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“Are you sure this is a good idea?” You felt hesitant. Understandably, but still hesitant.
Alex raised an eyebrow at you, as though judging your hesitation (which he absolutely was). “Would I have brought you this far if it wasn’t a good idea?”
This was the first time in months that you and Alex actually had the time to spend together, and that was only because you’d both forced it into your calendars. You were chronically overworked, though decently paid, and had probably suffered from multiple bad cases of burnout in the past few months, leaving you with very little energy to deal with people at work, let alone anyone else outside it; Alex, on the other hand, had a job that took him all over the world — he told you he was a banker, someone important, and whilst you believed him for the most part, you genuinely wondered for at least 10 seconds every day what sort of banker had abs like his. But because of both your lifestyles, despite the fact you were in a committed relationship, you didn’t get to spend much time together. If anything, whenever Alex was home, your job made it their personal mission to make you as busy as possible so that you couldn’t spend time together.
Finally booking the time off so that you could go on holiday together felt like the whole world was being lifted off your shoulders. You didn’t even think you’d be able to go back to work at the end of this. You didn’t want to think about that.
When you’d finally managed to get the time off, Alex had suggested that you go on holiday somewhere far enough away that you’d be able to forget about home, about work, about everything that stressed you out. So he’d picked Australia.
Mostly for the animals and the weird bugs and the ocean life, but he’d picked it.
There hadn’t been a single day that you two hadn’t been on the beach, or in the sea, or out seeing the sights. You’d originally thought you would be exhausted, but the sunshine energised you, and the breeze freed you. You couldn’t even imagine being inside when outside wasn’t cold and wet like it was at home. Right then, the two of you were on a boat out in the ocean, the deep blue of the ocean glittering under the late morning sun, the water clear enough for you to look down and see multitudes of sea creatures moving around, living their lives.
Alex’s suggestion was to go down and see them (and the coral) up close.
“It’ll be fine.” He zipped up his wetsuit, before leaning over and zipping yours up to your neck for you. “It’ll be fun, even. Try something new.”
You didn’t mind trying new things at all, but preferably not out in the middle of the ocean.
“Alex, I’ve never dived before—”
“Hey, look at me.”
You looked him straight in the eye, lifting your eyes from where they had been staring at his chest (how did it still manage to look good in that damn wetsuit—?), and offered him a nervous smile. “Yeah?”
He leaned closer to you, capturing your lips with his own, before pulling away slowly. Slowly enough for your lips to chase his and almost catch for a brief moment. But he was grinning at you as he pulled out of reach.
“It’s going to be fun. You’ll love it, I promise.” He leaned over and poked you on the nose. “You like swimming underwater, and you like swimming in open water. And you’ve snorkelled.”
“Those are all very different to what we’re about to do,” you pointed out.
“First time for everything.”
Soon enough, you were both strapped up to your oxygen tanks, mouthpieces hanging around your necks and ready to put on. You could still feel your nerves buzzing, not sure about it at all, but Alex took your hand as he sat beside you on the side of the boat.
“Mouthpiece on,” he said softly as he helped get yours on, then helped with your goggles, before putting everything else on himself. He held up his fingers to help count down.
3…
2…
1…
The sea was warm as you fell back into it, the rush of water covering you immediately as you sunk down into the depths. But then, soon enough, you were swimming, turning in the water to try and find Alex, who you had lost as you entered the water.
Only to see a sight more beautiful than you could have ever imagined.
Sunlight glittered through the water, shining down on the life beneath the surface and glinting off the scales of multicoloured fish scales, sleek animal skin—
And coral.
So much beautiful coral.
That was when you felt the hand on your shoulder, and you turned quickly to see Alex floating behind you. He gave you a questioning thumbs up, clearly asking if you were okay.
The double thumbs up you gave in response, right before you went back to swimming to investigate, to see everything up close without touching or damaging it all. Precious sea life needed to be preserved, after all.
But at the forefront of your mind, you realised that Alex had been right. You did love this. And as you felt his hand slip into yours whilst swimming around, seeing the beautiful underwater sights, you realised you could do things like this with him for the rest of your life.