Not Warriors- Awsten Knight

Chapter 49

"Angel where are you bringing us?" Claire asks lightly heartedly, her hand firmly grasped within Awstens as she plays with his rings adorning his right hand. 

Awsten shakes his head, he had gone this long without spoiling the surprise of what they were doing today and he would be damned if he managed to ruin it when they were only 20 minutes away. "Can't tell you." he replies shortly, keeping his eyes on the road. 

Claire lets out a soft laugh, recognizing the fact that she wasn't going to be getting anymore information from the boy that she adored. As much as she hated surprises, she knew that Awsten loved them no matter what the size of them were. 

"Normally you get too excited about your surprises and ruin them by now." she points out playfully, and he presses his mouth together into a tight smile. 

"And by the look on your face I'm assuming you've already almost spilled the beans multiple times since we dropped Collin off." she adds on, her tone still playful as Awsten sharply exhales. 

"Okay, okay I'll stop pushing." she says throwing her free hand up in defeat and he nods thankfully. 

"I'm just saying-" she starts before being cut off by Awsten abruptly. 

"For the love of god bear please just let the surprise happen as it's supposed to!" he pleads with her, his tone raised slightly and Claire raises her eyebrows nodding her head to the side at his tone. 

Awsten takes a deep breath in, collecting himself. "Okay that was dramatic of me." he says with a a small laugh and Claire laughs in return. 

"Oh yeah for sure, but that's fine." she says honestly, her tone genuine so he knows that she isn't upset with him. 

"Thank you for dealing with my meltdown." he mumbles, pulling her hand up to press a kiss to the back of her hand. 

Claire stifles and giggle, changing the tone for her voice for a minute. "Excuse my tantrum can't you see I've got my hands full, ba da da da da bum bum bum." she says laughing hysterically as she mimics the guitar in the song. 

"For the love of fucking god." he says in disbelief shaking his head, cracking a smile towards the end of his sentence before he starts laughing too. 

"You are unbelievable." he says shaking his head, and she smirks holding his hand a little tighter. 

"I think you mean unbelievably amazing, kind, funny, beautiful, some would say the best person to ever come out of Houston Texas." she says, dramatically flipping her hair behind her shoulder.

"Hey Claire? Does your neck hurt?" Awsten asks her curiously, glancing over at her for a moment and she furrows her eyebrows in confusion. 

"No? Why would my neck hurt?" she questions, starting at him. 

"Well considering how big your fucking head is, I would assume you're probably having some neck pains." he says sarcastically and Claire gasps dramatically pretending to be offended. 

"I could just get out of the car right now you know." she retorts, and Awsten nods unlocking her door. "Wait I was kidding-" she starts and Awsten laughs pointing at the view in front of them.

"Yeah no shit love, but you were too busy sassing me the whole way you didn't even notice that we're here. C'mon." he says softly, getting out of the car and making his way over to her side to open the door for her. 

"I just have to grab a few things." he says, opening the trunk to his car and Claire's jaw drops when she notices a picnic basket, blanket, and Awsten's guitar case all laying in the very back. 

"When did you put all of this in here?" she asks in disbelief, and Awsten cracks a smile. 

"My mom did actually, I asked her to because I knew that you would be attached to my hip almost all morning and I wouldn't be able to sneak away to put any of it in." he says with a laugh, and Claire nods knowing that he's right. 

"Do you recognize this place?" he asks her curiously, reaching out for her hand and leading her down the walk way to the sand sitting in front of the lake before them. 

Claire furrows her eyebrows looking around while helping Awsten unfold the blanket so that they could both sit down, her expression softens when all of the memories come flooding back to her at once. 

"We came here when we got into our first fight in high school." she says softly and he nods.

"And when we got into our first fight after moving into the apartment together." he adds on, waiting to see if she remembers any other times. 

"And the last time we came here was right after we found out about the tumor in your knee." she says, her breath catching in her throat as she lowers down on the the blanket pulling her knees into her chest. 

"But we didn't fight last night so why are we here?" she asks him curiously, and a smile grows on his face as he sits down next to her wrapping his arm around her waist. 

"I don't think this place was ever about us fighting, I think it was just somewhere that we came and realized that our relationship was worth so much more than the little fights. Something else happened here that I think you're forgetting about." he says, giving her the opportunity to rack her brain. 

Claire gasps softly, as she gets a hot feeling behind her eyes. "We came here after graduation, we didn't know that we were going to move in together yet and you gave me that ring. You told me it wasn't a promise ring because those were cliche and stupid, but it was a placeholder." she says with watery laugh and Awsten nods pressing a kiss to the side of her head. 

"I told you that day, that no matter what happened to us I would always be yours. That you had my heart, and to be honest you always have. Even the years apart, a piece of me was still yours." he tells her softly, before reaching into the picnic basket to pull something out. 

"I noticed the first night we saw each other that you didn't have the ring on anymore, which is expected. So I got you something, I'd like to think it's a little more grown up than what I picked out at 18." he says laughing softly handing the box to her. 

Inside sat a plain silver ring, and engraved on the bands we're tiny stars with a moon. Any tears that were threating to fall out before were now freely streaming down Claire's face as she stared at it in the box. 

"I would go to the ends of the earth for you bear, if you asked me to hang up new stars in the sky and get you the moon I'd find a way to do it." he tells her as he cups her face in his hands, leaning in to gently kiss her. 

Awsten swipes the tears off of her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, smiling brightly. "Do you think you can handle one more surprise or will I send you over the edge?" he says her softly, and Claire laughs nodding her head. 

"What have you got in store Knight?" she asks him, her voice still shaky. 

Awsten leans over, quickly grabbing his guitar out of it's case settling it into his lap. "A song." he says causally and she furrows her eyebrows looking at him confused. 

"A new song?" she asks him curiously, and he nods smiling. 

"Glitter Times." he replies.