We wandered from artist to artist, looking over everything that was on display. I didn't buy anything. It seemed pointless since the Caseys never really had one place for too long and there was the fact that I hadn't brought any money.
We were near the end of the booths where there was one tent with gothic metal sculptures the artist made and for once, it was Travis leading me around the tent and marvelling at everything.
He picked up a few items and examined them, before holding them out to me to see.
"No way," he said like he couldn't believe his eyes. He was practically in a trance as he walked to the table opposite him, hand outstretched to pick one of the items up.
When he turned towards me, he had a long cane in his hand.
"What do you think?" he asked extravagantly as he crossed one foot over the other and leaned on the black cane.
"I think you don't need a cane," I answered, walking closer to him.
He handed me his back of half-eaten cotton candy. "Not for me."
Travis took a few steps back from me and raised the cane in his hands a few times like he was trying g to weigh it. Then with both hands on the end of it, he held it like a baseball bat and slowly hit at the air in front for him.
"For Cam," he said, switching his stance as he swung with precision at the air from the other side of his body, like he was left handed.
"Isn't his leg going to heal?" I asked.
Travis shrugged and pulled his phone out from his pocket, handing it to me. He held the cane out, with both hands on either end like he was presenting it to me.
"Take a picture," he said.
I stared at him. "With what?"
"My phone, duh."
My finger hovered over the camera app on his phone. "I thought you said we weren't supposed to take pictures," I said quietly so no one else could hear. When he had given me my phone, he ranted off a long list of everything I couldn't do and taking pictures was definitely on that.
"No," Travis explained, nudging the cane closer to me as if trying to tell me to do it already. "I said you couldn't take pictures."
That was when my frustration started.
"Are you serious?" I hissed.
"Yes," Travis said easily. "Take the picture. It's fine."
I huffed because he seemed oblivious to why I was mad so I took the picture to get it over with. He placed the cane back down and we walked out of the booth with my lips in a tight line. Once we were far enough away from everyone, I spoke up.
"What do you mean it's fine?" I asked. "Why couldn't I have taken pictures? I kept you a secret. You're the one that outed yourself."
I didn't actually have anything I wanted to take a picture of but it was the fact that he'd stressed it so much. Did he really not trust me? I wasn't dumb enough to take pictures of him or myself or accidentally send them to the whole team. If anyone would've done something like that, it would've been Mr. Left-My-Ringer-On-Josh.
Travis looked at me with a bored expression as we began walking toward the exit. "And what if Dylan got hold of your phone by accident?"
I kept my mouth shut because I'd forgotten about that.
"Everyone else has somewhat similar rules in case they lose their phone, okay? I mean sometimes they take pictures and send them to me but it's nothing with their face and only if I need to see something," he rambled as we squeezed between people.
I gave him back his phone and cotton candy and started eating some of mine. Comfort sugar.
"Do you trust me?" I asked.
"Yes," Travis said like he was annoyed I even asked.
"Sorry," I admitted when we were back on the sidewalk heading to the car. "I just don't want to be treated like I need to be watched or babysat."
"I don't think you need to be watched," Travis said and I felt the brush of his fingers against mine. "But I do watch you a lot."
I tried to hold my laugh in. "Stalker."
"You don't even know the half of it."
We were back at the car and I hesitated by the trunk, where Travis would split off to get to his side. "Did you not want that cane?"
Travis smiled and shook his head, "No. It'd break apart the second Cam hit something with it. But Ben or Finn might be able to work on something."
"Do you still want go to the lake?" I asked.
He nodded and headed behind the car. I got in on my side and Travis was grinning at me so I supposed he wasn't mad about me snapping at him. I still felt bad for overreacting. He tapped on his phone for a bit before he handed it to me and started the car.
I looked down at the screen as it lit up the car in the dark of the night. It was pictures he had stored on his phone. Confusion swept over me as I looked through some of them and Travis began driving.
There was a picture on his phone of when I first met with Finn and Ben in the street when Finn gave me the pieces of the broken security camera. I was standing across from the two and Josh was next to me. It was Ben that had me cocking my head to the side. He was looking up, almost directly at the person taking the picture.
"You were there? When I saw Finn and Ben at first?" I asked, observing the picture and trying to recall the day.
Travis nodded silently.
"You were what Ben was looking at?" I felt duped. I'd wasted time. I could remember looking up at the sky with Ben, but I was looking at the clouds. If I'd only looked in the right direction, I might have seen Travis. I might have gotten to hug him sooner. He'd been so close.
"No one looks up," he said.
"What a stalker," I admitted, "Why did you take a picture?"
I started flipping through the next few pictures but they were of random things.
"It was the first time I'd been that close to you in awhile and you looked pretty. I didn't want to forget...In case you went home or you went to another city, I didn't want to forget what you looked like."
My eyebrows knitted together as my heart sped up, bouncing around in my chest. I wanted to hold him and never let him go. I wanted to squeeze him so tight in a hug that my arms got sore.
I kept scrolling through his phone and eventually got to a few more pictures of Josh and I but they weren't as focused or close. They looked like either he was moving or we were moving.
"The day we were attacked by Dacosta's men?" I asked as I recognized the surroundings.
"Just a few, I was sending them to Jay so he'd know what you and Josh looked like in case he needed to intervene. And then I lost you guys because building roofs aren't always easy to navigate."
He had pictures of almost all of my old co-workers on his phone. Some of the view from random rooftops during mid-day, morning, night, and a few with the sun setting.
I was taken back to the day I was in his childhood room years ago, looking over bits of it with him hovering nearby. He had pictures of all of his friends on one of his walls.
And now, he had pictures on top of pictures in his phone of the view from different rooftops.
When I got to the picture I'd taken of the cane earlier, I put his phone in one of the empty cup holders between us.
"What would you do if you could be anything?" I asked.
"What?" Travis asked, confused.
"For a job."
He shrugged, "When I was a kid, I wanted to work at a pet store. And then a skateboarder when my dad told me working at a pet store didn't mean you just pet dogs all day."
I laughed and the tips of his mouth turned up in a smile.
"Laugh it up," he joked as we made a sharp turn.
"What about now? If you weren't in the gang, what would you want to be doing?"
"I've never thought about it," he admitted.
"Some of those pictures were really pretty," I said, trying to figure out if he liked photography or not. It wasn't like it was necessary to take a picture of the view with the sun coming up. He did it for a reason. But he didn't say anything after that and I wondered how close to the lake we were. The buildings were now replaced with trees and things were much darker and quieter.
Eventually, we parked by a small cove and Travis backed up the SUV close to the water. When I got out, I walked over to the edge of the lake to take in the view. The area we were in was relatively small but I could see the rest of the lake in the distance, much wider than the spot we were at. The moonlight reflected off the water as the wind blew small ripples in it.
Travis found my hand, intertwining it with his.
"This is so pretty," I whispered.
I didn't know how the Caseys were able to stay in Melkin, the city swallowed up in disaster, when this place was so close. It had city life and the quiet views.
Teenagers were beyond the cove, their voices muffled by the distance and I could see silhouettes jumping off a cliff into the lake.
"You ready to go skinny dipping?" Travis asked, letting go of my hand and taking a few steps closer to the edge.
"We're not going skinny dipping," I said sternly.
I looked at the ground to see a blanket on the ground behind us that Travis must have put down before coming over to me.
"And why not?"
"It's public indecency. If someone comes by and get mad, you could get in trouble with the cops. That's what happens when there's a warrant out. For your arrest," I stressed, hoping he'd understand.
Travis just rolled his eyes. "So they call the police on me and what? I'm just going to wait here for the cops? Yeah, right."
His took off his jacket and threw it down on the blanket. When his fingers grazed the bottom of his shirt to pull it off, I held out my hand.
"We're not going skinny dipping," I repeated. "I'm not going." Partly because of the indecency thing but mainly because I was pretty sure the water was freezing and I was a chicken.
Travis laughed. I could see just the bottom of his stomach as he paused lifting his shirt.
"I can just carry you in with me," he offered with a troublesome grin.
I shook my head. "Maybe three years ago. Not anymore, I've been trained specifically in the art of not getting thrown in lakes."
Travis let his hands drop to his sides as he studied me but I could tell he was amused. "You think so?"
I crossed my arms and let a sly smile coat my face, "Yes. Besides, Cameron's the fighter. You just aim."
"You think you can take me?" Travis asked, gesturing to himself like it was intimidating. It really just made me want to tackle him and kiss him a little.
"If you put your guns away, definitely," I said as confidently as I could.
I couldn't tell if he was humoring me or slightly offended that I was saying he was only a shooter. That wasn't true at all, of course. I'd seen him fight.
But despite all that, he walked a bit of distance away from me and put his gun down. I really didn't think he needed a gun on him in the first place when it was just the two of us at a lake, but I figured it was habit. He walked back over in front of me and jumped up and down a few times, shaking out his limbs.
To anyone else it probably looked like he was warming up but I knew he was, in his words, shaking out the seriousness. I smiled as he stopped and looked at me challenging.
"Okay. Kick my ass," he said with a smirk.
"You're serious?" I asked, expecting him to drop this idea already.
"Come on, either kick my ass or I'm tossing your ass in the lake."
His eyes glinted with amusement as they moved over me. He took a few steps towards me and swung his elbow out at me. I quickly darted to the side, but I was under the suspicion that he wasn't really trying.
Travis grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at me.
"You're not really going to-" I was cut off when he took another step toward me and grabbed my arm forearm.
He started to tug me in the direction of the lake. My eyes bulged and I kicked my leg out, hitting him with my shin. Not hard, I didn't want to bruise my boyfriend.
Travis grinned and let go of my arm but sent his fist in my direction not a second later. I blocked it with my arm and sent another kick his way to keep him far away. I raised my other leg to kick him but he moved out the way and managed to get in my face again.
I wanted to kiss him.
But instead, I ducked and held my arms up to my face to block anything else he sent towards me. He was close enough to me now that I was able to jab my left first towards him and hit him.
Right, hit, left, he caught my hand in his fist.
Travis grinned, laughing lightly like he was amused.
With his hand still around my fist, he sent his other hand towards my head but I pushed my free arm up, using it to block his hand.
I pulled him closer to me with the hand he was holding and sent my knee up to his stomach. I went to do the same with my other leg but he let go of my hand to block my knee.
Travis and I paused, studying each other and he looked absolutely giddy.
That was when he advanced on me fast and it was all a blur as I focused on blocking. His right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand, right foot as he came at me again and again. A few of his hits got through but I could tell he wasn't putting much effort behind them.
I took a few steps back and he stopped walking.
"Ready to go swimming?" he asked.
Instead of answering, I just shuffled up to him and kicked him in the chest, knocking him back a few steps. I did it a second time before I started aiming my fists at him. I got two in and the rest he blocked.
We went back and forth for awhile and I could hear my heart beating in my head and my breathing started to get heavier. I could tell he was putting more focus and effort into it because it was getting harder and harder, even though his hits were still soft.
He swung at me with his elbow again, something I noticed he liked to do and I ducked, running forward as I did so. I went under his elbow and behind him, where I kicked him in the back of the thigh before doing the same to his back. But before I had a chance to reveal in the small victory, his fist was coming towards me, hitting my arm.
I kicked my leg out trying to hit him in the side but he just caught my foot in his hands and started pulling me towards him. I hopped along, trying to wiggle free. When I got close to him, he kept one hand securely on my leg, pressing it against his hip as I faced him. His left hand came at my face again but I blocked it with my forearm and grabbed it with my hands quickly, holding it across the front of my body and locking it underneath my left arm.
I still had my right arm available. One of his arms was tied up by me and the other was holding onto my leg. I had the advantage. I could've stabbed him plenty in this position if we were doing real hand to hand combat. I won. And I think he knew it too as he smiled. His body pressed closer against mine and I watched hesitantly as his eyes dropped down to my lips. His face came closer to mine and my heart flipped because I'd wanted to kiss him so badly. I moved in to close the distance between us, a good award for the win in my opinion.
"Love you," he breathed against my lips.
My chest shuttered, like my lungs didn't want to breath again. Like they didn't want to push away the breath that brought those words to me. My heart, my stomach, and my brain practically threw themselves out of my body to drown in the lake. My body froze. His lips were hovering over mine, not quite touching and all I had to do was twitch and I would be able to kiss him.
But instead, I felt him smile. I felt him let go of my leg, hook his arm I had been holding captive around my arm and twirl me around. I felt him pull me close with my back against his chest. I felt his other hand go under my free arm and pull it back, locking me into place and rendering my arms useless.
And I did nothing.
I could feel his breath on my neck as he leaned his head down next to mine and planted a soft kiss on my shoulder.
"I win," he said.
Travis let go of my arms and bent down, looping one arm around my back and the other under my legs as he lifted me up with ease.
"Travis, no," I said desperately as he started to walk towards the lake. I had so many other things I wanted to say and ask him and here he was, carting me off to the freezing lake instead of letting me focus.
He just laughed.
"Seriously it's going to be cold," I called out as I kicked my legs but he just held on tighter to me.
When the water was about a step or two away, I clung onto his neck, trying to raise myself higher and get away from it. I wasn't about to get dropped in alone.
"Travis Miller!" I yelled and part of me realized how good that felt. To be able to yell his name or yell at all even, and not worry about who heard or who was nearby or who would come to arrest him if I did it.
He stopped and started laughing. I finally looked away from the dreaded lake to him and he was watching me and laughing his butt off.
His arm slowly let go from my legs but I just held onto his neck tighter and wrapped my legs around his waist. Both of his arms found their way under my thighs and thankfully, we started to walk away from the lake.
My senses started to come back to me. I could feel the deep intake of breath he was taking each time, like he was winded and I could feel his heart beating quickly on his neck after cheating to win.
But all I wanted was to kiss him so I leaned in and practically attacked him. He kissed me back eagerly, only pulling away to look over my shoulder for a moment at where he was walking. Travis kneeled down and started kissing me again as he leaned forward, causing me to fall backwards onto the blanket. He went to pull away from me but I tightened my legs around his waist.
I knew he was stronger than I was so he could've pulled away but instead, he leaned down onto me, pressing his body against mine. I ran my hands through his hair and over his neck as we kissed.
I felt like I could run miles. Run miles while chanting 'I knew it!' But no matter how many times I told myself that he loved me, it didn't even hold a candle to hearing it out of his mouth. It was my entire body had been ignited and it was restless.
I paused and Travis moved his lips from mine over to my cheek and jawline. But that's not why I stopped kissing him so I put my hands on his cheeks and pushed his face away from mine slightly.
"Did you only say that to win?" I asked, but the smile on my face wouldn't leave.
"Say what?" His words were distorted by my hands still holding his cheeks and causing them to squish up slightly.
I let go and looked at him skeptically.
Travis only grinned and winked before kissing each of my cheeks and then lips once. I decided not to push it, taking it the small accomplishment of him saying it and running with it.
One of his hands moved behind us and he untangled my legs from his hips and rolled off me, onto his back. My eyes were glued to him as his confession echoed around in my head.
He grabbed one of my hands in his and pulled it up to his chest. I could feel his heart racing but he wasn't breathing heavily anymore. Was it beating that quickly because of our fight or him saying he loved me?
A smile played on his lips and he closed his eyes. I stared at him, trying to memorize every bit of his face in this moment. Every freckle. Every strand of misplaced hair on his head.
I closed my eyes, letting his face play in my head as if I was quizzing myself on how well of a job I'd done.
Crickets were the only noise filling the air, with the occasional rustling of the water from the wind. The teens from earlier must have left. I didn't want to ever leave this moment. This blanket. This lake.
I could hear Travis fidgeting slightly but I didn't open my eyes. At least, I didn't until he let go of my hand and I felt something cold against my arm.
As I opened them, I saw him lifting my hand up slightly and clasping a silver bracelet around my wrist. Once he finished, he let go of my hand and with much confusion, I pulled it close to my face to examine what he'd put on it.
It was a dainty bracelet with a small charm on it in the shape of ballet slippers. I pulled the charm closer to my face in case I was imagining the bracelet. Maybe I was imagining the entire night. Maybe I'd fallen asleep somewhere.
"Do you like it?"
"What?" I asked, flabbergasted. Too many questions were swirling in my head and fighting to be asked first. Like where did he find this and when and why did he buy it?
"Do. You. Like. It?" he repeated slowly.
"Where did you get this? I mean, yes. I love it...Where did you get it?"
"At the art fair," he said simply.
I'm pretty sure my heart stopped when I looked at him as he said that.
"I also got a few of these," he said offhandedly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a black sculpture of a skull that fit in the palm of his hand. "Figured Cam would appreciate it. Well, he won't. He'll say it's stupid and too soon. So I'm planning on hiding them around the house for him, which will annoy him, which I'll appreciate."
I laughed as my fingers played with the bracelet.
"Thank you," I gushed. "You're amazing."
Travis turned so that he was on his side facing me and the tips of his lips tilted upwards. "You said it, not me. But yeah."
I tugged on his shirt until he was back on top of me. His legs were between mine and he hovered over my face, using his arms to support himself.
My hands went over his shirt and moved against his chest, my fingers splayed out to try to feel as much as possible until they reached the end of his shirt. I slipped my fingers underneath, feeling his warm skin as I trailed back up his muscles. The whole time, he was just watching me.
"You have too many clothes on," I said.
Travis' lips were on mine almost a second later as he leaned his weight to one side and used a hand to start pulling his shirt up and over his head.
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