Looking Up | Steve Mason & the Philadelphia Flyers |

Our Small Escape

------Steve's POV

My phone wakes me up with it's jarring tone and back pain greets me good morning. I let out a groan, turn over onto my side, and try to rub away the sleepiness from my eyes. Once I open up my eyes, I notice the other side of the bed is empty.

"Elle?" I call out in a croaky morning voice. I hear no response, but I do hear leaves rustling and a fire popping and crackling. After I stretch once more, I try to make my way out of the tent without falling on my face.

I unzip the tent and a smiling face greets me, "Good morning sleepy head!" Elle loudly chimes. She is absolutely glowing this morning. My gray sweatshirt hangs on her torso reaching just above her knees. Her black yoga pants hug her legs nicely and her baseball cap is hiding her bed head.

"Good morning! How'd you not wake me up with your alarm?" I ask, usually it's easy for me to be woken up.

"I got up without one- I couldn't fall back asleep so I just decided to start making breakfast!" she says with a small grin on her face. At that moment, the aroma of bacon fills my nostrils and my mouth starts to water.

I walk over to her and hug her from behind, "It looks great, thank you so much."

She throws 4 pieces of bread onto the pan after she's done cooking the bacon to make toast. Once it's all done, we sit at a picnic table and eat our breakfast slowly. Elle and I decide to take a hike around the woods after we change into lighter clothes. Once again, she gets flustered when I start to change in front her and I tease her for it.

The morning transitions into the afternoon swiftly and before I know it, our stomachs are grumbling. "I packed some snacks for us in my bag- I know the perfect place for us to eat!" Elle says to me excitedly.

We arrive to the lake that's about a mile from our campsite and Elle sets down her bag and searches for the food. Elle and I sit down on a small dock on the lake and begin to eat our trail mix and apples.

"It's soooo HOT!" Elle yells out loud as she fights to peel her sweatshirt off. I sigh and nod in agreement. I feel a couple beads of sweat fall from my forehead, "It's a lot warmer than yesterday." I watch Elle take off her shoes and dip her feet in the water.

I jump up and start to take off my shoes, then my t- shirt, and give Elle a smile as I walk backwards to the end of the dock. "What are you doing?" she asks with a smile as she rises from the side of the dock.

"C'mon!" I yell and then sprint towards the end of the dock. I leap off and do a canon ball into the water. When I rise out of the water, I see Elle dashing towards me with nothing but her orange sports bra and black underwear. When she soars off the deck, she lets out a cheer and there is a huge smile spread across her face.

When her heads pops up from the water, she gasps, "it's so cold!" and then lets out a hearty laugh. "Don't be a baby Elle!" I laugh and hold onto her body. We start to swim around the lake together switching from a backstroke and dog paddling the entire time. We swim to the middle of the expansive lake and float gently on our backs.

I quietly go under water and go underneath Elle stealthily. I pull her leg down into the water with all my strength and I hear her let out a loud yelp. As I am laughing, she is hopping on top of me, yelling "don't do that!", "you scared the crap outta me!" and hitting me lightly on the shoulder. "I couldn't resist the opportunity" I say and start laughing again replaying the sound of her scream in my head.

As we make our way back to the dock, I start to mimic her scream and laugh even harder. "Stop laughing!" Elle says while giggling and starts to splash water in my face me. We start to splash each other back and forth and after a little, I push off the sandy lake bottom and jump on top of her- she lets out a shrill right before I tackle her. When we reach the surface, our arms are wrapped around each other and the only sound that fills the campground is our laughter.