She | h.s

forty-two

"This place is fucking amazing," I whisper under my breath as we walk through the long hall, the ceiling being bright blue with tanks filled with fishes. I snap pictures on my phone, sending them to Sarah, Louis, and Niall, updating them on how the day has been going.

Elio smiles at me, his phone pointed my way as I look around, the aquarium being almost entirely empty so he and I had basically the entire place to roam free. The lights were fluorescent blue, and all I could do is marvel at all of the different fishes in its places.

I beg Elio to let us do one last round around the shark pavilion before he drags me out of the aquarium, going through the gift shop and scanning through the different knickknacks stocked on the shelves.

"Look, there's a photo-booth." He points to it, my eyes tearing away from the octopus plushie that I had debated on purchasing, now staring at the glowing lights surrounding the photo booth.

"Do you think they'll let us put photos into their keychains?" I ask him, cocking my head to the side and he smiles, shoulders shrugging.

He looks to the side in hopes of finding an employee to assist us, then smiles triumphantly as he sees a sign and points to it, taking my hand and walking that direction.

"It say's their frames and key rings are customisable, do you want to take some photos?" He asks me and I smile, nodding back at him.

We shuffle into the small booth, legs almost having to overlap over each other's as the space was too crowded. We laughed at that as I ended up placing my legs over the bend of hs knees, his hands finding it's way to my thighs and he smiles, squeezing lightly.

The screen beeps, signalling for us to start posing and we panic, laughing lightly as we scramble to find poses to do. The first was just a simple picture of us smiling, his dimples popping out on each side of his cheeks.

I scramble to change positions in our next photo, this time my body is completely slung onto his lap and I squeal just as his knees move up to make me bounce, the photo booth snapping the exact moment as I do so and we're left with me, mid-squeal as he looks at me, laughing.

"You must think you're so funny," I say, and he nods.

"I really do, yeah." He chuckles, ruffling up my hair and I giggle, staring right at him unaware that the photo booth had snapped another picture.

We pose for the last two, and I climb off of his lap to give him horns and he smirks playfully as the screen takes a photo of us. I scramble to think of an idea for the last photo of us, and impulsively smash his lips onto mine as the camera counts down and snaps a picture of us in the heat of a sweet kiss.

Getting out photos and sizing them onto the keychains, I smile down at it as I inspect it in the palm of my hand.

"Look," I nudge him, "We look fucking adorable," I say, making him laugh as we get to the counter to pay.

"Wait, one second. I need to grab something," He says, leaving me at the counter and I nod, smiling awkwardly at the person across from me at the cashier.

"Lovely day today, isn't it?" The cashier says and I nod, humming out a yes. "Weather's perfect, even if it is getting a little chilly," I say to her and she agrees.

I see Elio's tall frame and floppy brown hair walking back to me, his hands behind his back as he pulls his wallet out to pay.

"You are so not paying for this!" I whine, trying to grab my wallet and he pulls me away, paying anyway.

"Come on! You already paid for our tickets, you seriously don't have to pay for these," I say, tugging at his coat and he waved me off.

"It would be awkward if I made you pay for this—" He says, finally placing the stuffed octopus I was eyeing earlier onto the counter and handing over a few bills to the woman at the cashier. I smile at him in disbelief, nudging him again.

"Stop! You don't have to buy me that, I was just looking at it." I say in protest, but it's too late as he hands me the bag filled with our goodies.

"It's a gift from me to you," He shrugs. "Don't worry about it," He says and the cashier smiles.

"You two are just the loveliest couple, reminds me of my husband and I when we were young." She says, sighing happily at us. "Oh to be young and in love," She giggles, and I have no idea what to say.

I lock eyes with Elio for a second before we both smile, his hand intertwining with mine. "Thank you," I say to her, and she smiles at us. He gives me a look that I can't quite read, as I try to not think of how I hadn't denied that we were a "couple".

That was a conversation for another day.

"You two have a good day," she says to us and I nod at her, smiling.

"Oh to be young and in love, huh?" Elio teases as we walk out, wiggling his eyebrows and I laugh at him.

"She was so sweet, God I love old people." I say, making him snort. We exit the building, hand in hand and make our way to the parking lot to his car.

He stops us, seeing something in the distance and pulls my hand, "One last stop, then we can go. I promise," He says, tugging me along before I could even respond.

He skips happily to a small kiosk in front of the aquarium's entrance, hand dropping mine to look for his wallet once more. I furrow my brows at his smug smile, before realizing what the kiosk had to sell.

It was a flower stall.

He was going to buy me flowers.

"Okay, this is way too much. You don't need to get me flowers," I say, my cheeks heating as he peers over the different flowers, disregarding my every word.

"C'mon, every date has to have flowers. I know it's usually at the beginning but better late than never right?" He says, smiling at me before picking out a simple bouquet with three long stemmed white roses, yellow and pink flowers around it.

"How much for the lovely flowers?" He asks the vendor and he smiles.

"It's two-fifty for the three, four hundred for six." The vendor says and he nods, putting the flowers down.

"Alright then," he says, and I give him a questioning look.

"We'll take the six then," He says, making me gasp.

"Stop!" I whisper, my jaw hung open as he hands the vendor four hundred dollars before giving the flowers to me, smirking.

"Elio! What the hell!" I smile, laughing in disbelief and he laughs along.

"What?" He says simply, holding my hand, the flowers in his other.

"What do you mean what? You just spent four hundred dollars on flowers!" I say, laughing as I grab them from him, pulling his face down to mine to kiss.

"Flowers for you," He says, chuckling at me.

"You are insane," I laugh, pulling away from the kiss. "Okay, no more surprise stops, we are going to get some super unhealthy fast-food and I'm paying for it. Your wallet must be in tears for today, I didn't think I was going to be such an expensive date,"

"Yeah, we'll see about that." He says, climbing into the drivers side of his car and starting it. I shake my head, laughing as I get into the passenger side, octopus plushie in one hand and bouquet of flowers in the other.

"For the record, it's totally worth it Dais," He says, and I swallow the lump in my throat at the use of the nickname. It was the first time he had ever used it on me and I couldn't help but feel my insides turn at the thought of Har... No.

I nod at him, laughing lightly as I push the thoughts of...him away and agree with Elio, driving off with my head resting on the seat, looking out the window and sighing.