In This Life (Sequel to 'In Another Life')

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I just laughed, and followed them inside the cool house. The guys pulled off the hot hoodies, leaving Sam in his cut off, and Colby shirtless. I tried to ignore that, while I stuck the SD card into Sam's laptop that he had brought out. They took turns going through the photos, picking out their favorites for each piece of merch. "These are really, really good T," Katrina said, her eyes on the screen. There was a picture of Sam standing in front of the pool. The sun lit the water, making a thousand crystals reflect towards the camera. Sam was wearing a baby blue Never Normal t-shirt, that helped to accentuate his already bright blue eyes. The water behind him made them almost match to it's color perfectly. His face was turned to the sun, so that his jawline was sharp and present, his chin strap showing perfectly. "This is my favorite," Kat said, tapping her nail against he screen. "I want a copy of this one." "Huh?" Sam asked. "You never get copies. If anything, you usually just take a screenshot after we post them." She shrugged. "And? I don't want the quality ruined of this one. I want it just like this, from it's original source." I was half listening to them, and half staring at the screen where Colby was critiquing his own photos now, since we were finished with Sam's. "I wish that I would have turned just a little more in this one," he muttered to himself, then switched to another one. I listened to him criticize each one and it literally hurt my heart. I knew that he was talking to himself more than anyone, about himself at that...but these were my photos. I took these. Hearing him talk about how they could be better, had me second guessing myself. "You don't like any of them Colby?" I asked, twisting my rings. "Huh?" he said, looking over to me. "You don't like them. That's fine. You can get another photographer to do more whenever." I was really trying hard not to be mad, but he was the one who had basically forced me to do this, and now none of them were good enough. I thought they were amazing. "What?" Sam said in astonishment. "Colby, brother, these are the best pics you've ever had done. Including your Instagram models shots. You're fucking blind dude." "Wait," Colby said, sitting back and shaking his head. "I never said that I didn't like them. Where'd you get that from?" I just raised my eyebrows and repeated what he had said. "If I would've just turned a little more, lifted my chin, looked down, moved my stance," I said, hearing the hurt anger that was seeping through my voice. This was the main reason that I didn't want to do this. Colby had always told me how great my photography was, but now it wasn't good enough for him. "No, no, no," he said, shaking his head again. "That's not what I meant at all. What you did is amazing! Sam's right. I haven't had any better pictures done. I was talking about me. The things that I could do better for next time." I rolled my eyes. "Colby Brock, I don't understand you sometimes," I said, sighing. He ran his fingers over his hair, fixing it when it didn't need to be fixed. "I don't understand myself sometimes either T," he said, looking back at the photos. "Okay, this one, this one, and this one. These can go up on the site, and I'll post these on Instagram." We let the conversation die, and Sam chose which pics were going to go where. "Oh Sam," I said as an afterthought. "Yeah?" he asked, standing up with Katrina. "I have some video clips from today as well. Thought you might want to piece them together for the end of your videos." He grinned at me, throwing his arm around Katrina's neck. "That'd be great T. Thanks." I nodded, and watched them walk out. "Thank you Terra. Seriously. I appreciate you doing this and I do think this is the best we've ever had. I'm sorry I made you feel like it wasn't." I leaned back into him, and sighed. "It's okay. I'm usually better about taking critisism. I think just because it's you, it hurt more than it should. I blame that on you by the way," I said, leaning my head back so that I could look up at him. "Me? Why?" he asked, smiling. "Because you've been nothing but this perfect fucking boyfriend our entire relationship. I've gotten used to us not having any problems between us. Outside forces, yes, but not with us. So that's your fault," I said, smiling and tapping his nose with my finger. "It's not normal Colby. Every relationship has problems, arguments, disagreements. We never do. One of us always caves before it can even come to that. I don't know if that's healthy." "Whoa, this got real deep, real quick," he said, sitting up and turning towards me. "Should I be worried?" I shook my head, but shrugged at the same time. "I don't know. It's weird that I'm worried because our relationship is too good, isn't it? I just don't think it's normal. Jake and Tara argue, Sam and Kat argue, Sarah and Brennen argue. I'm just in my head again, I guess. Even Justin and I argued." I saw him flinch just a little when I mentioned Justin. "Terra, I don't think it's weird. I get why you think that, but you have to understand that we haven't been together as long as they have. We're still in our 'honeymoon' phase. Ironic, I know." I cracked a smiled, and looked down as he took my hand in his. "But are we? Because if you count the time from before, we've been together longer." "That doesn't count," he said, putting his fingers under my chin and making me look at him. "Not for this time. It counts for all of the memories and how we met, but it doesn't count."