Heart It Races

Michael's POV

"No no no! That one's supposed to go there!" Aspen ordered squinting at the directions as Ashton and I tried to put the tent together. It was bad enough that none of us really had any experience in tent building, but then add the fact that this tent was huge, big enough for all five of us, it was becoming nearly impossible.

"Give us a hand would you?" Ash called over to the two boys lounging on the picnic table, a slight edge to his tone.

Both hopped up quickly, not wanting to test the older buy who could, and would, no doubt give them a good noogie.

After a few more minutes of Aspen trying to understand the directions and us moving poles around the tent was all set up and the sleeping bags placed inside.

"You guys did a pretty good job!" Asp smiled, leaning into my side as I stood next to her admiring our work. "We should go swimming now!" She chirped going to the table our bags were on and retrieving what I assume was her swimsuit.

I had never been swimming in a river before, but I'd been to a beach and that was kind of that same thing.

"Be right back! Oh, and you might want to wear shoes in the water because there was this one time and my cousin and I were swimming and then she stepped on a- well nevermind it's a long story, but she almost lost her foot so just wear shoes." She said, jogging excitedly off in the direction of the community bathrooms.

There was no one around besides the boys so I assumed it would be safe for me to change.

Aspen came back dressed in a swimsuit and a pair of jean shorts, her dirty white slip on Vans on her feet. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking dirty things about her. The bikini top was snug on her chest and the shorts hung low on her hips, her hair blowing around crazily in the breeze making my stomach tighten in want.

"Let's go!" She squealed excitedly grabbing my hand and pulling me down the small wooded incline to the river's bank. The boys may or may not have been following us but all I could focus on was her hand in mine as she pulled me into the water behind her.

The river wasn't very wide but hell is was cold, causing a chill to rack my body, and a small squeak to escape Aspen's lips.

"It's not as deep as I was expecting!" I told as we walked together, the water only coming up to my thighs.

"Just wait." She smirked, continuing to tread through the current.

She guided me to stand next the her on top of what I'm assuming was a pretty big rock, and I saw the boys just stepping in, a few yards up river from where we were now.

Our hands were still intertwined as she stepped off the rock, pulling me in with her, momentarily making me go under the murky water that now came up to my chest, deeper in this spot, sitting just under Asp's chin.

"Do you want to know a secret?" She asked, grabbing for my arms and letting her body float in the current behind her.

"I hate water where I can't see my feet. It freaks me out."

"Don't worry, if anything hurts you I'll punch it in the eye." I joked, pulling her to my chest allowing her long legs to wrap around my waist under water as her arms went to my neck.

Fuck I wanted to kiss her.

"Watch this." The smile gracing her full lips became mischievous as she unwound herself from me, swimming over to the opposite side of the river than we had gotten in on, which was built up with tree roots and mud, climbing out almost gracefully but slipping once, leaving a lot of her front covered in mud, before hoisting herself into a tree, a white rope hanging from one of the lower branches, giving away the exciting thing she was about to show me.

The water glistened on her skin as she climbed a few branches so she could reach the rope.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah!"

She jumped putting her feet on the knot at the bottom, swinging out over the water before dropping in with a splash.

"I want to do that!" Calum hollered from behind me, I hadn't even noticed that the boys had caught up to us.

"How impressed are you?" She surfaced pushing wet hair from her eyes.

Her eyelashes where wet and gray eyes wide, she looked so vulnerable.

"Very impressed." I smirked, placing my hands on her hips, skin electric on my finger tips, and I really wished it was just the two of us so I didn't feel like the boys were watching our every move.

She led me over to sit next to her on a rock hidden under the water, only our torsos were left un-submerged.

"You see that tree right there? That really tall one." She pointed up stream a bit.

"Yeah." I looked down at her as she spoke.

"When I was seven, my dad brought me here it was like a family tradition, we would come here every summer with his brothers and sisters and all of my cousins, but anyway, I thought I could climb it and my dad kept telling me 'be careful you're gonna fall' but I didn't listen because I thought if I got high enough I'd be able to see the other side of the world, stupid, I know, but even then I wanted so badly to see new things, anyway, I ended up falling halfway up and broke my arm, but it's a memory and I don't regret it. My mom was pissed though." She laughed, smiling lightly, staring at her hands now.

I smiled too, imaging what young curious Aspen was like, maybe not so different for the Aspen I knew now, then thinking about how special it would be to see her experience something new and different that she never had before. I'd like to show her Australia one day. It's not too much different from here, but she would find something beautiful and unique about it.

"Now you tell me a story." She leaned her head on my shoulder as we watched the boys jump in from the rope swing.

I didn't have anything nearly as fascinating to tell as she did, her mind seemed so awake to everything and it made every word that left her lips that much more interesting. She was passionate, so emotionally invested in everything she did and it was captivating.

"Well, one time, when I was little, probably like five, I thought I could use a trash bag as a parachute, and so I jumped off of the stair ledge, and long story short, trash bags do not work like parachutes, and if you try to jump off of a stair ledge you will break your leg."

She let out a small giggle, "I think Young Aspen and Young Michael would have got along really well."

"What's your favorite movie?" Her questions were endless and made me wonder if she was as interested in me as I was in her.

"Don't laugh at me but I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan."

"That's cute." She let out a small laugh grabbing one of my hands in her small fingers, tracing the lines on it.

"What's yours?"

"About A Boy."

"And why is that?"

"It's about a douche bag old guy and a nerdy little boy with a suicidal mother that become unlikely friends and slowly change each other, what's better than that? I mean how cool what it be to change someone's life like that?"

Sitting there, watching her play with my hands, the ever present warm feeling in my cheeks and lurching of my stomach playing in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but feel her changing the way I saw and heard and felt and I wanted her to, I wanted to see like her.