Chapter 3
RILEY
It’s been about a week since graduation. The feeling of being done is incredible, but kind of daunting at the same time. It’s kind of like when you finish a book. That book made you laugh and cry and fill you with different emotions as you read chapter after chapter. There are twists and turns along the way, and by the end, you feel so delighted. Maybe the princess got the prince or the savior conquers another quest. It makes you feel good, but at the same time, it can be sad because it’s over. Time to move on to the next book. It’s exciting to start a new book and see what adventures it will take you on. It can be a little daunting to start from the beginning again, but you know it will be worth it in the end. There is a whole new world I get to discover now. The best part is, I get to do it all with Aden! He’s going to Berkley and I am going to Stanford. We will practically be neighbors! It’s funny how life works out sometimes.
Knock knock, I hear at the front door. He is early! I have half my hair pinned up into a heap of chaos at the top of my head and the other half I have down and curled. “Ouch!” I accidentally knock my curler against my wrist as I scramble to quickly get my hair unwrapped from the curling wand so I can get the door.
“Well that is definitely an interesting look for you,” Aden states as he tilts his head to one side, examining my half-finished hair as I open the door for him. “Whatever makes you feel good,” he teases.
“You’re here early,” I remark. I step back to let him into the house.
“You never know how traffic will be, turns out it wasn’t bad today. Now I get 10 extra minutes with you,” he says with a childish grin on his face. He leans in and gives me a kiss.
“Give me five minutes. Have a seat, make yourself comfortable.” I smile and point to a fuzzy stool I think I’ve had since I was 10. Sam and I are still in the process of moving our things to a small house on campus. This has been our first week away from home and living on our own. It’s been a bit challenging at times, but living with your best friend helps. Whenever Aden is here I always automatically forget all my worries when I am with him.
“What is this thing? Did you kill your teddy bear to make this?” Aden jokes, “First thing on our agenda today is to get you the ultimate chair for this space.”
I chuckle, “What is your definition of the ultimate chair?”
“For me, it would be enormous, leather and must have a recliner and drink holders. It would have to be comfy enough to sit in for hours on end while I watch TSN on the weekends. That’s just me. For you, hmm…” He scratches his chin and pretends like he is in a deep thought. “I think probably something…chic? Maybe white? Not too big, I don’t think you could fit much in this space haha. It would have to be comfy enough for you to sit and watch hours of The Bachelor. That would be the ultimate Riley chair.” He looks at me awaiting my response.
“You know me too well Aden,” I say sarcastically.
“And I will keep learning until I know absolutely everything about you,” he says, giving me a wink.
I walk back to my room to finish my hair. It’s been 2 months being with Aden but I feel like we’ve known each other for years. I can’t imagine him not being a part of my life.
I unwrap the last piece of hair from my curling wand and hairspray it in place. Just about done. I slip out of the pink Juicy Couture sweat pants I had on and put on my blush pink sun dress I had bought over spring break when Sam and I had our girl’s day out. It was simple, all one tone of color. No pattern, but it was fun too. It had a big bow on the side that cinched the waist in which made the dress flare out at the bottom. I stand back to take one last look in the mirror before going out to meet Aden. All set.
I walk out and do a twirl, showing off the complete outfit.
“You look amazing, as always,” Aden says, “It’s perfect.” He gets up off the chair and takes a few steps towards me.
I blush a little and brush a strand of hair off my shoulder. “So where are you taking me today?”
We have made it a goal to try and do something we both have never done before for every date we go on this summer. So far we have DJ’d. Aden was like a little kid, all giddy and excited about that date. It probably wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it turned out being better than I anticipated. There is a lot of detail and work that goes into it. We got to make a DJ remix song of our choice. We made a pretty awesome remix of Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars. We had that song on repeat all day long. I don’t think either of us will ever get tired of listening to that song.
Aden allowed me to pick ballroom dancing as our next date. I was actually pretty nervous that I would have two left feet since I don’t have the greatest track record of being the most graceful. It turns out, I wasn’t too bad. Aden on the other hand had both of us on the ground a few times because of messing up a step. We both just laughed it off like it was nothing. Even though we were the newbies of the class, surrounded by excellent dancers who probably have had quite a bit of experience, it was just like it was the two of us in the whole ballroom.
“The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium,” he tells me.
“I thought that fish freak you out?” I ask. When we were on one of our first dates, I had wanted to order some salmon off the menu. He refused to let me. He said he had this weird phobia of fish. It didn’t matter if they were cooked up and served on a plate or swimming around, he refused to be around them or even look at them.
“I figured this could help me get over my fear,” he says standing up a bit straighter.
I raise my eyebrow. “If you start freaking out like a little kid, I refuse to be seen with you ever again.”
“You won’t have to worry. I have prepped myself by doing research on the aquarium and all the fish they have there. I did this all of course after I was able to even look at the pictures of them. I think that is a start.” Aden gives himself a pat on the back.
“Well then, if you’re ready, then I’m ready,” I say. He takes my hand and leads me out the door.
Aden pulls into a parking space at the aquarium and puts his car in park. He takes a deep breath in and unbuckles his seat belt.
“Are you sure you are ready for this?” I ask, “I don’t mind if we skip this and do something else in the area.”
“I’ve got this babe. I know you have always had a strange fascination with the ocean and I think you would love this place. I won’t let my little phobia get in the way,” he says as he places his hand on my knee.
“My mom has always told me I might be half mermaid,” I mess with him.
“In that case, if I don’t get over this soon, I may need to dump you. I like you, but kissing something half fish…” he shudders at the thought then laughs.
“Ok, let’s go fish boy,” I say. I reach for the door handle of the car to open it.
We both get out of his old beat up mustang and make our way through the entrance. The staff offices are on the right of us and an auditorium on the left. Straight ahead is an exhibit hall. “Let’s start with that,” I say. I am actually really loving this so far. Aden is right, I do have a fascination with the ocean.
When I was 6 or 7, I had an ocean themed room. My mom had hired someone to paint a mural on one of my walls to look like I was looking out a glass window into the bottom of the ocean. My bed was shaped like a clam or oyster and I would pretend I was Arial swimming around in my palace room under the sea.
I look over at Aden to see if he is enjoying this as much as I am. He looks like he just saw a ghost. We haven’t even got to the real fish yet. I sort of feel bad for him, but it’s kind of funny at the same time.
“This is fun,” he says with a fake smile plastered on his face. He starts walking up to one of the displays. “This is cute.” He points to the display on sea lions. “I’m glad they have something other than fish in here.”
“Well it’s a start,” I say, “Oh look! You can touch sea urchins and starfish.” In the middle of the exhibit hall, they have almost like a petting zoo,
but for sea creatures set up.
Aden holds up his hands. “No way am I going anywhere near those things!” He starts to back away and heads in the opposite direction of it.
“Maybe at the end of our tour we can go there?” I ask, giving him puppy eyes.
“Maybe,” he says. “I’m not making any promises.”
I wrap my arms around him and we continue walking through the exhibits. I can tell Aden is nervous, but within the next 10 min, all those nerves had left.
“Awesome! Check out that great white!” Aden exclaims. I think he is really warming up to this idea of being surrounded by fish.
“Look at how big of a jaw that thing has.” He points at a great white jaw replica on display. “Let’s take a picture in it.” I get in it with him and we both give a frightened look to his camera.
We walk through rooms with wall to wall glass tanks filled with all types of fish of every color you can imagine. We see dolphins and sharks and even that little fish in Finding Nemo, a clown fish. Aden, not surprisingly, hasn’t seen that movie.
By the end of our tour through the aquarium, you would have never guessed Aden was afraid of fish. He was right into all the exhibits, asking all sorts of questions and taking a ton of pictures.
As we finish the last exhibit, Aden stops and turns to face me. “I think I am ready to touch some of those sea creatures,” he says, taking in a deep breath.
“Yay!” I clap my hand together. “Are you sure you are ready for this?”
“Ya, sure. I’ve got this now,” he says nonchalantly.
I walk over to a pool like display in the middle of the room with all sorts of plants native to the ocean and various shells and urchins. I pick up a starfish and hand it to Aden. He reluctantly takes it from my hands.
“No!” he lets out the girliest screech I have ever heard from a guy. Aden drops the starfish back into the pool. “Nope, I can’t do this! I am okay to look, but no way am I touching another one of those things.”
There are a couple of kids around us, probably around 6 years old who start laughing at him.
“Okay, I think we should go now sweetie,” I say, trying to control my laughter.
“This is not funny. How could you not find that disgusting?” he says, “I am going to wash my hands now and we can go have lunch on the beach in Coastal Park just outside.”
“Sounds good,” I say still giggling to myself. I can’t get that scream out of my head. The look on that one kids face was priceless!
“Stay right here,” he says as he runs back to his car. He comes back with a small wicker basket and a colorful oversized beach blanket in his hands.
“What is this?” I ask.
“I thought a picnic out here might be sort of romantic,” Aden says, shrugging his shoulders.
“Aw, how sweet,” I say, batting my eyes at him.
We walk to a dry spot on the sand and I help Aden spread out the blanket. We both sit down and Aden starts taking things out of his basket. He pulls out a small Hawaiian pizza, two small pieces of a chocolate caramel cake and a bottle of sparkling water.
“It looks delicious,” I say, “Did you make everything?”
“Ethan has been taking a few cooking classes so he can surprise Sam with a supper one of these day,.” Aden says as he pours some sparkling water into a plastic wine glass and hands it to me. “These are some of the things he is practicing. He told me to take them and test them out for him.”
“Aw, Sam will love that!” I say. I take the water that Aden just poured and take a sip.
“Don’t say anything to her,” Aden says, giving me a look as if to say I can’t keep a secret.
“You can trust me,” I say, “When have I told Sam anything I shouldn’t have?”
“Well there was that one time…” Aden starts to say.
“Not important,” I say, cutting him off, “I swear this time I will keep absolutely quiet.”
“Ethan is counting on this secret so don’t blow it for him.” Aden hands me a slice of pizza he had just cut and puts it on a plate. “Here, you take the first bit and see if it is Sam worthy.”
“Here goes nothing,” I say as I take a bite. I scrunch up my nose and give a look of disgust.
“Is it that bad?” he says looking worried, “There should be a restaurant somewhere around here we can go if it’s not edible.”
“Just kidding!” I say, “This is actually a fantastic pizza. Tell Ethan I give him the approval.” I give him a thumbs up.
“Don’t scare me like that!” he says laughing, “I put this lunch in Ethan’s hands.”
“Speaking of scared, you did pretty well in there today,” I commend him.
“It was actually very neat,” he admits, “I think it helped having such an adorable mermaid by my side the whole time,” he says as he starts tickling me.
“Stop!” I squeal as I fall over trying to protect myself from his hands. He leans over me and looks at me with his big blue eyes and gives me a kiss. His lips taste salty from the pizza. I melt into his strong arms that are wrapped around me. I wish this moment would last forever.
Buzz buzz buzz, my phone interrupts our moment. “Sorry,” I apologize. I look over at my phone and I see a message from Sam saying, That sounds super! I will let Ethan know.
“You didn’t tell Sam already about Ethan’s surprise did you?” Aden says raising his eyebrow.
I roll my eyes. “No, did you even see me texting this whole time we were out here? Anyways, while you were gone to get our lunch, I asked Sam if she wanted to have you and Ethan over tonight to watch Finding Nemo. I figured it would be a good way to end our day since it will continue on with the theme of today.”
“Disney movies?” he groans, “Are there explosions or a massive shark attack at least?”
“Oh come on, I think Ethan has seen it before and liked it,” I say, trying to persuade him, “And yes, there is an explosion and there is kind of a shark attack.”
“Fine, but only because Ethan will be there,” he says not sounding too thrilled.
“You’re the best,” I say leaning in to kiss him.
We spend the rest of the afternoon laying there watching the ocean roll in and out of the shore. We walked around the park area and collected some shells from the beach. We even had the chance to see some sea lions off the shore diving in and out of the water, playing like there was not a care in the world. This day couldn’t have gone any better.