City of Blinding Lights

They had been graced with three more weeks.

Three more weeks of each other. It had not been difficult to arrange as all of Caleb's band mates understood his reasons for staying on in Paris, and they all agreed that had a pretty girl like Audrey asked any of them to stay with her, they would have for sure said yes. They all helped move Caleb's stuff from the hotel to the tiny apartment that Audrey had. It was arranged that they'd all meet up back home in Dallas in three weeks, and one week after that Warped Tour was due to start.

There are some people say that young love is ruthless. In a sense this is true. But that is not a real kind of love. The real kind of love is the love that you find in ordinary day to day couples, you don't have to be Romeo and Juliet to know what real love feels like.

There are also some people who say that the middle of a love story is unimportant and useless. It only matters how lovers meet and how they part, whether on amiable terms or not, whether they break up or bare the torture of distance.

However Caleb and Audrey were by no means your traditional couple.

During the three weeks that they had gained there was something new to do every day, from galloping tours of Europe's greatest city to the little things, like breakfast in a patisserie and going on the famous merry-go-round at the bottom of the Scare Coeur, which was picture in the film 'Amelie'. Long walks by the Seine at night when the city lights were the brightest or Caleb helping Audrey with her clothes and attempting to sow, which he very soon abandoned.

With all this happening, Caleb was indescribably happy. It was a kind of happiness that he had never felt. All the joyful and comfortable emotions that rose up within him gave him plenty of scope for new songs. The three weeks in Paris were amongst the most productive in his young life. Audrey rarely saw him without a note pad or his acoustic guitar.

Audrey proved to be an unusual driving force within Caleb's life.

On one of the many days when they were having breakfast on the roof of her apartment block, it being too crowded in her living room to eat spaciously, Audrey had suddenly sprung up in a flurry of Parisian fabric that she had turned into a summer dress, and then pointed in an enlightened manner at the rather startled ginger boy in front of he.

'Get your acoustic guitar, we're going," she said in breathless excitement and flew down the outside fire escape stair well to her apartment, and almost jumped through the large window. She grabbed a stack of CDs and threw them in her bag and then proceeded to grab her Wayfarer sunglasses, completely on fire with her sudden idea.

Caleb ambled after her in a more relaxed manner grabbed his acoustic guitar from the living room where the majority of his stuff was scattered in a way that he described as an 'organised chaos'.

Ten minutes later they were standing in the hot spot of Montmatre, in the square where all the artists stood selling paintings or offering to draw portraits for a rip off price. It was claustrophobically crowded, but Audrey knew exactly where they were heading and she slipped between the Japanese and American tourists with ease, far too used to the busy city life.

Caleb had an effort keeping up with her, but in the end she just grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him through the crowd and away from all the bustle.

After the fight for space they were now stood in the open, with a full view onto Paris. There was a long way of stairs down to the main road of Montmatre and many tourists walked up and down them, fighting against the sun.

"Right I want you to sit there," Audrey said and pointed at a space on the stairs and she said it in a way that Caleb daren't say no to.

So without questioning her, Caleb took a seat on the warm baked stairs, leaning his back to the ivy covered wall. He then proceeded to take out his guitar and leave the soft black case open in front of him. Audrey immediately took out the stack of CDs that she had thrown into her bag earlier, she then placed them into the open guitar case and it was only then that Caleb saw exactly which CDs they were.

"Underdog Alma Mater? Babe what are you doing with these?" Caleb asked with a hearty laugh.

"Jonathan gave them to me and said I should try and persuade the French to change their taste in music, but I have a better idea," Audrey said with a huge grin on her face, hands on hips and looking altogether rather unstoppable.

"And that might be?" Caleb asked looking up at Audrey, with his eyes half shut so that the sun might not blind him.

"You're going to sing the songs from the album acoustic and people will then want to buy the CDs, there's about 30 here and I have some flyers that Kyle gave me,' Audrey said, producing the flyers from her massive bag, her grin never waning.

Caleb just grinned up at her, totally impressed by the girl whom he now was lucky enough to consider his girlfriend.

Audrey crouched down and put the flyers into the guitar case and was about to get up again when Caleb got a soft hold of her wrist and leant forward, planting a kiss on her lips.

"You're fantastic you know that don't you?" He asked looking at her with big joyful eyes, resting the palm of his hand against her cheek.

"Yeah I know," Audrey said faking arrogance, but then smiled and kissed Caleb on the cheek quickly before springing up. "Now sing pretty boy."

Of course everything went fantastically.

All of the CDs were sold and the flyers were taken by eager hands, impressed by Caleb's voice and keen for some new music. A vast amount of change collected in the guitar case and Caleb kept on singing for the audience that grew around him, many tourists stopping on the stairs and waiting for him to finish the song before clapping politely and moving upwards to the art square.

Although Caleb had a considerable audience around him there was really only one person whom he was singing for. She was sat right next to him, unable to stop the proud smile from leaving her face. She sat next to him and watched all the people walk by with looks of admiration on their faces. She saw girls walking past and sending longing glances at Caleb, but she didn't let this bother her, because the boy next to her was singing all these songs for her and only her.