Patrick

Ella opens the door and quietly sneaks out, closing it gently behind her. Her hair's still curly but it's tamed, the ringlets falling just to the middle of her spine and half is pulled back. Her body is covered in a long-sleeved summer dress with red and black flowers imprinted onto the fabric, and for a second I want to pull her closer to me and run my fingers over it. I'm not sure if she'd like for me to do that though, so instead I just stand here in khaki shorts and a red tank top feeling completely under dressed. She blows me out of the water.

"Hi Ella." I smile at her, attempting to not seem nervous. "Are you ready to go?"

The little black flip flops she's wearing hit the front porch, and she begins to lead the way around back. I'm the one that asked her to hang out tonight, so I figured that we could just hang out at the beach for awhile and talk. She seemed to love that idea.

The waves are crashing against the shore, and in the moonlight her dress looks even prettier. After getting to know her the past couple of weeks, I'm beginning to think that Ella is the type of girl who wants to take things slow, and that's different for me because I've never exactly been the one to take things slow. I'm trying, but it's so hard. She probably can sense that, or maybe not. I think she honestly questions whether or not I'm into her because damn, she really doesn't pick up on it whatsoever when I try to flirt.

"My grandparents are sleeping." She laughs, walking more towards the sand. "I'm sorry for making you stand there. I had to be quiet because they don't know I'm with you right now."

Her hand is so close to mine. I mean really close. I'm so tempted to reach over and interlock our fingers together so I can make her at ease and not make her so nervous. I swear on everything I'm going to until she starts walking a little bit faster so that she can take a seat down onto the damp sand, the spot where the water sometimes reaches if it's a strong enough wave.

"I'm not Chase." I chuckle, sitting down beside her. "Or Christian. I'm nice."

"It's so beautiful out here."

Ella completely ignores my statement, and for a second I wonder whether or not she believes me. But all thoughts leave my head when she looks up into the night sky and smiles. I don't get to see her smile much, but when she does I never want to stop looking at it. Admiring her and all of her features is something I will never get tired of doing.

"Yeah." I agree, but not about the beach. I'm just staring directly at her. "Beautiful."

She is. She's so beautiful and she doesn't even realize it. You know, I'm surprised that my friends haven't noticed that I'm not around them as much, but being here with Ella is a lot more promising than time with my friends. Even though she hasn't exactly opened up to me yet, I'm having fun trying to win her over. She can't tell that I have good intentions yet, but over time I will prove to her that I do.

"So what's in the bag?" She asks, pointing to the brown knapsack in the sand.

I almost had forgotten that I packed something for us, so I pick up the bag from beside me and pull out a beer.

"Patrick." She says lowly. "I told you that I don't-"

"Lemonade." I reassure her, pulling out the pink bottle.

I pass it over to her and she just stares at me with a look I haven't deciphered yet. It's the same look she gave me yesterday when I walked her home. I brought the beer for me, not for her, so as she opens her lemonade I open my beer and lean back onto my elbows in the sand. Some of the liquid goes down my throat and we just sit here in silence for a couple of seconds, enjoying the night that's in front of us.

"Thank you." She says, still staring at the lemonade.
"It's not a big deal Ella. It's a bottle of lemonade."

"I know, but still. Thanks."

After about another couple of minutes or so I move a little bit closer to her and see her body immediately tense. I wish she wasn't so nervous around me. "It's been really cool getting to know you these past couple of weeks." I speak up in attempt to make conversation.

She starts to laugh and turns to look at me, her eyes scanning my lips and nothing else. I wonder if she wants me to kiss her. The worst part about Ella is that she's a complete mystery to me, or maybe even to everyone for that matter. You never know what she's thinking; you can only come up with possibilities in your mind. Like, when she tugs on her bottom lip I wonder if she's nervous, or when she brushes the strands of hair out of her eyes I wonder if she wants me to do that for her instead. I can do nothing but wonder because she never tells me how she feels. She certainly hasn't flirted with me much either. Maybe she's just not into me at all.

Lying back on her elbows like me, she rolls her eyes for a split second. "Yeah." She shrugs, seeming irritated. "Same here."

"What is it?" I ask.

"What?"

"What are you thinking about?"

She lets out a loud sigh, pursing her lips together into a firm line before she replies,"I'm thinking that this is too good to be true."

There it is. Like a volcano erupting or a tsunami hitting the shore, her feelings come out. I sit up so I can look at her again, surprising her by my sudden motion. What she doesn't realize is that right now I'm thinking that this is too good to be true that she even just said that, and also that she kind of just admitted that she's into me.

"Why do you think that?" I question.

"Because guys like you aren't friends with girls like me." She laughs, but it isn't a friendly one. "This just doesn't happen. I'm fat, Patrick. I don't look like Jess. I'm not a size two, and I'm not the girl that can strut around in a bikini. I'm just me. I'm boring old Ella Carson, so I don't know why you're sitting here talking to me, wanting to hang out, wanting to get to know me, wanting to talk to me on the phone. I don't understand it, and I guess I've been afraid to ask you why since we've met. If this is a joke then it's a cruel one, okay? It's cruel, and I don't want to continue to open up to you and tell you my feelings if you're in on some bet, or some-"

"Okay, first of all," I cut her off. "Don't talk about yourself like that, and two, this is not a bet. All girls are beautiful, and-"

"Stop." She seethes, her voice getting louder. This is the first time Ella Carson is actually mad at me. "Don't even finish that damn sentence because you don't mean it. God, I hate that sentence. I hate guys who say that every girl is beautiful because you know damn well you wouldn't be with anyone that doesn't look like a model out of some crummy magazine. Just stop lying and giving other girls false hope when they wouldn't have a chance in hell at being with you."

I kiss her without thinking. I kiss Ella Carson and she sits there in shock, her gasp running through my head and causing my body to ignite like wildfire. She had to have known this was coming, and she had to have known that I've been hitting on her for weeks now. I don't know how she can't see how effortlessly beautiful she is just by being her. Just by being boring old Ella Carson.

I pull her closer to me and slip my tongue inside of her mouth, trying everything to calm myself down. I have waited for this moment for weeks, and now that it's finally happening I just can't seem to believe it. This is better than I imagined it would be.

She's shaking, her whole body is, and she pulls away to just continue to stare at me like she always does when she doesn't know what to say. I hope she isn't mad, but I don't think she is. I can see that her cheeks are flushed even though it's dark out, but then she looks away from me to look back out at the water.

"I'm into you." I finally admit, letting out a sigh of relief. "If you couldn't tell."

"Okay..." She trails off, still staring out at the water. I want to know what she's thinking right now more than anything.

"Okay?" I question. "That's all you're going to say after that?"

Her fingertips bring the lemonade up to her mouth, and after she takes another swig she sets it down again and starts to cry. If I had known she would get this upset from me kissing her I never would have done it.

Grasping her cheek with my hand, I turn her to look at me and wipe the tears that are falling down her face. It hurts my heart to see her cry, and that's another thing that's different about her. Ella Carson is the first girl capable of actually hurting me.

"Ella, don't cry. I didn't know that you weren't into me like that. I just thought I'd kiss you to let you know that I'm not like those guys. This isn't some bet I'm trying to win. All I'm trying to do is win you over. I get you may have been treated like shit in the past, but you're so fucking beautiful and you don't even realize it. I've been trying to hit on you for weeks now. Just stop being scared and stop thinking I have bad intentions for you. This is all good, alright? I have no intentions of hurting you."

Her lips are on mine again with so much force I stumble back and support myself on one elbow, my other hand tugging her closer so she can lie down beside me. My hand is on her dress like I've wanted it to be all night and she lets out a little giggle that drives me wild. I'm trying not to take things further than I should, but with her on top of me it's harder to control myself than I thought. She hasn't been kissed like this before. I can tell because she's craving more of it. I'm running my fingertips up her dress, trying to fight the urge to go underneath it. Then my lips find their way to her neck, pulling back on the flesh delicately enough to where it won't leave a mark, but hard enough to where it gives her pleasure.

"Patrick..." She trails off, moving her head to the side to allow me more access.

I roll on top of her now and move her dress up further, her moans overpowering the noise of the waves. I haven't kissed someone for almost a year, and especially with Ella I can't control myself.

"Tell me when to stop." I say lowly into her ear, a shiver immediately going down her spine. "Okay?"
We go back to making out for a couple of minutes until I knock over my beer and it gets all over my shirt. Ella is laughing her full head off, her arms around my neck as I'm situated in between her thighs. I don't care about the beer though because kissing Ella Carson is the second, if not best feeling I've ever gotten before. Kissing Ella feels like I'm on cloud nine.

"Patrick." She replies breathlessly, pulling away slightly. "I'm into you too... if you couldn't tell." Her eyes are lit up from the moon, smiling at me with such a wide grin that I've never been so proud of myself for finally putting it there. I finally am able to put it there.

"It's about damn time you admitted it." I smirk, kissing her neck some more. "This is long overdue. I've wanted to kiss you for awhile."

"Even though I don't look like the girls down here?" She asks me.

"Ella." I groan, sitting back up onto the sand. "Curves are so attractive to me. So what if you're not a size two? You look so good in whatever you wear. I've been attracted to you since the diner. You have curves. Trust me when I say that's not a bad thing, alright?"

She's at a loss for words as we sit together in silence for another five minutes or so listening to the waves, me taking a swig of her lemonade since my beer spilled, her fiddling with her thumbs on her lap as she tries to figure out what to say. I finally decide to grab onto her hand so I can examine her chipped pink fingernail polish before she blushes and pulls it away.

"You never told me this was our first date." She smiles again at me and then looks down at the sand. "I've never been on a real date before."

"You think this is a date?" I laugh. "Ella, we're just hanging out tonight."

"Oh." She says, staring back down at her hands again.

I realize what I just said came out wrong, so I grab her hand and roll my eyes at her like she had done to me earlier. "Not that I don't want to go on a date with you. I just meant our first date will be way better than this. I was thinking tomorrow night actually?"

"And what makes you think I don't have plans tomorrow?" She teases.

"Well, you haven't for the past couple of weeks, but do you?"

"Well, no. But what if I did?"

"Then we'd reschedule." I say. "But tomorrow it is."

After that we don't mention tomorrow again, and I'm glad we don't because I want to give her the best first date she's ever had. Instead we decide to play twenty questions again, and I find out that her favorite movie is Evil Dead, the new version and the classic version. She tells me that her favorite part is when the demon comes up from the basement and tells the girl to not saw her own arm off. I tell her she's weird and that I'm scared she's a psycho, then she laughs because she knows I'm just joking. She asks me about my family, which leads into me telling her about my Uncle Floyd and my Aunt Mae, who were the ones my whole family had went camping with in Wyoming because they lived there. We talk about my camping story again, about how I could never pitch a tent, and she asks me if I had gone camping since then. I tell her no, because I haven't. I'm still embarrassed after it happened the first time.

She wants to make out again so I gladly agree, moving on top of her and let her figure out how far she wants to take it. Ella seems to know what she wants though because she's tugging on my shirt to get it off. I'm still not letting my hands wander farther than they should because I know better, but she certainly doesn't. Her hands feel all over my bare skin, my heart beating out of my chest as I try to control myself and continue to keep my hands on her spine. I'm not complaining about her touching me because I certainly don't want it to stop and neither does she, but she eventually does after another ten minutes or so, collapsing onto her back on the sand and smiling up into the night sky once more.

"I've only kissed one other person." She gushes, biting the inside of her cheek. God, I want to kiss her again.

"I know." I smile back at her. "Remember? The phone conversation?"

"But I like kissing you more. I really, really like it."
She really does because she kisses me again and I swear we'll probably never stop. I would kiss her all night if I didn't have a curfew, but our night has to come to an end at around eleven, my hands helping her to her feet and interlocking our fingers together. I did this on purpose before she has the chance to move ahead of me.

She continues to stare at our hands and just smiles. I want to know what she's smiling about, but she never says anything. When we reach her front porch all she does is kiss me again and I kiss her back, my body pressing her up against the worn down white wood siding of this house. The kiss grows stronger, and if her grandparents weren't inside I would contemplate staying the night with her. Kissing her is so addicting.

I don't want to think about what will happen when summer comes to an end and when she'll have to go back. She'll go back and leave me, maybe even forget about me, but right now I want to just stay in this moment.

She moves my hand to go up her dress, causing me to let out another laugh. "Ella, I have a curfew." I groan. "Trust me, I want to stay."

"It's okay." She reassures. "Thanks for tonight Patrick. I had a really great time."

Ella Carson has me in the palm of her hands and she doesn't even know it. Like taking candy from an infant, it's just that easy. She's the smile on my face when I pull away and finally say goodnight to her after another round of kissing, but most importantly she has gained the capability of stealing my heart. Ella Carson could potentially steal my heart, and I think I might just be crazy enough to let her keep it.

A/N:

ahhh!!!! It finally happened!!!!
I love Ella and Patrick SO MUCH!!!

Please comment what you thought!! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter ❤️

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