Kyle and Allison went to the cruise

Two days later, the port was loud with gulls and luggage wheels and the smell of salt and diesel, and the ship sat against the sky like a building that had fallen over into the sea. And at the harbor there's the big cruise waiting for them.

"Look Kyle, that's our cruise!!" Allison said, can't believe what she's seeing.

"That can't be ours. Ours would be, like, a boat." Kyle joked. "For real, I thought our transportation will be a yacht or something. Not expecting the biggest ship I ever seen."

"Kyle. Look at the side of it. Paradise Cove. That's ours."

They joined the line with their little roller bags, and Allison observing the view around them especially when they're surrounded by sea water and many boats. Their boat, or a ship is the biggest on. At the check-in desk the officer scanned their passports, then held out a hand for tickets. But they didn't hand any.

They looked at each other. "Oh," Kyle said. "Okay, so, funny story, we don't actually have tickets. We actually paid the holiday from a website and we thought it's given us tickets to print or give us a file, but it didn't send us any."

"May I have your names?"

"Our names? Kyle Marsh and Allison Reyes."

The officer typed. He paused as his eyebrows went up slightly over the list.

"No need to worry. You're booked, all passengers on the cruise have their vacation booked and the list of names appears in the system." he said. "Your suite is at seven-oh-four. It was paid in full through the Cove app, three days ago."

"Oh you mean that app in that phone," Allison repeated.

"Yes, passengers who wants to book their trip has to download first the app and paid it through there. Don't worry, everything has been already done."

Kyle remembered the phone in his bag with the backwards arrow. Maybe it's a phone with that feature already installed. He smiled anyway. "Right. The app. I forgot."

"Enjoy your cruise, Mr. Marsh and Ms.Reyes. You're on the priority boarding list."

They walked up the gangway and through the doors, and then the doors opened into the atrium. Allison stopped walking entirely as she stunned to see six floors of balconies rose above a marble floor, glass elevators sliding up and down through a chandelier that had to be three stories tall, and somewhere out of sight a string quartet was playing something expensive.

"Wow...wow...Kyle this is..."

"This is too unbelievable for a vacation."

"I'm going to cry."

"Hey don't cry. We haven't started out holiday yet."

"I'm going to cry on your shoulder and it's going to be your fault. *Sob* I love you so much!!" She said hugging him tight.

"Hehe, okay cry on my shoulder then."

She did, briefly, laughing at herself the whole time, and then she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the middle of the atrium and spun in a full circle with her head tipped back. "This is going to be the best vacation ever!!"

Kyle laughed at her behavior. It's a very expensive trip and the fact it's given by his father still make him uneasy. He thought of talking to his mom...but...

...

He'd told his mom, two nights before they left. She'd come over with a container of soup she claimed was leftovers, which freshly made by their butler in their house. He accidentally blurted it out at the kitchen counter where his mom started asking questions.

"A cruise? On an island?" She'd put down the bowl and looked at him, and her whole face bright with happiness. "Kyle, that's wonderful."

"You'd be welcome to come too. If you wanted."

"Oh no." She said it kindly, and touched his cheek. "Absolutely not. I'm not chaperoning my grown son's romantic vacation, absolutely not. Go. Spend your own holiday with your girlfriend." She'd smiled, "Oh I forgot to ask, where did you get the money? You're not spending everything you saved on this?"

"I got it....by lucky."

"From who?"

And he'd said, "From a lottery," which was the first lie he'd ever told her, and she'd looked at him with a surprise face. She knew her son has changed and never be like his father and she's proud she raised him well. "Oh that's some good news. It seems you got luckier than again like last time."

"Have fun," she'd said at the door, ruffling his hair.

...

Now the two of them stood at the bow of the ship, up on the top deck, with the whole ocean spread out flat and glittering to the horizon and the wind pulling at Allison's hair. It was beautiful.

"This is amazing Kyle, look at this!! We have to keep this as our memories," she said.

"Let's take some pictures."

He took her phone and take photos of her against the railing, laughing with her hair everywhere, wind-whipped and sunlit and completely in her face. Then a crew member offered to take pictures and of them together, and they got their picture together, his arm around her, both of them squinting and grinning.

"Wait, wait." She fished the strange phone out of his bag and held it up. "Let's use this one. That one is better than ours."

"I'm not sure if this phone has better quality."

"But look Kyle, this camera has like three lenses. Let's try it." She turned it around, thumbed the screen awake, and frowned. "There's no passcode?"

"No. Weird, right?"

"Everything about this phone is weird. Oh, the camera app is right here." She stepped back into his side and held the phone out at arm's length, and the screen filled with both of them, sea and sky behind. "Say best vacation ever."

"Best vacation ever."

*Click.*

She took about thirty more. Them at the railing. Just her, just him, her kissing his cheek, him making a face, the wake of the ship, and of course the water. She handed it back reluctantly.

"Okay, I'm sending myself all of these. This phone officially better than I thought."

Kyle looked at the gallery. Every photo was perfect, sharp and bright and detailed, better than anything either of their phones had ever produced. He didn't notice the small icon in the top corner of the screen. A backwards arrow, and next to it, a single word: *sent.*

Neither of them noticed anything at all.