Page 11 of Lost in the Current of You

I hadn’t even finished my sentence before I heard the click of the shutter. I turned my head, curious to see what had caught his attention, only to see the lens pointed straight at me. The shutter went off again right as my gaze connected with the lens. He grinned, and I felt mine grow before he clicked the button again.

I rolled my eyes.

He pushed me slightly aside, grin still in place. “Sorry, but you’re in the way.”

I scoffed out a laugh, shoving him back before he took the shot, making the photo come out blurry.

I let him be as he took whatever photos he wanted. My eyes never left him, though. He took pictures of everything, goofing around as he took selfies with all our friends.

With a wide smile, he handed the camera back to me after he had his fun. Looking back at the photos, I saw why. Most were blurry or cut half of everyone’s face off. Some were actually quite nice.

I kept flicking through the photos until I got to the ones he took of me. They were blurred but kind of beautiful. The blue of the sky and the whip of my hair. The smooth skin between my brow, which seemed to have a permanent crease. It was like he captured a rare fragment of time where I was left unguarded. That was the beauty of a photograph, capturing a moment in time and holding onto the rare memories.

In one of the series he had taken of me, my smile had taken over my whole face. It had been a long time since true happiness had graced my face like that.

It felt nice.

Reece came around behind me to look and I shook my head as I went back over the pictures. He took a lot more than I thought he was going to. I thought he would be tame but I underestimated him and I should have known he would have taken it to his advantage and gone nuts.

He stopped my flicking on a picture of us that he had taken when he stood closer to the edge of the cliff, and I was still in my original spot a couple of metres away. I was poking my tongue at him as he beamed at the camera. His face was just in the frame, cutting off at his chin as he stretched his arms out wide to fit me into the frame.

He chuckled, his warm breath hitting my shoulder. “God, I’m awful at this,” he stated, making me laugh. “Send this to me. And the others. I don’t care how bad they look.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He met my gaze as I looked over my shoulder. “You better throw in some of the photos you’ve taken, too. Just so I have something pretty to look at to remember this place.”

I furrowed my brows. “Why? You have your phone.”

He shrugged with a slight tilt of his lips as he flipped said phone in his hand. “They look better from your perspective.”

My lips twisted. “I doubt that.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Make sure you send them, or I’ll keep pestering you about them, and you don’t want that.”

I held my free hand up in mock surrender. “Fine. I’ll do it as soon as we’re back home.”

“Good.” The satisfaction on his smug face was almost so much that I couldn't resist, once again, rolling my eyes at his arrogance.

Almost, I say, because I kind of liked it.

And that thought had me turning away and meeting my friends who were all too ready to make the hike back down.

5

For the following three days, our mornings together turned into a routine of sorts.

Avery would head out before the sun broke for her morning run, returning an hour later, and poking me awake with food and coffee in hand. Alex was harder for her to wake since he slept like the dead. We would team up to shake, poke, and tease him with the smell of food until his eyes finally pried open in a glare while we smiled sweetly at him. His bad mood only lasted until he had some food in his stomach.

“You guys are so annoying,” he would mumble into a bite of his burger.

“But you love us,” we would sing back to him, which would finally pull a smile from his lips.

I loved this little domesticated moment we had each morning before spending our days on the beach, sun tanning, or swimming through the cool waters.

It felt like I was living a dream — one I didn’t want to wake up from and return to the reality waiting for me. To the expectations and pressure to set my future in motion. It was like the chains that weighed me down had released its grip on me, and it felt freeing.

We spent our days playing beach volleyball, eating the most delicious pizza, and snorkeling through the sea life and coral, filling up my memory cards of the most beautiful sights. While our nights were spent dancing until our feet were jelly and singing until our voices cracked.

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