Birds || Fuenciado

Chapter 10: Almost Kissing

"Hello."

"Me again," Alex laughs, clear, bright voice ringing out like bells. "I've double checked my timetable and I can do three days over in SoCal. How's that?"

"Amazing!" I exclaim, actively stopping myself squealing. "Alex, I've been screaming all morning."

"Me too, honestly!" He giggles, voice higher in pitch. "Oh my God, I've missed you so much! Is it definitely alright to crash with you?"

"Yep. I checked with mother dearest."

"Perfect! I'll call you closer to the time with flight details, but for now, I must dash."

"See ya, Lex."

"Bye, loser," he says smugly, and then hangs up.

I have to stop myself bouncing around the house for the rest of the morning like a six year old with a play date lined up and actually knuckle down, forcing myself to be calm and composed and productive, reasoning I can be excited later, providing I get things done now. Despite still feeling high and stupid, I manage to sit myself down in my room with my laptop open on my desk and Dad's camera connected up to it.

It takes me half an hour to get to work, sure - I'm too busy being happy to concentrate fully, but once I've decided I'm going to work I'm able to switch off and focus. It's fair to say I'm in a significantly better mood than yesterday - I wasn't going to be. I woke up completely on the wrong side of the bed, still subtly fuming over that new patch on my head, and I was completely ready to be a grumpy ass for the rest of the day; but not fifteen minutes after I'd got back from my run, my phone rang, and it was Alex, and he told me he was going to come back to California for the OC event and now I feel as if I'll never be sad again.

I sip on a home-brewed coffee as my laptop registers the camera as a connected device, and then I select "import files". Hundreds of pictures flood the screen - the majority of them are old pictures that remained on the chip, so I have to scroll for a while until I find the beginning of my photo shoot with Jaime.

And I fall in love with the pictures all over again.

I haven't looked at them for two days, and I'm in a ridiculously good mood as things are, so looking at them brings a huge smile to my face. One by one, I scroll through them, bookmarking my favourites. There's one of him from a distance as he leans casually against the fence of the pond holding the two flowers he selected. His denim jacket flaps idly in a soft breeze and the light is at just the right angle to make him stand half in glow, half in shadow. There's another of him sitting down facing the pond, knees drawn up to his chest and head tilted back as he smiles with his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around his legs, the flowers lying by his side and the setting sun on his face.

"Nice," I mutter to nobody in particular.

My favourites are in the second section of photos: the nighttime shots. There's one face on of him sitting cross legged with the fairy lights draped over his body, lighting up the soft purple sweater, tumbling over his limbs and the ground upon which he sits. In the background the lights are reflected in the stream and the bridge is visible enough to be present but not overwhelming. The focus is on Jaime, sitting with his hands clasped in his lap and his head slightly tilted. In the dark and the alternative lighting his features are noticeable but undefined, blurred and indistinct. It would be a good picture to contrast with the other I liked.

The pictures, as I noted on Thursday night, get less and less artsy the more I go through them, and start to look more and more like I'm just taking pictures of someone beautiful; which, I suppose, is what happened here. And I don't mind it so much. When I get to the end of the photo reel I slip my phone back out of my pocket: