24 Hours (Wattys 2016)

Hour 19

Hour 19

(1:00 AM EST)

"Don't yoooooou rememberrrrrrrr." Beckett and I sang loudly, throwing our hands up in the air.

"The reason you loved meeeeeee beforeeeeee." Beckett sang, way too high pitched.

I leaned against the door of his truck, in a fit of laughter. The song ended, and a minute after our laughs died down, Beckett spoke.

"Whats next on your list?"

"Karaoke." I joked. "Because your voice is sooo amazing."

"But of course." Beckett pretended to flip his hair over his shoulder.

"We are going to our cement spot." I grinned at Beckett, I was referring to the neighborhood playground that was built when we we're six, and where we inprinted our little ten year old hands into the cement.

"What are we going to do there?" He asked with a mischievous smirk.

I reached into the back of his truck where I had stashed something there earlier.

"We are going to put something else in the cement." I revealed the small bucket of cement I had bought at Lowes.

"Where did you buy a travel size of cement?" Beckett laughed, reaching over to the small can of cement.

"In the cement section of Lowes." I shrugged.

"You went to Lowes?" Beckett asked, sounding shocked.

"I'm breaking gender boundaries!" I exclaimed.

"When are you not?" He kissed my cheek, and handed me back the cement and began the drive from the beach back to the park.

"Do you remember the--" Beckett cut me off.

"Don't you rememberrrrrrrr." He sang making me giggle.

"The last time we were up at 1:00?" I laughed at the memory.

"New years." Beckett answered. "We were playing marco polo in the pool, after when midnight passed, we swam to opposite sides of the pool and began an intense game." I laughed remembering how marco polo went with two people. It was a lot of running into the sides of the pool.

"You never did catch me." I smiled, he reached over and took my hand in his.

"I got you now." He grinned, and I kissed our entwined hands.

"Remember how my parents came out at two-thirty and found us kissing in the pool?" I blushed, and laughed.

"I think that was when they really started liking me." Beckett joked.

"They loved you from the first time they met you, just like everyone." I smiled.

"Yourself included?"

"Definitely. The first time I met you I knew I was going to fall in love with you." I laughed.

"Really?" He raised one eyebrow.

"Yup." I said, holding back my laughter now. "It was like Romeo and Juliet, love at first sight."

"Seriously?" He was honestly believing me now.

"God no!" I laughed, and he broke into a grin. "Romeo wasn't in love with Juliet when he first met her, he was in lust with her. There is no such thing as love at first sight!"

"So what you're saying is that you were in lust with me at first sight?" Beckett teased.

"Shut up." I laughed. "You know that's not what I meant." Beckett pulled into the park, and leaned over and kissed my cheek.

"I'm not so sure about that theory." He whispered into my ear. "I think I knew I loved you the first time I saw you."

"Whatever you say, Mr. Flirts-a-lot." I teased, pushing open the car door, clutching the small cement can. I led Beckett over to the sidewalk just under the playground, where, tucked next to the end of a slide, was our small handprints. I knelt down next to them, and brushed my fingers over our small prints. I laid my hand over my handprint, and Beckett did too.

"Look how small we were." I murmured. "Life was so simple back then."

"No matter how many things have changed since then, one thing is the same, us together." He pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

"Let's do this." I said, moving to the corner of the sidewalk, where it met the grass. I dumped the cement, and smoothed out using the bottom of the can. It stretched far enough for enough space to fit both of our hands, so I placed my hand lightly down on the cement and waited for Beckett to place his next to mine. He did, linking our pinkies and together we pressed our hands into the cement.

We pulled them away, and I slowly wrote H+B and drew a shaky heart around it.

"I love you." I whispered.

"I love you." He whispered back.

"I love you." I said again, afraid that if I didn't say it enough now I would loose my chance to ever say it again.

"I love you." He said again, and in that moment I knew he felt exactly the same way I did.