You hadn’t been to your husbands hometown. But you wanted to give it a try, it was a new place, where the love of your life had spent a long chunk of his life, and it was everything you hoped, seeing where he grew up, where he used to hide out with friends, he seemed to be quite the trouble maker, his name still engraved into the stone of an older bar.

it was beautiful really, soft lights, the sun starting to go down, sunset would be soon. he would point out little shops with old places he used to go, little stories he had, there was lots of bars scattered around. He had a story for each “and that one, punched a guy for trying to take my drink. I’m tellin ya’ the whole bar went tae fuck, punches left and right, one lad got chucked across the counter!1” he said as he added little hand movements to exaggerate

he walked off a little “Lovie, this way!” he said as he disappeared behind a wall, you followed close in suit, both chasing each other like young sweethearts, laughing, you were quickly scooped up into his arms, walking through the streets of his old town, laughing and giggling with reckless abandon “and this— this is where I used to be with the lads before I joined the army.” he said as he pointed to a space between the trees, a little bench sitting there, it overlooked a lake, the sunset setting over it “y’know, we used to go paddling and stuff in the lake.” he said with a smile, mischievous. He set you down, tugged off his shirt..

and he ran towards the lake, diving in, coming up and swimming on his back “you wanna come in? Or do I need tae getchu in here mysel’?”