Fool's Gold [Completed]

16: The State of Dreaming

"You know what I've always wanted to do?"

"What's that, love?" His voice was soft, hardly above a whisper. I could feel the warmth of it ghost across my cheek as he looked down towards where I lay with hair sprawled out across the pillows, his finger absentmindedly curling around a few locks of hair. He'd propped himself up onto his side with his elbow so he could face me more easily and it gave a picturesque view of the swallows that adorned his pecs.

"I've always wanted to go to the beach," I responded, eyeing him to see his response. Most people seemed floored when I told them that I'd never been, and his inquisitive stare was no surprise.

"You've never been to the beach before? Ever?"

"Never." I shook my head, settling back against the pillows once more. His fingers stopped their toying with my hair long enough to tuck some behind my ear and I could feel the palm of his hand resting on the back of my neck as he sent an impish grin in my direction.

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" he began, bringing his face in closer to my own to steal a kiss from me -- though I suppose it's not stolen when it's given freely, is it? And God was it given. "I'll take you. Some day."

"Some day is a very vague way of telling time, Harry," I teased, prodding his bare chest with my pointer finger. My hand gripped onto the white sheets that covered our bodies and I curled my arm in towards my chest, leaning forward to face him easier. "But you'll really take me?"

"I know it's not, but I haven't got my calendar right in front of me, Mikayla," he joked back with a soft chuckle, then nodding in response to my next question. "I will. I promise. We'll get really bad tans and drink lots of those fruity cocktails with the tiny umbrellas."

"Can we swim with dolphins too? I love dolphins."

"Dolphins? Well, now that's pushing it." He smirked, brushing the tip of his nose against my own. "Of course we can. Anything you want."

I smiled faintly, admiring the beauty in his movements. The softness in his face, the way the curls hung loosely and messily around his fair skin, the creased lines bookending his smile -- all of the things I'd grown to love already, but in this moment they seemed magnified. Maybe it was the proximity, maybe it was the fact that there was nothing else to distract from it, or maybe it was that I'd finally allowed myself to full fall into love with him that made them stand out significantly more than I had before when I tried to resist him.

He talked like we had a future. He seemed so certain.

I opened my eyes to find myself in the queen-sized bed I'd somehow managed to fall asleep in the previous night. After I'd left home, I wasn't sure where to go, but I eventually stumbled onto Olivia's doorstep late at night and she welcomed me with open arms. I didn't explain what was wrong at the time and she didn't pry either, which is what I needed. I still hadn't fully processed everything that had happened at that point, but as I laid there in the still of the morning, I couldn't help but run through the events in my head.

What stirred me from where I lay was the sound of the door creaking open and hushed voices on the other side, bringing my attention towards it to see the back of Eden's head as she assured her mother that she was only checking to see if I was okay or not. I couldn't help but smile faintly at the gesture, especially when she looked in and noticed me watching her, eyes going wide and the door quickly closing behind her with a loud thwack against the door frame.

"She's definitely awake now."

I let out a soft laugh -- probably the first one in the past two days -- and sat myself up, glancing into the mirror that hung on the wall across the way. I hadn't had the energy to do much last night when I'd gotten in, so I could see hints of mascara still smudged beneath my eyes though most of it had either been cried off or rubbed away in my sleep.