I was never planning to ask him that and if I’m completely honest I don’t think I would have done it if Oakley hadn’t scared me into it. We originally planned to skateboard around camp until Oakley’s girlfriend, Taylor, called him to say he could come and hang out at her tent whilst her leaders were gone. She also said Oakley could drag me along if he absolutely needed to. Thanks Taylor.
It was fine up until the point where Oakley was desperate for the loo due to the fact he just drank a whole bottle of watermelon flavoured Fanta.
“Are you sure you don’t have an addiction?” I say.
“To what?” Oakley replies, opening another bottle.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.” He takes a mouthful.
“Yes you do.”
“No. I don’t. That's why I said ‘I don’t know’” I pause in front of him.
“Oakley Samuel Dixon! You have a Fanta addiction!” I practically yell.
“No I do not!”
“That's the biggest lie you have ever told me. And you literally lied to me about your girlfriend!”
“That is not true! Take that back!” We are arguing like little girls.
“No. But I will take this!” I grab the bottle of Fanta and run. “Race you to the portaloos!”
We speed past hundreds of tents. All different coloured blurs in the corner of my eyesight. Green, blue, grey, repeat. Green, blue, grey, repeat. I can hear Oakley’s excuses for not being able to keep up and why it’s unfair for us to be racing if he’s got to carry both of the skateboards.
“I can’t hear you over all this winning!” I yell back in his direction only to turn around to find…
Him.
His brown hair is pulled back by a black bandanna, his thick bushy eyebrows squish together at something amusing he’s looking at on his phone.
“Woah.” I mutter.
“Hey dude, you owe me for that. I twisted my ankle about two minutes ago and you didn’t even notice.” Oakley says, finally caught up with me. I don’t reply.
“Hello? Harley?” He waves his hand in front of my face. “What are you looking at? Hello? Earth to Harley? Come on, it can’t be that interesting that you can’t - oh.”
He looks between me and the angel stood 5 metres away.
“Dude.” He pushes me. “You should ask him out!”
“What! No!” I snap back to reality. “I don’t even know this guy! I can’t ask him out!”
“Oh come on! That’s what dates are for!”
“Shut up! Oakley! He can hear you!”
“You were totally starstruck by him! I mean, talk about love at first sight!”
“Shhhh! And I was not starstruck. I was just observing the- um- surroundings!”
“No! You were all-” He does an almost embarrassing impression of me being (apparently) starstruck. “You looked like the guy fell out of heaven right before you!”
I can admit, he sure looked like it.
“Fine” I admit.
“It’s simple, just go up to him and say ‘Hey you’re pretty cool, any chance I could get your snap?’ and then wait for his response and make conversation.”
“If I do it I don’t want you there, you’ll throw me off.”
“No problem, I’ll be in the loo if you need me.” He finger guns me and walks off. I roll my eyes, he’s watched too many movies.
I look back towards the guy, in all his handsome glory. ‘This is it’ I think, and I walk towards him. He still hasn't looked up from his phone.
What if he looks up and still walks away? What if he looks up and sees me and doesn't like me? What if he says no?
All these questions rush to my head and I think about giving up. But I can't. Oakley will never let me live this down.
I approach from behind. We're so close his scent radiates off him, a cinnamon scented axe body spray with a hint of freshly cut grass which makes me feel like I've just been served my favourite meal and you can't be sure if this feeling will stay but when you take that first mouthful it's as if the world has gone back in time and is replaying the same feeling over and over again. I take a deep breath and reach up to tap him on the shoulder.
What if I forget what to say? What if I make a fool of myself?
I ignore the voices in my head and do it.
“Hey." I say. “I think you're cool. Any chance I could get your snap?"
He freezes, his mouth slightly agape, fringe blowing in the breeze. He stutters, looking at me, his eyes are the most breathtaking shade of brown and green. It's as if there's a forest in his irises. He stutters again but stops and clears his throat.
“I mean. Yeah that would be great.” He swallows. It makes me lower my gaze to his lips, lush and rosy, the colour of ripe watermelon.
“Great!” I say.
“Okay.” He stops again and carries on staring.
“So can I have it?"
“Oh yeah. Sorry, you took me by surprise.” He looks at his phone for a second. “Here."
He gives me his phone and I find my account on Snapchat and add myself as a friend. “My name is Harley, by the way." He smiles and meets my eyes but looks to the ground quickly. “Here's your phone back.”
“Oh yeah. Thanks. My name's Beck.”
His name is the opposite of his appearance, instead of short, snappy and simple, he is tall and every detail of him is like a long, unwinding map. Everywhere I look, he just gets more interesting.
“Cool.” I get back on my skateboard. He nods and lifts his hand as if to wave but returns it to his side. “So I'll see you around then?"
“Yeah, maybe after dinner?" He says with a smile.
“Sure! See you later Beck!" I wave. I turn around and skate off. That went better than expected.
(A big thank you to AlabamaBeefBrisket for beta reading all of my chapters before uploading them. 🥳)208Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkEHMxeOnrU
