Three's a crowd

57

Our day In Charleston was magical, fun, exciting; in fact it was everything I had hoped it would be. Together hand in hand we walked the Bright colorful streets, dipping in and out of little stores talking and laughing as if there were not problems in the world. It was a truly beautiful city, historic, classic, perfect.

It was always one of my favorite cities, full of vibrant colored buildings, history, beautiful trees and scenery as far as the eye could see.

We walked down by the docks, stopping to take pictures and just admiring the large cruise ship full of people waiting to sail away to their little slice of peace and tranquility. Then we walked back towards town.

We still had one more stop to make, the place where Riley and I had one of my favorite memories. The day he first told me he loved me.

I still remembered how he had pulled me under one of the large branches, away from all the other tourists and his family while we were on a two day weekend trip.

"Riley stop!" I laughed as his hands found my waist and he leaned his face closer until he was less than a breath away.

"I love you Britt. I love the way you smile, the way you always take care of everyone, the way you always try to see the good in people no matter what. I love everything about you."

I had pressed my lips to his and kissed him with as much emotion, passion, and affection as I could muster before repeating his words back to him. It was that moment that I knew that I would do anything for him, that he would forever be the only person that would ever make me feel that way. Make me feel in love.

I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face as we walked back to that same branch under the iconic angel oak tree. It was almost as if Riley was recreating the memory from all those years ago as he pushed my back into the branch.

"This place always gives me the best memory." I smiled.

"Me too." He kissed my forehead "I was terrified to say those words to you that day, but when we stopped under this branch I knew I needed to get it out. I haven't regretted a single day since then."

I pulled his face to mine and kissed him again before I politely asked another tourist to take some pictures of us. I didn't know what the future held for us, but I wanted more than just a memory of just how special this place is.

Once we were done we went back to the beach house. It took just over an hour, but neither of us seemed to mind as we listened to the radio blasting different types of country and pop music.

When we arrived back I was still on cloud nine from just how perfect the day had gone. Our parents had left us some food in the fridge  and evidently everyone else had gone out for dinner.

Being the rebellious teens we were, we instead opted for a tub of ice cream, complete with two spoons for dinner and carried it out to the deck overlooking the beach.

"I love seeing you like this Britt!" He spoon fed a mound of chocolate ice cream into my mouth as I tried not to laugh and spit it all over myself.

"Like what?"

"Happy, genuinely happy." He grinned as I scooped some ice cream and he took it off the spoon with his mouth.

"Well you know what I love?" I inched closed to him digging my spoon into the ice cream.

"And what is that?" He smirked, a gleam of mischief in his eye.

"Hmmm?" I pouted my lips and leaned back just a little to catch his eyes as I seductively licked the ice cream from my own spoon.

I watched as he swallowed, his eyes fixed on mine as one of my palms rested on his thigh. I leaned closer until my lips brushed his ear and then whispered low in his ear "Ice cream." And then I threw my head back laughing as I fell back into my chair.

"That was mean! In fact I think I deserve a chance at revenge?" His eyes moved to watch my lips as I wrapped them around my spoon again.

I was about to ask how he was going to do that when he ran his cold ice cream covered spoon from my jaw down my neck.

"Riley!" I squealed!

"Oh wait a second, I think you have ice cream ..." he trailed off as he was suddenly leaning over me, his mouth licking and sucking away the melted ice cream he had put on me.

A moan escaped my lips when his mouth connected with my neck and I could feel his mouth turning upward into a smile. I thought my trick was sneaky, but the warmth spreading over my body and between my legs told me that he was definitely winning this round.

I pouted when he pulled away, missing the feeling of his mouth on my skin, the warmth of him close to me.

"No fair!" I whined as he laughed.

"You never said we had to fight fair." He countered as I rolled my eyes and he grabbed my hand. "Come on, there's one more thing I want to do before everyone gets back."

Still pouty I took his hand and let him lead me down the steps onto the beach. He grabbed a blanket off the railing and carried it until we got half way towards the ocean, then he set the blanket down and laid down on it.

"Come on!" He grinned stretching out his arm, signaling me to lay with him.

A smile formed on my lips as I took my spot beside him and listened to the waves lapping on the shore as we both looked up at the stars.

His other hand reached over to entangle our fingers together as they rested on his stomach.

"Riley?" I said suddenly working up some courage to tackle the biggest question plaguing my mind.

"Mhmm."

"What's going to happen to us? You know when you leave?" I spoke quietly Instantly regretting that I had asked as soon as the words left my mouth.

The seconds of silence that followed were like daggers in my chest as I fought the urge to look over at him. I was about to pull my hand away when he let out a deep breath.

"I don't know honestly." He breathed heavy again. "What I do know is that nothing is ever going to change the fact that I love you Britt. It doesn't matter where we go, those stars up there will be the same whether we are together or apart. You will always be the one for me and nothing will change that, but I can't promise that it's going to be easy, all I can promise is that I will try with everything that I have!" He spoke as if he was talking more to reassure himself than me.

I wanted desperately to pry more, dig deeper into how he was feeling, but I didn't want to burden our perfect day, or this vacation with the depth of this conversation about his impeding departure. Instead I opted to push it to the back of my mind, locked away for another day and squeezed his hand, moving my face to rest on his chest.

We didn't talk much after that, just held each other as the melody of his heartbeat and the lapping waves eased all the negative thoughts from my body.

He didn't realize it, but hearing that he wanted to try to work this out while he was away meant everything to me. As long as he was willing I would do everything in my power to do whatever he needed from me. To give him the chance to be the person he wanted.

I knew it was important to him. He had worked hard for the scholarship, worked hard to prove that he didn't need to buy his way into college, because to him money was as material as the type of clothes you choose to wear.

Knowing that he was willing to try with everything he had to keep us together was all the reassurance that I needed from him. Almost as if he was telling me that he would give up the college dating scene and always come back to me.

I knew it would be selfish to ask him to do that, which is why I didn't ask him. I couldn't be the reason he held back from anything he wanted, he had never been that way with me and it wouldn't be right.

Still as we laid in the bed that night, wrapped together under the sheets, I couldn't stop the words repeating in my head nor could I stop the smile on my face. He had given me the one thing that had all but disappeared in my mind.

Hope.