Looking Up

-----Steve's POV

I look back at Elle with widened eyes and lean in closer to her, "camping?" I ask, making sure I heard her right. She lets out a small chuckle, "Yes- ya know, camping? The woods, tents, zero cell- service, campfires?"

"Yes, yes, I know, I-"

"Never mind, I'm sorry, that was stupid to ask," she says cutting me off. Her face starts to tense up and gets red in the face. Elle makes her way to the door, but I keep her from exiting the balcony by stepping in her path. I lightly place my hands on the sides of her face, and look into her eyes, "You didn't let me finish Bambi, I'd love to go with you." I say while giving her a wide, goofy smile. "One problem though, what should I bring?" She laughs and pulls me towards the bedroom holding my hand, "it's easy!"

Elle flies around my room going through different drawers, tossing me all the clothes I need to pack. While she does this, I fold the clothes and stuff them all into a backpack I usually use for away games. At one point, I look up from my bag and a sweatshirt whips me in the face. "Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry Steve!" I hear her footsteps get closer to me as I take the sweatshirt off my face. "I really am sorry about that," she says again biting her lip with an apologetic look on her face. "It's fine don't worry about it!" I laugh, "Hmm, I'm just going to wear it instead of pack it- I don't have much room left anyway." I walk over to my closet and pick out a clean shirt to wear underneath my sweatshirt. I lay down the t-shirt and take off the one that I'm wearing. Almost right away, Elle does a small gasp and turns around, "Sorry! I didn't know you were going to change!" I laugh at her reaction, "It's okay- you can look, don't worry."

I walk over to her, still shirtless, and turn her around, "You're going to have to get used to it sometime anyways." Her green eyes search my torso quickly. I lift her chin up and kiss her softly. When I pull away, I give her a broad grin and swiftly put on my t-shirt- she looks like a deer caught in headlights again. "You're going to have to get used to me kissing you too " I say while I turn around and throw on my hoodie and backpack. "Yeah, yeah, I know" she laughs softly.

While we walk downstairs to my car, Elle says "Ya know, you really think you're smooth don't you?" which causes us to bicker all the way to her apartment. We throw silly insults back and forth laughing and having fun. It is so refreshing to meet someone like her. Most girls take offense to things that I'm just joking about; Elle can take it as well as she can dish it out. However, the most important thing is that she has a smile on her face and it doesn't feel like it's fake.

When we get up to her apartment, she quickly stuffs some clothes into her dark green back pack, while I observe her room. Her bright orange walls are covered with posters, picture frames, and three corkboards filled with notes and even more pictures. Her oddly patterned turquoise curtains and bedspread contrast brightly against her walls.

"I know what you're thinking, it doesn't even match- I don't have a designer bone in my body, my aunt's been trying to help me with that" she says to me laughing while she folds another t-shirt.

"No! I like it, it's really, uh.... bright." I walk over to the corkboards next to a small desk and examine some pictures with familiar faces. "I like these 4 pictures of me- oh!- this one of G and Hartsy is really nice! And this one of Simmonds and Schenner!" Elle gasps, runs over to me, stands in front of the pictures, and shoots me a playful glare. "You must really love us! I can't wait to tell the guys how many pictures you have of them on your wall."

"Shut up!" she yells while laughing and gives me a little shove, "I've been a Flyers fan my whole life- what else do you expect?" We both laugh and I press my lips down onto hers gently.

"But I AM you're favorite though right?" I ask quietly in the middle of a heated kiss. She starts to crack up and shoves me off of her, "you wish!" She gives me a playful sneer, puts on her back pack, and then throws her hair up into a ponytail and puts on her hat. She makes her way to her coat closet and then calls me over to help her. Elle hands me a huge bag that most likely has the tent in it and a lantern. After she grabs a few more essential camping items and pots, pans, and food to cook, we make our way to my truck.

Once we get on the road, she gives me directions to the campsite she always goes to. "Thankfully, the sun won't set for another 3 hours so we'll have time to set everything up!" she says cheerfully. I want to question what even made her think about going camping, but I have a feeling there's an emotional reason behind it- I don't want to ask if she's not ready to talk about it. "I haven't been camping in forever" I confess, "the last time I went was probably in high school- or earlier."

"What?! Seriously? I go camping all the time in the spring and summer! I'm not so sure about this summer since I'm so involved with the bakery, but still!" she says sitting up in the passenger seat.

"Alright, alright, Miss camping expert," I laugh.

On the way there, we sing along to music and Elle seems like she's enjoying herself. I don't understand how she's still able to smile after finding out about her father, but I just hope she's not hiding her pain.

Once we get there, she heads straight to a site without hesitation of where she's going. "Here we are!" she yells over to me, setting down everything down on the ground. I'm still about 40 feet away struggling to carry my stuff and tent without tripping and dropping everything. When I get over to her, I let out a big sigh and drop everything down on the ground. "I see ice is more your type of turf," she says teasing me.

"Not everyone is as graceful as you in the woods," I playfully role my eyes and smile at her, "I'm not a pro at dodging huge roots and branches." I sit down on a rock and pull out my phone to check if anyone messaged me. "What do you think you're doing?" she laughs, "c'mon we have to set up the tent before it gets dark."

I thought carrying a lot of things and trying not trip over the massive roots was hard- trying to set up a tent proved to be much more of a challenge. For some reason every time we almost get the tent all put together and standing, a string comes lose or something falls. While we struggle to put it together, we jokingly bicker back and forth like an old couple. "Oh my goodness did we finally get it?!" I yell as we freeze and wait several seconds to see if anything falls. Thankfully nothing budges or moves, "yes! I think we got it!" she cheers. We hop into the tent, lay down next to each other, and rest. "I was starting to worry we were never gonna get it," I say as I turn my head to look at her face.

Suddenly, something budges and her side of the tent caves in and falls on her face. The only thing I hear next is a hearty, loud laugh coming from Elle. Her joyful laugh infects me and soon, I can't stop laughing either. Soon, she has tears coming down her face, "I have no clue why this is so funny!" she manages to say. I stop laughing, but the grin doesn't fade from my face one bit. I've never heard her sound so happy or free. Once she notices I'm just staring at her and smiling, she calms down, "what is it?"

"Nothing, it's just the best sound I've ever heard." I admit to her as I reach over and stroke her cheek with my thumb. Elle smiles back and whispers, "thank you."

We realize that the sun is setting and get out of the tent and try to fix it quickly. Once we do, we walk around and collect wood for a fire for tonight and tomorrow morning. "Hey! Elle, is that a lake over that way?" I ask, pointing with some sticks I found. Elle looks my way and I notice her cheerful facial expression wash away, "Yeah, it's a pretty big lake." Crap, what did I say?

When the sun starts to set and we've collected enough fire wood for at least tonight, we head back to the tent. Without any struggles, Elle successfully starts a fire quickly. While we watch the fire grow, I ask her about the bakery and what college was like for her to keep her mind busy. She tells me stories about Jamie and her doing some crazy and things, and of course about some of her classes. When she talks, I am captivated by her sweet voice and how her face looks in the flickering fire's light. Before we know it, it's already time to set up our bed and try to fall asleep since we're planning to wake up early tomorrow. Elle heads into the tent, changes into her sleepwear, and sets up the air mattress and sleeping bags before I change.

"So uhm, which side do you sleep on?" she asks softly, the large lantern lighting up our small area. I tell her I don't mind, so she picks the right side. "Oh! I forgot!" she gets up and unzips the top of the tent revealing a dark sky littered with thousands of bright stars, "isn't it gorgeous?" she says in awe as she lays down next to me, curling up into my side.

"I can't remember the last time I saw this many stars- that's what really sucks about living in the city." I admit. I kiss her forehead, stroke her shoulder, and gaze at the stars above us.

After a couple of minutes of silence, Elle starts to open up. "I know what you're probably thinking, 'why camping?'" she says with a scoff, "I know it was so random but camping is kind of my escape. My dad and I used to camp all the time during the fall, spring and summer constantly. He even used to take me out of school for a couple days randomly- it seriously was so great. One time we- I'm sorry- I'm just kind of babbling, sorry."

"No, keep talking," I say as I nudge her gently on her shoulder with my hand, "Tell me everything, please." Within seconds, she continued telling me about her camping trips with her father and funny stories. While she speaks to me about her father, I can sense how peaceful and happy she feels talking about him. Elle ends up drifting off into sleep on my chest while telling me a story about her first time kayaking with her dad.


It's hard for me to fall asleep at first since all I can think about is what she's going through.

"I can't wait to meet him, Elle." I kiss her hair and slowly fall asleep listening to her gentle breathing.

Notes

Hello everyone! I hope you liked this chapter! Again, I'm so sorry it took me so long to update. Thank you so much for reading and subscribing! Don't forget to comment, I absolutely love your feedback on the story/chapter. Please rate, comment and subscribe!

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1. Elle's camping outfit
2. Steve's camping outfit