MATEO || bxb

- 25 -

| Mateo |

"You brought me to a book shop?!" Cam asked. He'd been so cute all day. I hadn't seen him this animated and excited in a long time and I was strangely proud that I could be the one to make him feel this way.

"Yeah, but it's not just any book shop," I started explaining. "It's not part of a larger franchise or anything, it's a privately owned. And, well, let's go inside. You'll see why it's special."

I took his hand and guided him across the street, making sure there was a gap in the small amount of traffic on the road for us to pass through. He gasped when he saw the inside from one of the windows at the front of the store and soon it was him dragging me along, instead of the other way around, as he was rushing to get inside.

He pushed the door open and just looked on in awe for a little while.

"It looks like a library!" he said still as excited as ever, maybe even more excited if that was even possible.

And he was right. It did look like a library, like the kind you'd get in old castles. The building was larger on the inside that you would think from the outside as it stretched far back. There were three floors and rows and rows of bookshelves, some so high you needed the attached ladders to get to the top. There was a large glass ceiling at the top that let in a lot of light and small bridged pathways between the upper floors. The ground floor had marble pillars holding up some of the infrastructure and classical music played softly through hidden speakers. It literally feels like you're transported in time to a time from a Jane Austen novel or something. The store sold all manner of books old and new and from every genre.

"I didn't even know a place like this existed," Cam said venturing further in now that he had a chance to take it all in. "It's like my two favourite things merged into one. This building is as amazing as the books."

"I though you would appreciate it," I replied. I'm sure there was still a smile on my face from how awestruck he was. It was like he'd fallen in love. My greatest accomplishment in my life would be if he ever looked at me like this one day as well.

"I think you just unlocked a dream I didn't even know I had," he said walking up to one of the marble pillars. He let his finger run over it before looking up at the glass ceiling into the sunlight that had graced us today. The light was casting shifting shadows over some of the upper floors.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I have to do something like this one day. Not this exactly, but a truly unique book shop. Something people walk into and are just as enamoured by the building as well as all the books like I am right now. This is genuinely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen Mateo. Thank you for brining me here," he said turning to me now. He walked into my arms and hugged me tight, and I swear I'd never felt this happy before. Making the person I was dating happy had always brought me some of my greatest joys in life and I felt lucky that I got to make Camden Morris happy.

"Stop being soppy," I teased. "Let's go find you some books. I'm gonna buy them for you," I told him.

"What? Really?" I asked pulling back from me now.

"Yup."

"You are the most amazing person ever! I'll only get one okay," he said as if I would care even if he got a hundred.

Okay, maybe a hundred would be excessive... but I was definitely not letting him get away with only one. Besides, I didn't think he would manage only choosing one anyway.

"You can get more than one mi amor," I told him as he started moving towards the grand double staircase that met in the middle to take us to the first floor. There were lifts on the back wall for accessibility reasons, but I think Cam wanted to stick to the stairs and really feel like he'd been transported in time when stairs were the only option. He also seemed just as fascinated by its design.