Lights Will Guide You Home

Liam

The previous night Claire came over to my room. Apparently, Michael had been feeling neglected because Claire was spending most of her time with me. I had noticed he was quite distant around me, but I never though much of it. I felt pretty bad about the whole thing so the next day, I got up as early as I could and dashed to the stores to find something to gift him on his birthday. I hunted around for something special enough to make up for how hurt he had been feeling. After scavenging the stores for quite a while, I found exactly what I had been looking for.

I got back to the hotel and went up to room Aiden and Michael shared. I found Claire there too, along with Raelynn. Michael was on the bed, tearing open all the presents he had received.

"Happy birthday, Michael!" I shouted as I walked in.

He looked up and shouted back, "thank you!"

He didn't seem hostile or upset anymore. That was a relief.

"Hey, I got you a present too," I said to him.

"Wow, really?" he seemed very surprised and really excited. Claire looked at me and smiled.

"Yeah, it's waiting for you outside."

Michael ran out and all of us hear him shout out ecstatically, "WOAAHH!" He ran back in the next minute, his gift in his arms.

"A surfboard? Liam, are you serious? This is awesome!!" he said, jumping about in delight. He turned to Claire excitedly, "Claire, look! Liam got me a surfboard!!"

She laughed to see how happy it made him. I smiled.

"So you ready to hit the waves?" I asked him, ruffling his hair.

"Hell yeah!" He dashed away to get ready, the rest of his presents forgotten.

Claire came up to me. Her blue eyes were shining, a happy smile lit up her face.

"I can't believe you actually bought him a surfboard!"

"I had to make it up to him," I shrugged. "I was feeling really guilty."

"You know..." she came closer and placed her hands on my chest, "...you're really sweet." She smiled, and gave me a soft kiss on my cheek.

"Hey, Liam!" Aiden interrupted. "I'm gonna join you guys down at the beach, yeah?"

"Haha, sure bro!"

We all went down to the beach. The girls chilled around on sunbeds and I have to admit, Claire looked – please excuse me – absolutely smokin' hot in a bikini. I had to tear my eyes away from her as I let myself be dragged down to the water by Michael.

Michael turned out to be a quick learner. It wasn't long before he was riding the waves himself, squealing in delight. He loved it so much, we literally had to drag him out of the water for lunch.

After lunch, we were finally on our way to our hot air balloon ride.

The balloon ride took off from Manacor, a small town in Majorca. We hadn't even gotten on a balloon but we were already absolutely stoked just looking at balloons in the air.

We got two balloons to ourselves. Claire pushed Aiden and Rae on to a balloon and before they realized anything, they were already up in the air.

"Claire, what the hell are you doing?!" Rae shouted down.

"Have fun!" Claire shouted back, grinning mischievously. "God, it's killing me – they haven't even kissed yet! And such a brilliant opportunity came by, I just had to make that happen." She said, talking to herself I think. "I'll kill both of them if they don't!"

I laughed.

"Hey! I thought Rae was my girl!" Michael cut in.

Claire and I turned to him in absolute confusion. "Whaaat?" we went in unison.

"Oh never mind. I've still got a year to go. Come on, let's get on to one of these thingies!" he said jumping into the remaining balloon.

Claire and I looked at Michael, then at each other and burst into fits of laughter. What on earth was he blabbering about?

So three of us got into a balloon and soon enough, we were way up in the sky.

Michael and Claire were in awe of the view as we sailed over the craggy mountains of Sera de Tramuntana, the endless coast line, the table mountain Puig de Randa and the panoramic view of the entire island of Majorca. I definitely couldn't complain about my view. My gaze was fixed on Claire. I watched her eyes sparkle as she took in the beautiful landscape. The setting sunbeams illuminated her skin making her look like an angel. I found myself just staring at her, smiling to myself, going – man, how did I get so lucky?

She caught me staring at her, and turned to me, as a rosy blush crept into her cheeks. I slipped my arms around her.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" She said, looking around.

"Yes, you are," I whispered in her ear.

She put her hand on my cheek and looked into my eyes, her hair soft, brushing against my face. I leaned in, and my lips closed in on hers. There was nothing more I wanted in that moment.