He's Giving Me a Reason, an Emblem3 Fan Fic (Sequel to Riptide)

Chapter 45

"Woah, this room is bigger than I thought it would be." I said, setting my stuff down in the corner.

"Yeah, seriously. College is better than I thought it would be." Adrianna laughed. She flopped down on one of the beds and I took the other one.

"Thank god we're roommates." I said, looking up at the blank walls. "I'd be kind of hesitant to hang up all my posters if I didn't know you." Chuckling, I went and opened up my suitcase. I could picture the walls already: all covered with my music posters and stuff.

For the next few hours, Adrianna and I stayed couped up in our dorm room, setting up our stuff. The walls were completely covered- not a single inch was left bare. Every poster I had ever owned was plastered against the drywall: Nirvana, Sublime, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, you name it. I also had a Huntington Beach wall pennant hanging amongst it all. So you don't forget where you came from. I told myself.

"What, you didn't want to just hang a giant picture of my face in here?" I turned around to face Keaton, who was standing in the doorway to our dorm.

"I'm sure after X Factor's finished there's going to be plenty of posters with your face." I laughed. "And I will definitely hang one up with your face on it." Hearing me say this, Keaton's face lit up. "Where's Wes?" I questioned.

"He's still unpacking. I just caught the bus and headed over here." He shrugged.

"He let you out in the city alone?!" I semi-shrieked. I was going to kill him. Soon my angry thoughts were interrupted by laughter.

"Aves, I'm sixteen years old now. I can take care of myself." He chuckled.

"I was more concerned about you not knowing how to read the bus maps and accidentally ending up in Brookyln." I scoffed. The look on his face said that I had totally caught him.

"Okay, so it took me a while to get here..." he trailed off. "But I'm here now! What should we do?" He asked. I pondered this for a minute until an idea popped into my head.

"Oh my god!" I squealed.

"What?" Keaton looked at me suspiciously. I don't blame him either: it's the second time I've screamed at him in the past five minutes.

"You've never been to Manhattan before!" I stated the obvious.

"Nope. Never." He beamed, leaning against my wall.

"Well then come on!" I grabbed him by the wrist. "I am giving you an official tour of the city." I grinned. The halls were bustling with other freshman who were just moving in, and I successfully managed to drag Keaton through the masses of people- all while smiling at each one of my new dorm mates. College was going to be awesome.

It was Keaton's first time in New York, and I needed to show him around properly. And I knew just where to bring him first.

"For a Jersey girl you really seem to know your way around." Keaton laughed at my tour guide attitude as I walked us all over the city.

"Just because I'm from New Jersey doesn't mean I've never been here before." I laughed. "My hometown is only about a half hour away from here." I pointed out.

"Oh we are so going by your house at some point." He told me. I chuckled and rolled my eyes. Once my mom hears that the boys are in town, she's going to be baking cookies like crazy. But I definitely wasn't complaining. Her cookies were amazing.

"We're almost there." I promised as we rounded the corner. The entrance to Central Park was just as I had remembered it.

"No way!" Keaton jumped up and down excitedly. "Central Park!" I laughed and had to poke him a few times until he came back to reality. "It's so beautiful." He mused, looking at all the plants and trees that lined the park.

"Good thing you brought your camera." I winked at him. As soon as I saw the black bag slung around his neck, I just knew that I had to take him here. Keaton loved to take pictures; and Central Park was a photographer's dream. There was so much to do- we could go to the zoo, walk around the pond, Walk by the Delacorte Theater- it was around the time of the Shakespeare Festival, or check out Belvedere Castle and the nature exhibits.

"This is so awesome." Keaton was grinning like a complete idiot- and that made me super happy. I had brought him to the right place. "Woah. This place is huge!" Keaton said, jogging over to a map. "I didn't even know half of this stuff was even in here." He gaped.

"We'll go wherever you want." I told him. For the next few hours we went everywhere we possibly could before our legs fell off from walking so much. Even though it was just the two of us amongst a bunch of other New Yorkers, we had an awesome time.

First we walked through the woods, just getting a feel for the park- but then we decided to have a photoshoot. We walked over to the pond and snapped pictures trying to pet the ducks. We also fed them even though we weren't supposed to. We're quite the rebellious pair; I know.

After that we ended up by Belvedere Castle and the Delacorte Theater. There wasn't a play going on, so we decided to climb onto the stage. The only Shakespeare that Keaton has read so far is Macbeth, so we acted out a few scenes from the play. Apparently, we weren't horrible because we ended up attracting a small crowd.

Finally, we decided to wind our trip down and grab some ice cream.

"Thanks for taking me, Aves. That was pretty insane." He said, jerking his finger behind us where the park was slowly retreating in the distance.

"Anytime. Today was fun." I ruffled his hair and he swept out from under me- he hated it when people touched his hair.

"Gah! No, stop it!" Keaton laughed. "You're belittling me." He teased, ruffling my hair. I pouted: okay, getting your hair ruffled wasn't nearly as fun as being the one to do the ruffling. I laughed as we made our way back to my dorm where hopefully our friends would be waiting for us.

I wish it could be like this all the time.

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