jacket and tug him beside me.

We break the pose entirely for him to hold me, arms wrapping around my body, meeting me in the middle for a kiss.

I knot my fingers in his loose blond waves, no longer pressed down by a hat.

He’s grown his hair out enough for it to cover the scars on the side of his head a little more.

Beneath his jacket, he’s wearing a deep maroon T-shirt we got in London and a pair of black jeans.

Black Converse as always. I’m okay with some things staying the same.

We had one night in London and two nights in Spain when he had to dress up for dinner, and he did everything in his power to avoid anything close to a suit. Khakis or other colored pants with brightly colored or patterned button-downs. I don’t think he even owns a tie anymore.

As the sun comes up behind the Eiffel Tower, I’m lost in the moment of feeling so grateful I got this chance to start over. To decide my life on my terms. I’ve re-created my life from scratch, since it was fully fabricated before, and this real version I get to live now is the best one yet.

“Mm,” he mutters against my lips. “Wait. We’re going to miss the shot.”

He dashes away, leaving my kiss-swollen lips in a pout, and he snaps the photo immediately, capturing me with my stank face on. Carter laughs.

“It’s cute.”

“I look cranky.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. We’ll caption this one ‘How my photographer got fired .’?”

“What can I do to earn my job back?” He crosses his arms in front of his chest, but I beckon him back to me.

“Get in this one with me.”

Carter takes the remote clicker off his camera and hops into frame with me. He wraps an arm around my waist and presses his forehead to mine. As the sun crests over the clouds and into the sky, Carter leans in and kisses the side of my head, and the camera flashes.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too.”

“Now, come on, let’s check out our shot.”

We converge around the camera screen and he pulls up the new picture.

We stand together, eyes not on the camera but on each other.

Carter’s lips are a breath away from the crown of my head and he’s got one hand on my sweater.

I’m giggling and giving one of the smiles I always save for him, and I’m okay with sharing this one with the world.

It’s candid and real, just like us. And I’m learning every day how good it feels to love all the outtakes.