Interesting

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"This was at his little cousin's birthday party." Mrs. Porter points to a picture of Bradley as a teenager. "He was 18 and thought he was too cool for pizza parties." She tells me and grab the photo.

Bradley was tall and lanky and if I didn't know better, I would swear this was a different person. He's still just so adorable.

"How old was he?" I ask her and she takes a deep breath to think about it.

"He has to have been 18 at the time. Let me go get the album from that day." She stands and leaves me with the rest of the album.

"You've been at this for hours." Bradley says before touching my shoulders.

"I just love learning about your childhood. I love hearing your mom talk about you. It's just so nice to feel so close to her." I look up at him and he smiles, dropping his head to kiss me.

"She loves you. Maybe more than me."

"I've got a good ways to go before I take your place as favorite." I joke and he shakes his head.

"Funny. You'll never believe what I managed to swipe." He changes the subject and I turn to face him, our voices hushed.

"The pants?" I ask excited and he nods.

"I'm never going to fit in them but I have them in the car. When you're done making fun of me, we can go to the hotel and get some rest."

"We're not making fun of you." I feign innocence.

"Then what're you doing?"

"Commenting on how adorable you are."

"You're adorable." He says and I roll my eyes.

"Noah was celebrating his 8th birthday party at the lake that year and we ordered pizza." Bradley's mom comes into the room with a smaller photo album.

"Oh, so me and Noah are the same age?" I ask and she nods.

"If I have the years right, yes." She hands the small album to me and I skip through the book slowly, taking in Bradley's family. It makes me smile to see everyone having a good time. I pause looking at a photo of the younger kids standing in front of a sign for the park. Lake Wedowee. I spent most of my summers there. Saw many birthday parties. There may be a good chance that I'm in one of these pictures.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Porter asks me and I turn to look at her.

"I spent most of my summers with my grandparents on Lake Wedowee. I think there may be a chance you might have caught me in one of your pictures." I tell her and she smiles.

"So you're telling me, when you were 8, we were in the same place at the same time?" Bradley asks and sits beside me and I shrug.

"I mean, there's a good possibility. I went to a lot of birthday parties there. I was only allowed to do so much."

"Little blue and yellow spaghetti strap one piece." Mrs. Porter says and I think back, sighing. I know I had one of those but plenty of kids did. I don't even know if I had it when I was 8.

"The girl who gave Noah a box of popsicles for his birthday?" Bradley asks with a smile, remembering that day and I laugh. That was my thing. We kept boxes of popsicles in the chest freezer so I could do that.

"That was me! That was my thing!" I tell them excitedly. They both look at me with a smile. Mrs. Porter flips through the album coming to a picture of me and what I'm guessing is Noah. I grab it from her and smile.

"You made his birthday. The ice cream was ruined that year because we forgot to get it out of the car." She tells me and I blush.

"You asked me what flavor I wanted and when you saw that you grabbed the last one of that flavor, you gave it to me. You were a sweet kid." Bradley tells me and I bite my lip. Right. I'm 10 years younger than him. I was an actual child when he was technically an adult.

"Im glad he had a good birthday." I tell his mother softly and she takes my hand.

"It's easy to forget the age difference, isn't it?" She asks me and I nod.

"Most of the time I don't even notice."

"Good. You might be younger than him but mentally you are right there with him. So smart and wise for your age." She comforts me and I smile.

"Thank you. If it's okay with you, I would like to go to the hotel and get settled now."

"Yes, get some rest. You've had a long day." She tells me and turns her attention to Bradley. "Maybe next time don't call her a kid." She tells him softly and I smile.

"I'm okay. Really. Just tired."

"I love you, Mom. We'll be back for breakfast in the morning." Brad hugs his Mom before turning back to me.

"Goodnight, Mrs. Porter." I wave to her.

"Goodnight, Natalie." Brad leads me to the entrance, where I slide on my shoes. He knows something is going through my mind. We walk outside and to his car in silence. I wonder if I'll always be good enough for him. Will my age ever bother him? At some point, will it become an issue?

"I didn't mean to make things weird." Bradley breaks the silence and leans against his car. I sigh and he pulls me so I'm in between his legs.

"I just forget that we have just a big age gap sometimes." I half smile, not meeting his eyes.

"It doesn't matter to us. I don't care about it."

"So it's not at all weird to you that I was at your little cousins birthday party when I was a kid?" I turn my head to the side.

"I mean it's shocking more than anything."

"Yeah, but that "sweet kid" from when you were 18, is the person you're sleeping with." He cringes and shakes his head.

"We were all kids at some point, Natalie. You just spent the last however many hours looking at pictures of me as a kid. You're sleeping with that kid." Okay, when said like that, I see the cringe. We're doing a hell of a lot more than just sleeping together.

"It really doesn't bother you that you were 10ish when I was born?"

"Why should it? I didn't know you then. I didn't fall in love with that 8 year old girl. I fell in love with the 22 year old woman, who happened to be a kind 8 year old at some point in her life." He touches my face and rests our foreheads together.

"I'm sorry. I guess there's still a small part of me that thinks the worst. That's waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"I know. We're working on it."

"I love you, Bradley. Thanks for being my calm."

"Hmm, I love you too, Dark and Twisty." I roll my eyes. I knew watching Grey's around him would come back to me.

"Okay, no more Grey's for you."

"Oh come on, I actually kind of like it." He shrugs and I kiss him softly.

"If you're trying to get laid, it's working." He smiles and kisses me again.

"Not what I was trying to do. I do think I could get into it enough to watch it with you."

"A man after my heart."

"I'm hoping you'll see me in these decades old baseball pants and just give it to me on a silver platter."

"That would require you giving it back to me."

"Hmm?" He asks for clarification and I sigh.

"I gave you my heart months ago." I whisper.

"Just wanted you hear you say it." He murmurs and I smile.

"Okay, lets go squeeze that ass into some baseball pants." I pull him up playfully.

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