Anywhere With You - A Lauv Fanfiction

26. More Than A While

After Daniel and Kianna begged me to skip work for the day and go hangout with Ari, I agreed to it. I still felt bad leaving them, but I guess the whole parade thing and lack of any sign of life today made me feel better. The only thing I did today was grab a cake pop and a blueberry muffin for Ari.

We were now inside of my apartment while Ari looked around the living room.

Ari's POV:

I glanced at the white bookshelf in the corner of the room, which towered above a giant watermelon rug. My eyes read every title on every spine of every book. It ranged from Looking for Alaska to The Coffee Guide for Dummies. I let out a silent laugh. I noticed a few bright pink binders on the end of the shelf.

"Can I look?" I walked towards the binders, pointing at them. I looked back at Aria, who miraculously looks drop dead gorgeous, even in her messy ponytail and work clothes.

"Uh, sure." She looked at the binders almost as if she didn't know what was in them.

I picked one up, and it was surprisingly heavy. The cover looked a little old, and the binder was falling apart a little. The front cover said "Family 1998" in bright purple letters.

"Well," Aria walked towards me, looking at the cover. "I don't know. Nevermind. You can look." She sat down in the black cushioned rocking chair next to me.

I hesitantly opened it to the first page, and it seemed to be a scrapbook. There was a giant photo of a guy with dark black hair and a woman with dark brown hair- who looked like Aria. I looked at the baby that the two were holding, and she only had two bottom teeth. She had on a Looney Tunes onesie, and a banana in one hand. Her messy hair was in pigtails on the top of her head. I can assume this is Aria, her mom, and her dad. There were sticker hearts all around the picture. I smiled.

"I like your onesie." I said.

She smiled up at me. "Yeah? How about my teeth?"

"They look the same as they do now." I joked.

"Shut up." She laughed.

I flipped over to the next page, and it was a picture of Aria outside in a pink princess outfit, holding a snowcone and feeding it to her dad. He was kneeled down and dressed in a running uniform, with a number on his shirt. She was smiling, holding it up to his mouth.

"They had concessions at the marathons he ran. I fed him a snowcone on every break, and he would never rush me with feeding him. He always waited until I decided that he had enough, and he'd continue the race, even if his components had gotten way ahead from him because he sat on the sidelines for so long eating a snowcone." She laughed.

I laughed with her. "That's cute."

Aria's POV:

I felt nervous after letting Ari flip through the scrapbooks. I haven't looked at them in years, probably.

We laughed at funny pictures of me, like the time I rode a horse and fell off, or the time I covered my whole face in pink marker. Ari was beaming the whole time he was flipping through the pages. He seemed so excited.

My eyes darted around the room for things that Ari might wonder about. Our apartment was extremely small, but still nice. Our walls were a cute white brick, and the kitchen floors had dark hardwood to compliment the dark grey carpet. We had 2 red leather couches, which my grandma donated for us. There was a white laundry basket in the hallway, and Harper's bra was hanging on a doorknob. An open bag of Doritos were on the counter, and a half-full glass of orange juice next to them. Oh, Harper.

My huge knitted blanket was in a ball on the floor right in front of the fireplace. Nothing seemed to be to out of place, I mean- Oh god.

I looked in the corner of the living room and Harper's new lingerie from Victoria's Secret was just hanging out on the floor. Ari probably already saw it.

"One second." I stood up, getting ready to walk down the hallway to my room to make sure that wasn't a complete mess either. I know Harper's was.

He didn't even switch his attention from the scrapbook. He was smiling at a picture of me and my aunt when I was 5, in which I was wearing a banana suit for Halloween.

I quickly ran down the hallway and opened the door to my room. I glanced at my keyboard, my guitar, my shaggy black rug, and my bed- which had The Starry Night printed onto it. My closet doors were open, and a few clothes scattered the floor. My black dresser had a few drawers open, and the mirror attached to it had a pink lipstick kiss. Yes, from Harper. The fairy lights that I had were draped over my bed, still turned on.

I rushed to pick up the clothes, shoving them back into the closet. I adjusted the candles on my nightstand, and straightened everything up. It only took about 30 seconds to make this place look spotless. Let's just be glad I don't have Harper's room.

"Oh, woah." Ari walked in. I jumped a little at his entrance, not expecting it.

"Oh, yeah. This is my room." I said, looking around.

He smiled at everything. "This comforter is sick." He pointed at it in disbelief, and then jumped onto it, laying on his back.

I laughed, then slowly layed down beside him, recreating The Fault in Our Stars' cover.

He let out a big sigh.

"I missed you." I blurted, looking up at the ceiling.

He turned his head over, looking at me. "I'd say the same, but I think it's pretty obvious that I missed you."

I laughed. "You really took a plane here."

"I did." He said. "Sorry if that's weird." He was staring at the ceiling, which had glow in the dark stars stuck to it.

"I think the only thing that's weird is that you decided to stick to it." I said.

"Stick to what?" He asked. "Stick to you?"

"Yeah." I said.

"I've learned that things worth while aren't ever going to be easy." He said, rolling over to his stomach and lifting his head up to look at me.

I smiled. "Aw, I'm worth while?" I laughed.

"More than a while." He smiled back.