Flutter |h.s|

37

Grace

Growing up in New York, taxis are traditionally these bright yellow cars that never stop when you're trying to hail one. They're what you take back to the apartment from the bar when you're way too drunk to walk.

Apparently in Venice, taxis are boats.

It makes sense I guess since there's water everywhere. And I'm sure tourists love being able to take the water taxi. It's an experience in itself. It's definitely captured my attention.

Harry's been holding my film camera hostage as usual, but it's cute seeing him all excited to film stuff. I'm excited to see what he filmed when I finally get back home. I'm sure it's going to be very... artsy.

The hotel we booked is insane too. Well, Harry booked it. Now that I'm starting to realize it, he's booked a lot of our hotels and wherever we're staying. Maybe we should have taken into account his social status before letting him do that.

He also must have lied to us about how much it was gonna cost us each because we've all been giving him around $300 to $400 each for our stays. This hotel though, especially the suite he got for us, I don't even want to look up the price. The suite we're in has chandeliers, ornate wall decorations, and we arrived by boat and were escorted right up to a room. No checking in or anything. They just knew we were here.

I'll just stay blissfully ignorant.

Holly's sitting next to me while Harry's busy taking videos. Eli's standing with Harry, just keeping a friendly conversation. It's nice to see that they're still being friendly after everything that went down last night.

"So Elias is getting married." I smile, glancing over at Holly.

"Well she hasn't said yes yet." Holly points out, but I just elbow her in the ribs.

"Don't say that! She's gonna say yes. Are you kidding! She loves him!"

She just laughs, nodding a bit, "I know, I know." she smiles over at me.

I look over to the boys. My brain is telling me to look at Elias, but my eyes go to Harry.

Italy looks good on him.

He looks relaxed, happy. He wore this really cool shirt today with a cowboy on the back. Everything about him looks just relaxed. He's even wearing shorts. It's my first time seeing him just wear shorts without being at the beach. Usually he's always in some sort of pant.

Even his smile is bigger here, and it's showing up more frequently. He's opted for some sunglasses as normal, but this time they're more transparent. I could see his eyes, crinkling on the sides as they smile.

I've never seen anyone so happy before. I want him to be this happy forever.

I bring my camcorder up, wanting to capture his happiness while he's not paying attention. I could feel a small smile on my face as the camera tracks his every move. I could watch him like this all day long.

Suddenly he turns to face me, recording me now. I can't help but laugh as he gets a look of shock on his face because he got caught. I shut the camcorder off, shaking my head at Harry.

The boat stops after a few seconds. We decided to just walk around Venice aimlessly and see whatever we could. Just being here is a dream honestly, I'm not worried about catching all the tourist attractions.

Over the past few days Harry's been teaching us some basic Italian. He's taught me a few more phrases since we like to hang out after everyone's asleep.

As we all exit the taxi, we all say a quick thank you in Italian. It's definitely weird being able to kind of communicate with the people here. But I like pretending I know what I'm saying.