The Only Direction

Chapter Twenty

Niall:

“Ready?” I asked. She nodded.

“1… 2… 3!” we said in union before pouring the little plastic bucket of water on Lux’s feet. She giggled and clapped her hands as if to say ‘Again! Again!’.

I smiled at Aria. “She’s a really happy baby”.

She grinned. “The happiest!”

“We should bring her to the ocean,” I said, eyeing the way that Lux was starring intently at the water.

“Ok,’ she said. I picked up Lux from the sand and began walking to the ocean. I turned around, expecting to see Aria walking beside me. Instead, she was jogging back towards her beach bag.

“Where are you going?” I called.

“She needs floaty’s!” she yelled back. She came back moments later holding little blue arm floats with yellow fish on them and a large, yellow doughnut shaped float with a dinosaur head, tail, and limbs (giving it the obvious resemblance to a dinosaur).

I chuckled. “She’s just dipping her feet in the water love, there’s no need to bubble wrap her”.

She put her little hands on her hips, the way she always did when she insisted that she was right about something. Or wanted to make a point. Or just felt like putting her hands on her hips. “She could DROWN if we don’t put these on her”.

She took Lux out of my arms and slid the little blue arm floats onto her arms. Lux stared at them curiously, her mouth slightly open in wonder.

I laughed and saw Aria laugh too. She was so beautiful today, with her long dark hair in it’s natural curls, her sparkling hazel eyes make-up free, her skin without cover-up, revealing a small scar on her chin. She looked beautiful everyday, just the way she was.

I held Lux’s tiny hand in my own and Aria did the same. Together we swung her up, then back down so her small feet were covered by the sea. Lux laughed happily and so did we.

“I want my turn with her!” Harry yelled. We laughed and handed Lux over to him and Alison. They sat with her on the sand, making sandcastles with the plastic buckets we had bought for her. She stared at them, her face filled with concentration.

“Care to join me for a swim?” I asked her.

“Sure,” she said, smiling. I threw my shirt onto the sand and Aria did the same to her own clothing.

“Race you,” she said with a mischievous grin on her face.

“First one to the rock wins,” I told her.

“Fine”.

“On three?”

“One. Two”. She took off running into the water and yelled “THREE!”

I laughed and took off running after her.

“That’s cheating!” I yelled after her. When the water reached to mid-thigh I began swimming.

“No it’s not!” she yelled back, “it’s called a head start!”

Aria paddled furiously, only a few strokes ahead of me. She looked back at me once, and then went back to swimming.

She reached the cave seconds before I did. For a girl with such little legs, she sure could swim.

The area around the cave was mainly people free. I wrapped my arms around her waist when we got onto dry land and kissed her lips softly.