Oliver Knapp // Prince Philip (takeaknapp) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2010-06-06 19:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | holly strange, oliver knapp |
Who: Oliver Knapp and Holly Strange
When: Thursday, June 3rd 2010
Where: San Diego, CA (more specifically a beach)
What: Prince Philip and Sleeping Beauty meet, unawares...
Rating: C for really fucking Cute.
Oliver had been in San Diego for two days, and so far, the sense of not knowing anything hadn't let up. Granted, he was starting to recognise a couple of things, but it was still going to take him a couple of weeks to figure out where everything was, or even remember some of these place names. In the mean time he'd just have to keep going around. At least this way when he arrived here to study it wouldn't be quite so overwhelming. Today though, he'd decided to give the exploring a bit of a rest, and take a day of actual vacation time. That meant the beach.
It took a while to get there from where he was staying, but that didn't bother him too much. Beaches here were bound to be much better than they were at home, plus it was a whole lot warmer. Of course, with no friends out here, he decided to conduct one of his favourite past times while enjoying the sunshine. People watching, and of course, sketching those that he found interesting.
Which he had been doing for the last hour or so before moving to find some shade. There were plenty of new people to watch here, often he'd find someone catching his eye, doing something that he knew would make a wonderful composition on paper. But now he found he was lacking in subjects. Many of the beach-goers were simply sunbathing and none of the people frolicking in the shallows caught his eye. And then, as if out of no where, there was someone. He couldn't quite put his finger on why he noticed her or why he couldn't seem to take his eyes off her, but he was already drawing, seemingly without any conscious thought.
School was out for the summer but Holly hadn't gone far, considering her family didn't live too far from San Diego State it was like she'd never even left the place. But just like when she was at school, she never spent much time at home either, though they were for entirely different reasons. Even with her brother home now she didn't much feel like staying at home most of the time and often went out wandering without him. That's how she'd found herself at the beach on this particular afternoon. When she'd gotten up that morning (well, okay, afternoon) her mom had been babbling at her, something about learning how to make underwater baskets or some hippie shit like that. Holly was having none of it, so she'd packed a small bag of 'provisions' and set out of the day. The bus ride to the beach took about forty-five minutes but it was worth it, plus on the way to the bus stop she'd sparked up a jay so she was feeling cool.
Once she actually got to the beach she just picked a direction and started walking, only remembering to take her shoes off once she'd already tromped sand into every crevice of them. The sand was almost scalding under her bare feet but she didn't mind, so she kept walking until she made her way right to the edge of the water. Holly wasn't much of a swimmer, not that she'd never swam but she just didn't usually, she liked to dip her feet in though. So she spent a bit of time walking along the shallow end and getting her feet nice and cooled off before she started making her way back up the beach to find a nice spot to sit for awhile. She was already coming down from her high but she didn't care, it was nice out and she felt like she could probably nap for a few hours.
She favored the shadier spots on the beach so she was walking for awhile before she found some that weren't occupied and parked herself down in the sand. She'd forgotten a blanket, but she never remembered to bring one anyway and being covered in sand generally didn't bother her. That's what showers were for. About ten minutes in she was stretched out, leaning back on her elbows and sipping on a bottle of water when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Or rather, a someone, a guy sitting about twenty feet away from her. Had he been watching her? She was probably just being paranoid, she got extra paranoid when she smoked. He was drawing something. He was attractive? Holly was only looking at him out of the corner of her eye but she saw enough to assess that he was indeed attractive, enough to get an eyebrow raise out of her. After a few minutes she realized she was legitimately staring so she turned her head and flipped her hair, intent on concentrating on the view of the ocean... That lasted about a whole five seconds before she was trying to sneak another look at him.
It wasn't every day that Oli ended up doing detailed sketches of people. At least, not without their knowledge. Most of the time it was just a quick one, to take in the composition. An interesting way that they stood. A feature that was aesthetically pleasing. Otherwise, people tended to know he was taking down a permanent reminder of their features, because not doing so was a little creepy-stalkerish. Not that this seemed to be stopping him right now. There was definitely something about her. The way she moved maybe. It was certainly entrancing and whatever it was, he was determined to try and capture it. His eyes flicked from the page back to her as she found a place to sit down, and he erased a mark here and there before shading again. It wouldn't take more than a minute or so to finish, he was mostly done anyway, it was just the smaller details that were left. Her jewelery...the sunlight hitting her hair. Then he realized that she had spotted him.
For a moment, he panicked silently in his head. Then the moment passed, and he went back to his sketch, his pencil stroking smoothly across the paper without a hitch. When he looked up this time, his gaze shifted past her, taking in the view of the water and some kids that were throwing a ball around. A smile traced over his lips, hesitant at first. This was definitely not like him. He wasn't the kind of guy to covertly watch people and then pretend that they weren't his subject once they noticed. Usually if he'd spent long enough drawing someone that they noticed, he'd apologize and show them the piece, even offer to destroy it if they were uncomfortable. Here and now though, he wanted to preserve the moments where she didn't know exactly what was happening. Where they hadn't spoken. Once you spoke to a person, everything changed about the soul of the picture. You could never get the same innocence in it. Besides, today for some reason, he'd seemingly memorised her features. He didn't really need to look at her again. He just wanted to.
It was that desire that made him look back at her after a minute or so, smiling to himself. This obviously couldn't go right. Either she was going to think he was some kind of pervert, a stalker, or just tell him to get lost. Right now, he was really missing the safety of home, where he knew exactly where he was, how long it would take to get back to his house, which way was the quickest. In San Diego, he wasn't even sure which bus he'd caught to get here. Screw it. You only live once. Oli scribbled his signature next to the picture, and closed the book as he stood up, making his way down towards her. If nothing else, hopefully he'd get her name before he left. Sand shifted uncomfortably in his shoes as he walked, but he paid it no mind, focused instead on the captivating girl.
He crouched down next to her, his smile sort of apologetic, and held out his hand. "Hi. I'm Oliver. And I think I have to confess to watching you." At least, he figured, he hadn't left her to get so annoyed that she came to kick sand in his face, nor had he let her slip away. That was probably a big move for him in terms of meeting girls. Probably not so much in terms of stalking them in his creepy artist way.
Of all the things Holly had expected, she definitely hadn't expected him to actually come over to her. She was so surprised that it actually took her a full minute to respond, blue eyes started at his feet in that crouched position and slowly, very slowly rose up to meet his face. It took her about that long to register his hand held out to her and the fact that she should probably say something instead of just sit there staring. After another moment she extended her own hand to take his and shook it, a hint of a smile on her lips as she tilted her head in a casual greeting. "Hey. I'm Holly. And I kinda noticed."
Holly was not what you'd call the boy crazy type, in fact she barely noticed them, barely noticed anybody really. But up close, he was even harder to ignore. Everything about his face was almost mesmerizing, and he had the kind of hair that could make any girl want to run her fingers through it. Even Holly, but she didn't. She actually felt her breath catch a little when she finally made eye contact with him, but she didn't look away. If there was one thing Holly was good at, it was staring contests. And he'd been watching her? She had to wonder what a nice boy like him was doing watching a girl like her...
She let go of his hand to tuck some hair back behind her ear, a nervous habit that she'd never outgrown. She didn't appear to be so, she was pretty good at playing it cool when she needed to, so there was still that slight smile on her lips as she leaned back and regarded him with open curiosity. "You're not from around here," she said simply. It wasn't really a question, his English accent was enough of an indication so she was just stating the obvious. Not that Holly was ever one with the words, but for once in her life she really didn't know what to say. There was just something about him that left her fairly stunned.
So this was a little awkward, and probably not the greatest plan he'd had all year. Then again, Oliver wasn't exactly used to people refusing to acknowledge him when he said hello, so that could be considered part of the problem. He even considered removing his proffered hand before she began looking up, and by that time his thoughts had frozen. The eyes that appeared beneath those lashes were worth every moment of awkwardness. Every second of him feeling a little iffy about watching her. They were absolutely stunning, two pools of sparkling blue that for all he could figure had been stolen straight from the California coast. They seemed to mimic the waters shimmering surface. It took him almost an equally long time to snap out of it and realise that his greeting had been returned, and that he shouldn't be holding his hand out any more. With another smile, he let it drop to his side and then sat down on the sand next to her, trying very hard to stop staring. She made it a little easier as her curious gaze seemed adamant about remaining on him, which he at least had the decency to be embarrassed about.
"Ah, bollocks." Murmured softly to himself was perhaps the main hint that he felt he'd overstepped some self-imposed social boundary that he really shouldn't have. Oliver looked out to the ocean once more and ran a hand through his hair, giving it a slightly more dishevelled appearance than he'd arrived with, mainly to stop it twitching. Sometimes when he got the urge to draw it was very difficult to stop his hands practically forcing him to do it, and right now it would definitely be classed along the margins of weird. Instead he let his mind wander, trying to remove the vision of her eyes to focus more on her words. This might prove exceedingly hard, because she was definitely different from the girls back home. He'd had his share of girlfriends but none that had captured his attention in such a way, even if they had all been interesting for one reason or another.
"Well, no. 'M sort of scouting it out for when I move here come autumn." His hands dropped into the hot sand behind him, helping prop him up as he still steadfastly refused to look at her. In fact, he was becoming convinced that if he did he might possibly molest her, and he really didn't want to be deported just yet. "I'm coming to San Diego State for a while." His gaze shifted slightly, and he allowed himself to look at her long...long legs that stretched out in front of them. Crap, this wasn't helping. He had to say something else before he turned himself into a gibbering wreck. "I take it that you are?" Was the only thing he could think to ask. She was definitely American, but his ear wasn't attuned to different dialects. She could have been from anywhere really, and thinking about it now, that would almost be devastating. He was suddenly really hoping that she'd be around when he came over to college.
Holly's eyes widened a little when he sat down but she quickly recovered, fighting the urge to move a little further away from him. Not that she didn't want to talk to him, but she was suddenly feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious. She wasn't sure why, though it probably had a lot to do with the way he was staring at her. It was more than a little unnerving, like he was waiting for her to do something spectacular but she was just Holly. Holly Strange didn't do anything spectacular. So she was a little relieved when he sat down and actually looked away from her, even if she found herself unable to stop looking at him. Interesting. The way he ruffled his own hair made her smile a bit to herself and she almost missed what he was saying because she was too busy noticing how his hair fell back into place in that decidedly more appealing, dishevelled way.
"Yeah, I am. I go to school at San Diego State. My family lives here too," Holly told him, brushing a bit of sand off her dress and tipping her head back for a moment to feel the sun on her face. She'd come dressed in her bathing suit like she always did, she just never really got around to actually stripping down to it ever. She wasn't much for tanning, she didn't really enjoy the idea of sitting in the sun wearing virtually nothing and cooking yourself into a case of skin cancer. So, it didn't really make sense that she'd still keep putting her bathing suit on when she went to the beach anyway, but whatever. One strap slipped from her shoulders and she slowly lifted a hand to put it back in place before she brought her head back up to look at him again. He really was gorgeous. "You're from England? Why'd you come here of all places?" That was probably the most questions she'd ever asked someone in one go ever. She really was interested.
He relaxed a little into the sand as Holly began talking. Conversation generally made him feel at ease in new situations, and this could definitely be classed as a new situation. He could definitely get used to this sort of thing. Spending a day out at the beach, in weather that didn't make you wish you'd brought along three sweaters. Having confirmation that Holly not only lived here, but also attended the same university just helped that feeling. Oli was definitely looking forward to spending as much time as he could swing out here. He licked his lips just enough to wet them because his mouth was starting to go dry just from looking at her legs. They were actually incredible. Hell, if he were back home, or hadn't met her in such a creepy stalkerish fashion he would probably be way more suave about this right now. In fact, he probably would have already asked for her number. With Holly though he had a strange nervousness about himself. He turned his head slightly to acknowledge her answer, and her questions, only enough that he was now looking at her arm, watching her fingers delicately pull her bikini strap back up. "I...yeah."
"Bristol actually. Which is a couple of hours West of London, just before you get to Wales." He shrugged, half to himself at her final question. He wasn't exactly sure why he'd picked San Diego to come to, after all, he'd had plenty of choice when looking for an exchange program. "I figured I'd like to see California. The beaches, the heat, you know? But I didn't want to end up where everyone else goes. This seemed like the best option, plus, I liked the look of SDSU's painting program. You telling me that it was a bad choice?" Ah, here was his regular playfulness? He actually looked at her this time, a mischievous smile on his face, and he even allowed himself to get caught by her eyes. She was gorgeous, no two ways about it, but she still had an ineffable quality to her, something else that added more depth to just a pretty face. "Can't say it was myself, like. Because you're definitely one of the most intriguing girls I ever met."
Holly was actually getting a kick out of this to a certain degree. It didn't show on her face, but it was pretty obvious that she made him nervous with the way that he was looking at parts of her but not really at her. It made her feel a little better about being uncharacteristically nervous herself. When he finally met her gaze and said that last thing, Holly had to fight back the instinctual squirm that went through her body. Guys didn't just come out and say things like that to her, at least not in that way. And those that did, well, their underlying intentions were pretty obvious. This guy though, Oliver, he didn't seem to have any. He seemed... genuine. Even if he couldn't seem to stop staring at her legs. She raised an eyebrow and smiled wryly at him, looking away for a minute towards the ocean in an attempt to gather her thoughts and not blurt out anything stupid. How could a stranger have this big of an effect on her? She'd never really experienced that thing called stomach butterflies before but she certainly had them now.
When she finally looked back at him, she was still smiling somewhat, though it didn't really reach her eyes. "Yeah? Well you've just met me, give it time. You never know, I could be a real bore." She meant it too, Holly had never thought of herself as anything special, or interesting. Tawny had always made sure to drive that into her head even when she wasn't intentionally trying to do it, and at some point Holly had just stopped trying to be her own person. It was impossible, with Tawny for a twin, she was always going to take the lime light when she wanted it. Which was all the time. What could this guy possibly see in her that was anything worthy of being called 'intriguing'? To somewhat brush off her initial comment, after a moment she looked down at the book he'd been carrying and nodded at it. "So you're an artist? What were you drawing over there?" Yeah, she'd been watching him too. Obviously they were both guilty of a little creeping.
Plus points for Holly not being the stereotypical dumb Californian girl, she was definitely intelligent and at least slightly observant. She'd noticed both him watching her, and the fact that he'd been drawing. So far, she wasn't a write-off, which didn't lend much credence to the idea that she would turn out to be a complete bore. He laughed at that. It was actually kind of funny, but then, maybe she didn't see what he was seeing. Most girls didn't seem to. In fact, most people didn't seem to. Maybe that was just it, his artistic training had caused him to somehow spot the deeper beauty in the world. "All right," he replied, "You can try and fob me off with excuses like that today, because we've just met, that's true. But how long is that gonna last when I live over here?" It was pretty clear, because he wasn't trying to hide it, that his confidence was coming back, and that he definitely thought they'd end up knowing each other. If they were attending the same college, there was no way that he'd allow her to slink away altogether.
Oliver reached down to his sketchbook which he'd dropped onto the ground next to his leg, pausing briefly to rub sand off his hand and onto his shorts. Though slightly embarrassed by the fact that he'd been practically caught red-handed drawing someone he hadn't asked, he didn't really think twice about showing her. He flipped it open a page or two before the sketch of her, to a couple that he'd drafted an hour or so ago. A woman cradling her child away from the sun, and a small boy playing frisbee with his dad. He handed the book to her with a shrug. "I like to come out and draw people every now and then. They're interesting." He motioned for her to continue through the pages. "Then of course, there's the people who are intriguing." He said with a smile, leaving her to arrive at the rather more detailed picture of herself. "Hope you don't mind."
Holly was surprised at how pleased she was at the prospect of him going to school here, she barely knew him but already there was a huge part of her looking forward to it. Was this how it felt to really like someone? And so soon? It was way too soon, she barely knew him, but every time he looked at her there was this nagging going on in the back of her head like she'd met him somewhere before. Oh, god. That was probably just Aurora in the back of her head warbling about meeting her prince 'once upon a dream', so Holly quickly shoved that out of her head and gritted her teeth. The last thing she was going to allow herself to do was start getting carried away like that damn princess in her head, no way, Holly wasn't like that...
Or so she thought, anyway. She didn't really have time to respond to his initial comment about living here, not that she had anything good to say that wouldn't make her sound like a total nit wit anyway so she focused on the book of sketches he'd handed her and began leafing through it. He was really good. Her eyes lingered over the sketch of the woman with her child, smiling to herself and looking back up at him after a moment. "These are awesome," was all she said before she looked back down and kept leafing, her hand stopping short and hovering over the third picture she flipped to. It was a sketch of her. He'd been drawing her? Holly's breath caught a little and she didn't look at him for a good minute, she couldn't stop staring at the way he'd drawn her. When she finally looked up at him, she swallowed a little as she tried not to get lost in his face. Again. "You drew a picture of me? .... Why?"
Oliver hadn't been searching for praise over his illustrations. He knew he had talent, but that didn't make it anything special. Everyone had some kind of talent, and he spent most of his time with other talented artists these days. He didn't need an ego boost, but he appreciated the sentiment anyway. Allowing her time to figure out what her reaction was going to be to the image of herself, Oli leaned back, dropping down to his elbows thoughtfully. There was something about all this that felt somewhat...predestined, but that could just be because he'd never had this sort of response to a girl before. She was definitely captivating, but there was still that quality that he couldn't quite put his finger on, a quality that he had no doubt would keep him enthralled. Getting to know her, and trying to pin down that quality would most certainly be an enjoyable experience.
Running fingers through his hair once more, his own nervous habit, Oliver looked at her questioningly. "You think it's really that absurd that someone would want to?" He leaned over, using one hand to take the book from her, then casually pulled the page out of it. "Like I said, there's something about you that's really intriguing. I think originally, it was the way you walked." He paused, looking at the sketch with a sort of wistful smile. "I think maybe it's just because you don't realise how much you have to offer though. Here." He held out the piece of paper to her. "You keep this. It might remind you that you're actually kind of beautiful. I might need to find you to draw another one in the future though." It was a half-truth. He pretty much had her features memorised, and thought that he could almost put the same qualities back onto paper if he wanted to. Yet, he actually really did want to draw her again. Maybe even use her as the subject of a painting whenever they had to do portraits. Was it really cheesy to ask someone to be your muse? Probably.
Holly honestly didn't know what to say, so she stared. And stared. And stared. Pretty much just let him talk without any interruption while she tried to make sense of this and failed. He liked the way she walked? He thought she was beautiful? Holly was really not accustomed to hearing people talk to her like this, especially someone like Oliver, it actually made her feel a little dizzy. Just her luck, was she actually turning into a swooning princess now? She sincerely hoped not. But the things he was saying were really rather lovely and wait, he said he wanted to draw her again? Holly accepted the piece of paper from him, still somewhat looking at him in utter confusion as he kept talking but there was a hint of a growing smile on her face despite herself. Was this what it felt like to actually be happy? She was pretty sure she'd known Oliver for all of two seconds and already she was finding herself smiling more with him then she ever had with her own family. "You think I'm beautiful?"
Holly wasn't quite sure what came over her, it wasn't like her to do something this bold. But she couldn't help it. This really cute, sweet guy was drawing pictures of her and calling her beautiful and looking at her like he already knew everything about her and he was sitting right here next to her so for the moment, her logic was telling her to do something... surprising. Very abruptly she turned to him and leaned over, crossing what little space there was between them and planting a lingering kiss on him. She'd never kissed a stranger before, but he didn't really feel like one, and it was the only thing she could think of to do in the wake of all those pretty things he'd said. After a few blissful seconds she pulled away, the tiniest of smiles on her lips as she twisted back around and sat back a little, looking at him somewhat out of the corner of her eye. "Thanks."
"Well sure I--" Oliver began saying, in a tone that suggested her question had a stupidly obvious answer. But before he could finish, she was right there in front of him and her lips had found his. It was like he'd been electrified, all he could feel was the contact between them, despite how little of them was touching, and it seemed liked those bodily functions required to live had shut down. At least, he didn't seem to be breathing any more and he couldn't tell if his heart had burst or just stopped dead. By the time he'd even regained enough composure to return the kiss she was already pulling away, which panicked him because he was pretty sure that he couldn't breathe without her. No wait. That was ridiculous. They'd just met, and no matter how entrancing a girl was she surely couldn't do that to him. It felt like he was turning into a girl, and while he was fairly in touch with his feminine side being an artist and all, he didn't quite feel that throwing himself at a random girl would give him any man credits. Slowly, as he realised he still wasn't breathing, he sucked in some air.
"You're uh... quite...oh fuck it." So this was a bad idea waiting to happen, but he really couldn't help himself. He shifted himself, pushing up into a seated position and leaning over to kiss her again. He'd already lost, because this was totally not the way he'd imagined this conversation going. He hadn't been trying to feed her a line, and he most certainly wasn't looking for a summer fling. Still, he needed to taste her lips again, at least once. Sinking a hand into her hair, his mouth brushed against hers in a kiss edged with more than a little lust. The problem was, he realised as he pulled away, that he'd snogged plenty of girls that he barely knew the name of before, and there was real danger of this turning into something similar. He didn't want that. Not at all. For one thing, Holly deserved much more than to be the girl he met over summer and left behind. He laughed briefly at himself. "Well, you sure are a bad influence, and I'm pretty sure that if I stay here much longer you're gonna be the death of me." He pulled his pencil out from the ring bindings of his book and found himself an empty page, which he ripped out as well. On it, trying hard to both write and look at her at the same time, he put down his name, e-mail address, and phone number.
"Oliver Knapp. Here's my phone number and e-mail. E-mail's probably easiest, because, yanno, international number and all. And I feel like I should ask you for your surname just in case you don't bother getting in contact with me, because I reckon it'll be pretty fucking hard to find you if all I have to go on is Holly at SD State. Of course, it's pretty understandable if you tell me to fuck off right now since I did just call you were a bad influence, but again for the record, you are well fit." It was beginning to become pretty fucking clear that he was going to have to hand in his 'Man' card when he got home.
Oliver took Holly by surprise, to say the least. She hadn't expected him to go in for a second kiss and when he did, well. If she'd been standing she probably would have fallen over, it was one of those kisses that actually quite literally left you weak in the knees. She hadn't had any time to react before his hand was in her hair and he was kissing her... like that. Had she ever even been kissed before him? Of course she had, but with the way he was kissing her, it was almost like he was the only one who'd ever kissed her. But that was totally crazy, right? Still, she'd kissed him back with the same sentiment, because for whatever reason, it just felt natural to do so, gripping onto the arm of the hand that was currently buried in her hair.
When he finally let go of her, it took Holly a good five seconds before she could even manage to open her eyes, everything inside her was practically singing (including Aurora, which was not one of the more pleasant side effects to his kiss) and she had to shake her head a little and force her eyes open in an attempt to collect herself. Yeah. Definitely never been kissed like that before in her life. And how had this happened exactly? Oh, right, she'd kissed him first. Couldn't exactly say she regretted it, at all. It wasn't even weird because they barely knew each other, which was... weird. She just sat there kind of dumb founded as he started talking again, smiling like a fool as he got out a piece of paper and wrote all his information down. "Er. Strange. Holly Strange," she said after a moment, ducking her head a little bit like she was embarrassed by it.
Once he'd finished writing all his information down she took the paper from him and then borrowed his pen, leaning over him to write down her information in tiny writing on the corner of another blank page in his book. She was glad for the brief moment where all he could see was the top of her head because she was still smiling like a fool and it was somewhat mortifying for her. When she'd finished, she leaned back up and dropped the pen back in his lap with a somewhat more controlled smirk on her face. "Same goes for me, e-mail is better. And I'd rather not tell you to fuck off."
Oli couldn't deny that he was definitely enjoying this, more than he knew he should be. Plus this was about the best reaction he'd ever had to his artwork. She seemed kind of dazed by the whole thing, which he couldn't entirely blame her for. Hell, he wasn't sure where all this had come from himself. It was like he was in some corny chick flick where the characters fell in love at first sight and everything was peachy and wonderful thereafter. Other than the reality of him returning to England in a few days time. That part he didn't really want to think about too much. Her name brought a smirk to his face, it was cute and totally suited the moment, though he was glad she couldn't see it, leant over him as she was, because he didn't want her taking it the wrong way.
Biting his lip to stop his face turning into some sort of dorky beaming visage, he snorted softly. "Right. That's great then." He shoved the pencil back into it's resting place and looked at Holly, taking care to memorise particular details. After all, it might be a while before he saw her again, even if he was kind of hoping he'd get to see more of her before he left. Fuck learning how to get around in San Diego. That was all completely out of the window now. "I'd offer to take you out somewhere...but I kind of have this problem of not knowing where anything is, not having fake I.D. and the inevitable fact that I'm leaving in a few days." He pulled a face, this felt like lame excuses, but the words were already out of his mouth. He raised an eyebrow at her questioningly and continued. "So the question is, are you gonna be able to wait and pick this up when school starts?"
The news that he was leaving in a few days was a lot more disappointing to Holly then it rightfully should have been. Again, she barely knew him. Why did she suddenly feel like all she wanted to do was spend every second with him? This was just fucking nuts, it was probably for the best that he was leaving... If only she could actually get herself to believe that, because she suddenly really didn't want him to go. She managed to smile though, if nothing else but to try and not appear as utterly confused as she actually felt on the inside at the moment. Seriously, what the hell was going on? "Well for the record, for when you're back out here, I happen to know a lot of places that don't card. This is me, continuing to be a bad influence apparently."
Her face and the corners of her mouth flickered in that way that they always did whenever Holly actually made a joke, which really wasn't all that often, but it was more in her eyes than in her mouth anyway, if you were looking hard enough. She let his last question sink in, looking at Oliver with that same look of open curiosity that she had when they'd first met... not more than half an hour ago, at most. Was he asking her to wait for him? That seemed a little strange, considering, again, that they'd just met. But what felt even stranger to Holly was the fact that she sort of felt like she could wait years for him. How fucking crazy was that? She really had no idea where any of this was coming from, but this meeting was feeling less and less like coincidence by the second. There was something here that she was missing... or possible something that she'd finally found? Whatever. This was insanity. "I'm a patient girl," she finally said, tucking a few loose strands behind her ear as her gaze lingered on him, almost wistfully, and silently wondered how any guy could be this beautiful. "What about you?"
It was kind of funny how crazy this girl was making him. He was actually beginning to think that just maybe he had fallen in love in the space of twenty minutes. Or, maybe even thirty seconds if he was honest with himself. And here he was, one of the least crazy people that he knew. Still, if she complained too much about him leaving, if she told him that she couldn't wait, he would have dropped everything and taken the risk of being deported because he would definitely be overstaying his welcome. Her eyes, her smile, he was lost in them and it wouldn't take too much to lose himself completely. Of that Oliver was sure. It would probably be sensible before any of these things came to pass, but here she was being so enchanting once more, her eyes dancing at the joke. He couldn't help but smile back. "Naturally."
Oliver shrugged again and took hold of his sketchbook. "I have a feeling that I could manage...for a girl like you." His lip quirked into an ironic smile. He'd now even started sounding like a simpering moron. He laughed shortly before leaning in to kiss her once more. Sweetly this time, fearing that should he let passions take over, it would be more than he could cope with right now. "I look forward to not being carded." He said, still terribly close to her face, as if he were trying to test his willpower. From here he could smell her hair and it was making him dizzy. Kissing her softly on the cheek, he stood up and grinned at her. "I'll see you at school, Holly Strange." He turned quickly and began trekking across the beach, back to reality, though not without several glances back. He was definitely looking forward to the next year.
Holly watched him go, one hand to her mouth as her fingers touched the place where he'd kissed her. She'd been unable to think of anything to say in response before he got up and left and even when he glanced back at her as he walked away she was too much in a daze to look away. All she could do was stare. What exactly had just happened? Holly didn't have a clue, but she couldn't shake that feeling that this meeting was built on something a lot more than just chance. And of course Aurora agreed, she was chirping away happily in her head and Holly shook her head fast in an attempt to get her to shut up. Just because we met some stranger on the beach who's a really good kisser, that doesn't make him your prince, so shut up about it. It didn't work though, so she concentrated on Oliver's slowly retreating form and the memory of his kiss to drown her out. Whatever this was, she suddenly couldn't wait for summer to be over and for school to start again either.