A/N 1: Sorry it took so long to update! You can probably expect the same amount of time for the next chapter since I'm busy with school. The mix for this chapter can be found on my tumblr, which is linked in my profile!

Sailboats & Tire Swings

Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze
We're singing in the car getting lost upstate
Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place
And I can picture it after all these days

He went into the diner the next day with full intentions of asking her on another date; she had said that she wouldn't say no, so what did he have to lose? But then she brought him fish and chips instead of a burger and fries (well, he did get fries at least) and gave him the kind of grin that could melt hearts, so he ate his words and took his food to go.

The same thing happened three days in a row. It was kind of ridiculous and very uncharacteristic of Victor. She was only one woman! He was hoping the fourth time would do it. He'd order the burger and fries, receive whatever she decided was good food on a Friday afternoon, and then he'd just do it. He'd ask her out.

Except when he walked into the diner, bell announcing his arrival, he noticed that she was wearing his shirt. The Rolling Stones one she had altered so perfectly. She was wearing it inside out with a thin red belt around the middle, but he could tell it was the very same one. He took a deep breath and went to sit at the counter.

"One of these days she's going to serve you something you don't like." Granny's voice startled him. He was busy watching Ruby take a couple's order. In his shirt.

"Uh." He turned his attention to the older woman, clearing his throat. "That's actually happened twice already." Victor smiled. "The clam chowder and some kind of weird doughy thing with a whole mess of powdered sugar. I gave them to the nurses."

Granny blinked and put a hand on her hip. "You didn't like the Beignet?"

Whale swallowed. "I liked the strawberries?" he said, hoping that this would appease her even though all signs pointed to no.

"Just don't tell Ruby, those are her favorite." She nodded as the aforementioned girl headed toward them. "Why don't you give the poor man his burger and fries this time?" she asked her granddaughter.

Ruby leaned against the counter next to Victor and attempted to ignore the puppy eyes he gave her because he looked really, really cute and if she stared at him any longer, she just might have just given in. She turned to Granny and smiled. "No, he gets pastrami on rye today." She wrote the order on the pad and went behind the counter to give it to the cook.

"Why do you continue to put up with her?" Granny asked him over her spectacles.

Whale sighed and folded his hands together, watching her every move. "Because she's wearing my shirt."

Ruby smiled at him as she grabbed menus for the customers who just walked in, "I was wondering if you'd notice."

She came by a few minutes later with his food and sat down next to him. Victor was pretty sure that despite his earlier determination, asking her was going to be out of the question and he really didn't want to see her in his shirt for any longer than he had to because otherwise there's a possibility he'd do something that would probably be considered inappropriate. "Can I take this to go?" He asked, pointing at his food and looking anywhere other than at her directly.

Ruby squinted at him, studying him for a few minutes before nodding and taking back his plate to put it in a to-go box. Only in addition to his sandwich she packed one of her own, as well as a bottle of wine, into a picnic basket. If she was going to wait for him to decide when their second date was going to occur, it wasn't going to happen.

"Let's go." She said as she passed by him, grabbing her coat on the way to the door.

"What?" Victor glanced at Granny as if silently asking her what was going on. Granny just shrugged and shook her head.

"You heard me." Ruby replied.

He sighed and slid off the barstool. This was likely to be their whole relationship; she would say jump and he'd ask how high.

"So where are we going?" He asked as soon as they exited the diner. He held out his hand to take the basket from her, but she just shook her head.

"A friend of mine has a boat that we're going to borrow." She answered. Seeing his raised eyebrow, she laughed. "C'mon, a picnic lunch on a boat. Don't you think that's romantic?"

Victor ran a hand through his hair and laughed because he definitely thinks it's romantic but he doesn't want to outright say it. So instead he pushed a hand in his pocket, bringing the other one to his chest and dropping his jaw in mock surprise. "Why Ruby Lucas, is this a date?"

"Well," She shrugged, a grin forming on her lips. "you were never going to get around to it."

"Wrong." He stated matter-of-factly, taking the basket from her. A gentleman never lets the woman do all the heavy lifting, it was good manners. "I was going to today but you had to go and wear my shirt and I got all flustered." He cleared his throat. Her grin turned into a smile and he could just feel his cheeks turning red. "Don't picnics usually occur on grass in a park?"

Ruby bit her lip, she'd file the shirt thing away for later. "Yes, but isn't that a cliché thing to do? Everybody goes for a picnic in the park. And yeah, sure that's an okay date if you want to be cheesy about it. But a picnic on a boat as the sun sets? That's a proper date. "

Victor stopped walking so he could stare at her. If he wasn't falling for her before, that definitely did it. His stomach did flip flops as she stopped to look back at him and he had to remember to breathe.

"What?" She asked, unsure if she's somehow scared him off. Then she thinks how it's weird that that's a thing she's worried about when just last week Victor was just this guy who came in the diner and flirted with her even though she never gave him what he wanted.

He smiled and shook his head, "Nothing."

She just giggled and wraps an arm in his as they continued walking.

She stood at the empty dock, staring at the water while Whale laughed like an idiot behind her. Ruby was pretty sure Ashley never used her boat. She was also pretty sure she asked if she could use it. Granted she didn't ask when, but Ashley never uses her boat.

"Look." Victor said wiping a tear from his eye, then Ruby actually looked at him with her jaw still dropped and he couldn't help but start laughing again. She crossed her arms and glared at him and he willed himself to stop laughing. "Okay, sorry. What I was going to say is: We can still have a picnic and watch the sunset, we just won't be on a boat." He started to laugh again, but made himself stop so he's wasn't on the receiving end of another one of those death glares.

"Fine." She sighed and sits where she was standing, hanging her legs over the edge of the dock. "I don't know how to sail a boat anyway."

Victor sat down next to her, and set the basket between them. He reached in to get his sandwich because he's pretty much starving at this point, and he hands her hers. "You don't know how to sail a boat? How on earth were you going to sail us right on out of here?"

Ruby sighed and takes a bite of her sandwich, mulling over her thoughts. "I always wanted to take a road trip."

"A road trip? Don't you need a car for that?" He teased.

"I said I wanted to, I never said I was planning on leaving right this second!" She laughed and glanced over at him. He had opened the basked and was pouring them both a glass of wine. "How are you done with your food already?!" Ruby exclaimed, setting the glass he gave her aside.

Victor shrugged. "I was hungry." He took a sip of his wine. "Why don't you want to go now? Afraid you'd get lost?"

Ruby stifled a laugh as she washed down the rest of her sandwich with a swig of wine. "No. I have an amazing sense of direction, thank you very much. But I don't know, I don't feel right leaving Granny."

He nodded at her answer, finishing his glass and putting it back in the basket. He understood abandonment more than he'd care to admit. Granted it was a different kind of abandonment than what she was talking about, but he still understood. He leaned back on his hands, turning his head to look at her. No girl was ever going to compare to her beauty; the sun didn't kiss just anyone the way it did her.

"I wish you'd stop looking at me like that." She broke him out of his trance, still looking ahead at the sun's reflection on the water.

"Like what?" he asked, because Victor was completely unaware he was doing any special kind of looking.

"Like the way you're looking at me right now." She stated, glancing at him briefly.

"I can't help it." He said, completely throwing out any filter he may have had. "You are much more beautiful than the sunset and I can't deny myself the pleasure of wanting to admire that. Plus the sun light is doing things to your face that I wish I could draw on paper and-" Victor cut himself off and cleared his throat. He was definitely going to mention the fact that he wanted to kiss every inch of her face in hopes of reclaiming it from the sunlight. But he doesn't because something about the way she's looking at him made him want to eat his words and do a nosedive right into the water.

"And what?" Ruby asked, somewhat nervously. She's been called beautiful, but never so eloquently. And when did he ever say he was an artist? She was pretty sure that had never come up in conversation. She took a deep breath.

Victor glanced down at the wine bottle in the picnic basket before grabbing it, pulling out the cork, and taking a long swing. "Nothing." He said, re-corking the bottle and placing it back in the basket.

"No." Ruby said bluntly. "You are not going to get away with not telling me this time. This is going to be the shirt incident all over again." She crossed her arms and glared at him.

He contemplated for a moment before breathing a heavy sigh and standing up. "Fine, but we need a change of scenery first." He held out his hand to help her up, grabbing the basket with his other hand. There was a moment after she took his hand and their skin touched that he realized that this is the first time he's actually held her hand and he wasn't aware if that was a stupid thing to notice or not. He shook off the thought as he slightly rotated his hand to interlace his fingers with hers. That felt much better.

"Where are we going?" Ruby asked, for a variety of reasons. There was the blaringly obvious – the silence between them started to get awkward, and she really did want to know where he was taking her. There was also the fact that he had never let go of her hand since the docks. Not that she was complaining.

"The park." Victor answered simply. Seeing Ruby's confusion, he added "I want to be cheesy about it," with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Good thing I'm not lactose intolerant."

Victor let out a loud laugh, which made Ruby blush. "Yes, good thing." He said. Then, as if it was a symbol of good luck, he brought their clasped hands to his mouth and pressed a small kiss to her knuckle.

Stunned, Ruby had to consciously make sure her jaw hadn't dropped from shock. She then went through memory bank to try to figure out what constituted as a first kiss and she was pretty positive that whatever he just did was not it – though she was unsure if this made her sad or relieved. "Um," she said, in an attempt to change the subject.

"Sorry," he said, almost embarrassed. Scratch that, he was definitely embarrassed. "I don't know why I didn't that. I just-"

"No," Ruby assured with a light laugh. "It's fine. I was just going to um…" Changing the subject was definitely harder when you were interrupted.

But just as she was about to say something he stopped walking, put the basket on the ground, turned to face her, and said, with a nod, "Right." He then cupped her face with both of his hands and pressed his lips against hers.

"I was just going to ask what your favorite Rolling Stones song was," she said with a grin after he's pulled away. He chuckled as moved his hands down to her waist; she put her arms around his shoulders, "now I'm thinking about telling you just how long overdue that was." She said before returning his kiss.

"Graceless lady you know who I am, you know I can't let you slide through my hands. Wild horses couldn't drag me away." They had made it to the park and were sitting side by side on a tire swing, fingers intertwined, rocking their feet on the ground to move the swing back and forth. Ruby had her head on Victor's shoulder and was staring down at their hands, hands that were made to fit together so perfectly, when Victor had quietly broken the silence between them with those words.

"What?" she shifted her head so she could look up at him.

He smiled as he looked back down at her, happy to not have to resist placing a kiss on her forehead. "It's my favorite Rolling Stones song."

"Oh." She said, going back to staring at their hands. "It's beautiful."

Victor thinks that maybe he'd be okay staying like this forever if somebody were to press pause and forget about them. Dreams were definitely coming true, but this feeling was infinite times better than anything he could have dreamed up. He softly grazed his thumb against hers. "You're the kind of beautiful men write sonnets about. That's what I was going to say at the docks."

Part of her was afraid of the fact that he was saying all the right things. The other part of her didn't care because there were butterflies in her stomach and she never wanted them to leave.

"Well, a version of it anyway." he added as an after-thought.

Ruby perked her head up and could practically feel him eating his words. She scooted over so she was sitting across from him on the swing now, and brought her hands up to hold the chains. "What version?" she asked, eyebrow raised and a smirk on her lips.

Victor groaned and put his head in his hands for a moment before mimicking her position. How could he tell her he was jealous of sunlight? "I just… the sun… your face…" Yeah, he definitely couldn't. Especially not while she was enjoying this so much. It was easier to do than say at this point. He sighed and brought his hands to her face for the second time that night; first kissing her lips, then placing soft kisses on her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, her forehead, eyelids, chin, and back to her mouth again before resting his forehead on hers. "That."

"What am I ever going to do with you?" she grinned, biting her bottom lip. Victor definitely had that habit of doing all the right things, too. She brought a hand up to cover his and pressed her lips against his. She could feel her walls starting to build up, but she was bound and determined to hold them off for as long as possible. "Have you ever spun around so the chains twisted and then pulled your feet up so it unravels super-fast?" she asked as she stood up in the middle of the tire swing.

Whale looked up at her for a moment before grinning, "I think I know where you're going with this."

They twisted the chain as tight as it would go and Ruby sat on his lap as it untwisted, both of them laughing as they spun around.

The rest of the night was spent playing on everything in the playground. They even pirated a ship at one point, though things took a twist when they hit an iceberg. Victor saved Ruby from drowning, but only on the grounds that he could call her his. He was promptly rewarded with a kiss.

Ruby was fully aware what this meant. She was his and he was hers. She fought off the part of her that was scared because this moment? She wouldn't trade this moment, this feeling, and that look on his face for the world. So she kissed him and just let it be.

A/N 2: #spoileralert for Chapter 3: Prepare your hearts, cause it's gonna be rough.