Maybe It's Been You All Along - Alex Turner

38

  Reclined in the shade upon a white pool chair sat Rosanna with her long legs outstretched into the sun and her nose buried in a notebook. The hot Californian sun beat down through a cloudless sky and reflected off the bright cream pool-tiles. The glimmering blue rectangular body of water that sat before her shimmered patterns all over the backyard, casting twinkling white snakes upon the roof of the outside patio and the umbrella that hung over the youthful girl.

Laying on his back in the wavering water was Alex, complete with sunglasses over his closed eyes as he soaked up the sun that was sure to burn him; even if he'd lathered himself in sunblock before.

Waking up from a partial nap, Alex stood up in the water and swam over to Rosanna, resting his elbows up on the tiles as he watched her silently scribble into the notebook he had bought her for Christmas.

  "What're you writing?" Alex asked, a small smile playing on his lips. Rosanna looked over her notebook at him and smiled. He looked so good where he was, resting on the side of the pool, looking up at her with droplets of water running down his skin like liquidised diamonds.

  "A secret," Rosanna smiled and turned back to her writing. They were approaching their seventh day living together in Los Angeles and it had been nothing short of busy and bliss. Their arrival at the airport could be described in three words: hectic, paparazzi, incognito. They couldn't go directly to their new house due to precautions so that no paparazzi or media outlets would know where they were living so they booked a hotel for the first night and stayed there.

  By the time they had arrived, boxes filled with their belongings were being delivered to their new house up in the hills. The road to their new shared estate was winding and took a good ten minutes to get up. But the second they stepped in, Rosanna hugged Alex tightly. It was their new home and they were moving in together.

  They spent the first three days furniture shopping and buying necessities such as a new bed, settees and luxuries such as a flatscreen television and various trinkets to decorate their house with; including purchasing a customised sign that read "High Green" that Alex insisted on hanging up in the backyard patio.

There was a theatre room that the two of them agreed to make into a studio room and filled it with all their instruments and padded the walls to be soundproof during one exhausting day. Getting used to the time difference was even more difficult and they were still waking up at odd times and falling asleep at others.

  The minority of their house was still yet to be unpacked and decorated, with many boxes still lying about the place but the two of them decided they just wanted to relax and make the most of their new house and its accompanying pool.

  Alex was right, it was everything Rosanna could've wanted. It was absolutely perfect. It was nice and spacious but wasn't too extravagant that it didn't feel like a home. The way they had decorated it made it immediately obvious that it was their house to anyone who walked in. There were bookshelves and record shelves in many parts of the house with an expensive hi-fi system that Alex had bought Rosanna as a housewarming present. They'd decorated their large patio with fairy lights that made the already built in outdoor bar twinkle at night b

  The majority of their backyard was taken up by the pool area but toward the very back was a serene plot of shortcut grass surrounded by palm trees and green bushes. Rosanna and Alex spent their first night lying down together on that plot of grass joining together constellations with the tips of their fingers. Something about the stars always made Alex think of Rosanna. Every time he looked up he saw her face. She was his own constellation, livening and brightening up his life with her presence and as he watched her point into the dark night sky, he fell in love with her all over again.