Actual Love | a Lauren/You Fanfiction

8 • Everything Was Working Out Perfectly

Snap.

I smiled contently as I pulled my eye away from the camera lens, hoping the picture came out as planned. I looked down to the screen and felt that familiar satisfaction I always did whenever snapping a good photograph. This one was a candid shot of people going about their everyday lives in the park.

"Can I see?"

I looked up from the screen and saw Lauren seated beside me on the bench. An ice cream cone was in her hand and she was licking it every so often, which explained the white stuff around her mouth. Because of how idiotic I felt after what happened with the article I read, I decided to try and make it up to her by taking her on a date to the park. She didn't know why we were here because I knew she would feel bad for me feeling bad, so I only told her it was a date, when in fact, I just wanted to cheer her up.

Thankfully, only a few Harmonizers had recognised us, and they only wanted a few pictures otherwise they left us alone, which I appreciated.

"Sure," I laughed, "but first..." I used the tissue that was on my lap and wiped away the ice cream from her mouth, making her look down at her mouth, though she couldn't see it. "There," I said, an amused smile on my lips. "Try to get the ice cream in your mouth, yeah?"

She rolled her eyes and shoved me in the shoulder with her elbow, before scooting closer to me and looking down at my camera. I lifted it closer so that she could see it more clearly, and she smiled at the sight.

"I love it," she said, whilst she was putting her mouth into her ice cream, so it came out as a muffled sound.

I laughed at how adorable she was. "Thanks, love. That means a lot."

As we both leaned back against the bench, I felt her loop her arm around mine, and she leaned on my shoulder, making me smile at her closeness. She was being really touchy lately, not that I minded. Enjoying the silence that surrounded us, I continued to snap photos of our surroundings, trying my best to do so as I stayed seated. I only had a bit of memory left on this SD card, so I didn't take too many photos.

As I was taking the photos, I felt a pair of eyes on me, and when I no longer felt the familiar comfort of Lauren's head resting on my shoulder, I pulled away from my lens, only to see her watching me, though she seemed a million miles away at the same time. As honoured as I felt with her smiling at me so sweetly, I also felt equally as awkward, and busied myself with my camera.

"Uh, what's up, love?" I asked, hoping to get her to stop staring at me because now I was feeling even more self-conscious.

From the corner of my eye, I could see her shaking her head slowly as she remained staring at me. "Absolutely nothing, my British Missus."

I rolled my eyes, hoping it would take the attention away from my cheeks that were heating up, and decided to go through my photographs that I had taken today. She was still studying me oddly, so I tried my best to ignore it and continued to go through my photos. I clicked one photo too far, though, and ended up seeing a photo from over a year ago, back when the girls came to visit me in England. It was when I took photos of our snowball fight, and of Lauren. Wow, that seemed like a century ago.

"Lauren, look," I said, looking up at her and earning her attention. I shook her arm gently, and she zoned back into reality, her smile fading away.

"What is it?" she asked, giving me her full attention.

"I found the photos from when you and the girls came to visit last year," I explained, already looking back down to the camera and holding it between us so that she could see the photos, too. "When we had the snowball fight, remember?"