Girl in a Hoodie: Where the Future Lies

Chapter 31

Riley's POV:

"James, if you drop me, I swear...!" I giggle as he carries me on his back. My arms rested by his neck as I leaned forward and rested my head on top of his shoulder until he tilts his head to quickly peck my lips. I smile when he pulls away and then he continues to lead us through the park as we were doing a site-seeing trip today with Mum, Marcus, Em and her boyfriend.

"Don't worry, I would never drop you, Riles. You seriously need to trust me more," he states. I roll my eyes playfully as we continue walking through the grass and past many kids who seemed to be playing a game of fetch with their dogs. 

We had just gone to The White House to take a couple of photos and to the Statue of Liberty. James, Marcus, Em and Hunter managed to get to the top but I couldn't quite go up the steps since I had a major stomach ache and I couldn't face taking the lift either so Mum stayed with me at a bench below as we continued to take a few photos.

"Hey, if you drop her, I'll give you fifty bucks," Hunter says, flicking his fingers in our direction. I open my mouth agog as I exchange a look with him, knowing he was just pretending to be mad at me for when I ate the last Jammie Dodger he had bought a while ago for him and Emily to share except I was feeling really peckish and, despite it being tough sometimes, it's also fun to use pregnancy hormones as an excuse.

"Right, except fifty bucks won't do anything for us considering we don't live in America," James corrects him.

"Yeah, well you could always spend it on the next few days you have here. How much longer are you two here for anyway?"

"A week and three days and then we fly back," I answer. Hunter nods, keeping his arm wrapped around my sister's waist as he held her close but I remained on my fiancé's back as he played around with my hands. "I'm not hurting your shoulders, am I?" I ask, moving my head forwards to double check.

"No, don't even worry about it, Ri." I roll my eyes airily at the same time as Mum laughs, up until we reach a grassy bank and James slowly hauls me off of him. I smile, cuddling into his side as he keeps his arm swung over my shoulder and by my neck.

"This'll do, won't it?" Mum asks us all. I nod, smiling when she lays a scarlet red blanket down over the top of the grass and she sits down, placing the picnic basket beside her. James and I join her, except I stay close to him as we both lay on our sides and I was right up next to him, my body pressed against his whilst he ran his hand over my arm in one reposeful manner.

Enjoying the soft breeze as it flew past, I listened to Em and Hunter's petty bickering when they began to discuss housing issues once again and Mum was finding one specific ham and cheese with coleslaw sandwich she purposefully made for only Marcus (although I find the filling to be a near-to-odd combination) but I turn on my side to face James. He had a pack of sea-salted crisps in his hands and sits up slightly so as to digest it properly and I do the same, sitting with my legs crossed with my back to my family whilst fiddling with my necklace, as per usual.

"You alright?" he asks me softly, grinning at the same time.

"Yeah." I smile, watching him as he put a crisp in his mouth and then when he gathers what I was doing, he moves the packet in my direction and I chuckle, taking a few out and keeping them stored in my palm whilst eating them one by one.

"You look beautiful today, you know?" he tells me. I raise an eyebrow, seeing as I wasn't wearing anything special, just Persian blue ripped jeans, a grey top with cursive writing which I had tucked into them and a leather jacket on top with trainers, nothing that screams beauty at all. Not to mention that my hair was in something that looks like a bun but you couldn't really tell what sort of brutality my hair brush had been through.