The faint sound of the wind rustling through the trees gently awakened you from your peaceful sleep. Squinting your sleep-filled eyes, you could just make out, through the partially zipped entrance to your tent, that the sun was rising. Becoming more aware of your senses, you felt warm breath on the back of your neck, as your boyfriend, Sam, remained sleeping. You smiled to yourself as his little snores subsided. You felt him shift against you, grumbling incoherent phrases in the process. It was just a natural thing — his body always knew when you were awake, and if you were, he had to be too. You flipped around in his arms to face him, and his eyes fluttered open.
"Good-morning, bean." he whispered, his voice laced with sleep.
"Hi, baby," you responded, leaning closer to kiss his nose. He crinkled his nose as he smiled, his hands flattening against your back to pull your body closer to him. He captured your lips with his, kissing you sweetly for a moment. Breaking the kiss, he sat up, glancing to his right with sleepy eyes and a goofy smile at you. You were staring up at him, taking in all his features. His hair was partially out of his bun, matted down from the pillow, and he had indentations across his back from the seams on the sleeping bag. You loved waking up next to him, because most of the time you couldn't. He was constantly touring the world with his brothers, but you couldn't be happier for him. You cherished the time you two could spend together alone as much as you could. Recently, it had been more because the boys were in the process of writing for a new album, but they had decided to take a little break from that as well.
Suddenly, you felt a heavy weight fall onto you: Sammy had flopped back into bed, purposefully landing on top of you for comedic effect.
"Hey, bro, what the heck?" you asked, trying to push him off of you, but to no avail.
"Don't bro me, little girl, I'm your boyfriend." he laughed, flipping around onto his stomach to look you straight in the eyes. His held a glint of mischief, and before you could protest he had pinned your arms at your sides with his legs and attacked you with tickles. You immediately erupted into laughter, tears brimming at the corners of your eyes.
"Stop... stop it!!" you begged, struggling to get the words out.
"NEVER!" he growled playfully into your neck, his hair falling into your face. Eventually, he got tired of assaulting you with tickles, and you two gazed into each other's eyes as your laughing subsided. He brought his face close to yours so your noses were touching, bringing his left eye so it was millimeters away from your right.
"I see you in there," he teased, eliciting a giggle from you.
"Stop it, you doofus." you responded, pushing him off of you.
"Heyyyyyy," he started, but you gave him a look that shut him up immediately. This is probably what you loved most about your relationship with Sammy. You two were both jokers at heart, and that allowed for moments like this to happen more often than not.
Later on in the day, you both (mostly Sammy) decided that it would be a great idea to go on a hike through the forest surrounding the campsite, and to also go have a picnic somewhere along the way. He put you in charge of making the food, while he fiddled around with the backpacks.
"Why should I have to do this, huh?" you mumbled loudly to yourself, with every intention of having Sam hear you as you attempted to pull together some conglomeration of food.
"Because, doll-face, shouldn't you naturally be better at doing that kinda thing than me, anyway?" he teased, setting the fully packed bags down by the tent, coming over to wrap his arms around you from behind, his chin resting on your shoulder.
"Oh, will you just shut up!" you exasperated, blushing at his words. You knew he wasn't being serious, but it embarrassed you nonetheless.
"I'm just kidding, baby," he said, releasing you from his grasp to help you pack up the food.
"Uh-huh, sure you are. The only reason you keep me around is to have me make food for you. I thought this was the 21st century!" you jested.
"Honey, I can survive on my own just fine, but since you're here..." he started, but you cut him off by throwing a stray tomato at his face.
"Okay, okay. I'm done now." he said, sheepishly smiling at you.
Hand in hand, you walked the calm and secluded trails throughout the redwood forest, eventually reaching a place that Sam thought was perfect for a picnic. Dragging you off the trail, he led you to a spot of land that was flat enough to put a blanket down and to eat at. He helped you set up the blanket and the cushions you brought, and you began to set out the food as he set up his portable speaker to play music from. Pouring two glasses of wine, you held one out to him as he returned to the blanket.
"Cheers," you said, clinking your glass against his. He took a sip of the red wine before digging into the food that you had so carefully laid out. Sam liked to pretend that he was a food critic, and you rolled your eyes at his hilarious comments, presented with a horrible French accent.
"Zeees is gouuud, but it needs a leetlee something," he said, but he couldn't finish his thought because you had scrambled out of your seat on his lap to look at a butterfly that landed on a beautiful bush of flowers nearby. You creeped up behind the butterfly, carefully and gently trapping its wings between your pointer finger and thumb. You had always done this as a kid, because you loved to look at the intricate wing patterns up close. You knew you weren't hurting the insect, because that was the last thing you wanted to do. You brought the butterfly over to Sam, and he admired the beautiful red and orange color that decorated its wings.
"I've never seen one like that before." he softly said, reaching his finger out so you could place the butterfly on it. You let go of it's wings, and it actually hung out on Sam's finger for a while before flying away into the trees. His passion for nature made you love him even more. You knew you would never meet anyone quite like him again.
Now that you were distracted and now that he had an idea, he wanted to put his plan into action.
"Hey, sweets, I'm not quite done with our little game from earlier." He casually spoke, and you playfully stuck your tongue out at him. You were sick and tired of being tickled by him all the damn time, it wasn't fair because he knew your weak spots. Just as he lunged for you, you dodged his hands and ran the opposite direction, shrieking like a little girl. You knew you wouldn't be able to evade him for long, though. After all, he was much faster than you at running, and your endurance would eventually give out.
Thinking you had a pretty good hiding spot behind a huge redwood, you took a couple of deep breaths to compose yourself. "He'll never find me here, that loser." you thought, tilting your head back to rest against the trunk of the tree. Faintly, you heard a twig snap and before you knew it you were tackled to the ground with a thud by your boyfriend.
"I fouuuuund you, betcha didn't think I coulddd." He sing-songed into your ear, and you attempted to free yourself from his arms, probably for about the fifth time that day. Trying to suppress your laughter was no use, you never could. Your laughs shook your body and you crinkled your eyes shut as you lay under him on the soft forest floor. To say the least, you absolutely were not expecting his next words.
"Marry me, lovey." he whispered, and you immediately opened your eyes to see him intently looking into yours. He was no longer teasing, but completely serious. You almost didn't think you heard him right, there was no way. You opened your mouth to try to respond, but he cut you off.
"Baby, I love you so much. With all my heart." He stumbled over his words a little and your mind raced.
"Let me explain. Spending this time with you made me realize that I need you more than I need anyone. You are my light in my world, and everything I do, I do for you because I've realized the only thing I want is to see you smile. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else but you." he confessed, and your heart fluttered at his words. You didn't know he felt the same way about you as you did about him. He began to untangle himself from you as you didn't respond right away, but you quickly pulled him back to you and kissed him hard and said,
"Yes, Sam, I will marry you. You make me the happiest girl in the world and I love you with my entire heart."
