It started with a shy girl and a not-so-shy photographer.

"Hi, I'm Austin Moon," he said, walking up to the pretty girl with brown curls he saw on the quad. His camera bounced against his stomach from where it was hanging around his neck.

"H-hi," the girl stuttered, looking up at him from her book. He smiled and sat next to her, and she looked confused.

"I'm a photographer," he told her. "Er, an aspiring one, that is. I've been searching for some inspiration, and I've just received some. How would you like to be my new muse?"

"Y-you don't even know my n-name," the girl said.

"You're right. What's your name?"

"A-Ally."

"Well, A-Ally," he said with a charming smile and a wink, "you've inspired me. How would you feel about taking a few pictures?"

"O-Oh, I'm not r-really…I-I mean…That-that's not-I-" she spluttered.

"Hey, don't worry," he said. "No pressure. This was really random. I'll give you some time to think it over." He grabbed a pen off the blanket she was sitting on and a sticky note from the stack beside her. On the sticky note, he wrote something and handed it to her. "My number," he explained. "If you wanna do it, call me. Or text me. Whatever you're comfortable with."

"What's it for?" Ally asked him.

"My website," he said. "Well, blog. I'm trying to make myself known. I take pictures and post them online and hope that some magazine editor or something sees them."

"Well, why me?"

"You caught my eye," Austin told her. "And things that catch my eye tend to be great inspiration."

It's Ally. I'll do the pictures.

Great! :D Meet me at the Starbucks by the quad at noon tomorrow. :)

He sat at a table, drinking his iced coffee and fiddling with his camera. It was five minutes to noon, and he was feeling slightly impatient. He hadn't had inspiration in a while, and he couldn't wait to take pictures with a purpose again.

When he heard the door open, his head snapped up. He smiled when he saw the bouncy brown curls and big brown eyes. Ally saw him and walked over to sit down across from him.

"Thanks for saying yes," he said with a smile.

"Could be fun," she replied, sounding a little less shy than she did when they first met three days ago. "But I have to warn you, I'm not very photogenic."

"Now, I'm sure that's not true," he said. "So, I have a few ideas and locations, but I was thinking we could also just hang out and do stuff and I could snap some pics of you being you."

"I'm not very interesting."

"I'm sure that's not true, either."

"What do I wear?"

"Whatever you're confident in."

Ally bit her lip, and Austin got a sneaking suspicion the girl had a lot of insecurities. He secretly vowed to himself right then and there that he'd make this beautiful girl see herself for all she was.

He smiled as more inspiration came to him.

"Okay, what're we doing in the middle of a field of wildflowers?" Ally asked him.

"We are taking pictures," Austin said, looking at his tripod as if debating whether to put it up or not. He shook his head and set it on the ground.

"Oh. Right. Well, sorry what I'm wearing isn't-"

"It's perfect," he said, looking at the dress she was wearing. It flowed to just above her knees and was a bright yellow color, a color that reminded him of the sun, his favorite color. She wore a denim vest over it and white converse, the front part of her hair pulled out of her face and secured in the back with a white bow while the rest cascaded down her shoulders.

Her cheeks tinted pink, and he smiled.

"Be right back, I just have to grab a few things." He jogged back to his car and returned a minute later carrying a box.

"Do I need any more make up?" Ally asked suddenly. "I put some on, but I'm not sure-"

"Ally, you look great. Natural. It's perfect." She blushed again.

"Um, what's in the box?" she asked, changing the subject. He grinned.

"Props." He opened the box and pulled out a big, bright pink letter 'B' made of foam.

"Are those just a bunch of random foam letters?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yup. Found 'em at the craft store." He handed her the prop and she took it.

"What do I do with it?"

"Pose. Hold it up, make a funny face, smile, look cute, do what you want."

"Looking cute isn't exactly my forte," she told him.

"Could've fooled me," he responded without a beat of hesitation. She blushed, but he didn't notice as he was digging through his box of mysteries.

"Whatcha lookin' for?" Ally asked, standing on her tiptoes to try to see what the blonde boy was doing.

"Aha!" he said with a smile, pulling a plastic bag out of the box. Ally blinked. "I've always wanted to try this." He ripped a hole in the bottom of the bag and fixed it on his camera lens, so the result was that the pictures would look dreamlike with the sun reflecting on the bag around the edges.

"What're you doing?"

"This'll make it look dreamy and make you look like even more of a princess than you already do." Cue more blushing. Austin positioned Ally where he claimed the lighting was perfect. "Smile," the boy said, bringing the camera up to his eye.

Ally smiled for the camera, but Austin didn't take the picture.

"C'mon, give me something real. Think of something funny."

"Sorry, I'm not good at modeling. I don't know what to think of."

"You're fine. Um…what do you call an owl's beak?" he asked.

"What?"

"Who knows?"

Ally laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

The corners of her eyes crinkled and her face lit up and her nose scrunched up and she laughed. Her smile was big enough and bright enough to light up an entire city and Austin took advantage of it. He snapped as many pictures as he could, and when she calmed down he passed her another letter, the same size and color as the first.

Ally took it and looked at it.

"'F.'"

"Yup," Austin replied. Ally nodded.

"Alright."

Austin brought the camera up to his eye.

"Okay, just like before. Be your cute little self." Ally blushed and stuck her tongue out at him before promptly turning around and holding the 'F' behind her back, her elbows pointing upwards as she gripped the top of the letter just below her shoulders.

Austin chuckled and snapped a picture, satisfied with the difference in poses.

"Okay, you can just grab the next letter, and set that one with the 'B,'" Austin told the girl. She nodded and did as she was told, picking up a letter 'A' out of the box. "And by the way, you're still a cutie," Austin said.

"Whatever," she said, though she still blushed. She walked back to her spot and held the 'A' up under her chin, scrunching up her face for the camera. Austin took the picture, grinning at Ally's loosening up.

"Next."

Ally grabbed an 'E', and she pretended to take an aggressive bite out of the top corner of it, resulting in an adorable picture that Austin couldn't believe he was getting the opportunity to take.

And so it went. Ally grabbed a 'T' and held it lazily, tilting it slightly as she puckered her lips and went cross-eyed.

Austin took the picture.

Ally grabbed an 'L' and held it like half a picture frame, her face being the picture. She grinned as wide as she could and squeezed her eyes shut tightly.

Austin took the picture.

Next she grabbed an 'I' and stuck her tongue out, pretending to lick it like a popsicle.

Austin took the picture.

Finally, she grabbed a 'U' and held it up in front of her mouth so it looked like a smile. She smiled behind it so her face would look happier, and Austin took the picture.

"I need another one with the 'U,'" Austin said. Ally didn't ask any questions and held the 'U' above her head, smiling at the camera.

Once she heard the satisfying 'click' of the camera, she dropped her arms and tossed the 'U' at the pile.

"Are we done?" she asked.

"Almost," Austin said. He picked a bunch of wildflowers and handed the makeshift bouquet to the brunette, who looked slightly confused. "Pose with those a bit," Austin said, bringing his camera up to his eye.

And Ally did.

She smiled and laughed and did everything from twirling in her yellow dress to lying down in the field and staring up at the camera with a more model-type face on.

Austin took pictures until the sun was so far below the horizon, there was no way the lighting would work anymore.

And with every picture, he felt himself falling harder and harder for the girl he just met.

"My face hurts," Ally said matter-of-factly as the pair strolled to the car under the stars, him carrying his tripod and his packed up box of mysteries while his camera dangled from his neck, and her carrying that bouquet of wildflowers she for some reason could not let go of.

"Yes, well, smiling can do that to people," Austin replied. He put his camera in its bag and placed it, the tripod, and the box in the back of his car, and then he strolled up to the front and got in. Ally was waiting in the passenger seat.

"Right," she said. "That was fun."

"Good."

The two had talked between pictures. They had talked a lot. She now knew that his middle name was Monica and his favorite food was pancakes and he had an irrational yet petrifying fear of umbrellas, while he now knew that her last name was Dawson and her favorite food was pickles and she was a lot more insecure than he originally thought.

But she had opened up to him, smiled for him and laughed for him and acted silly for him and had been herself for him, a stranger she had just met three days ago.

She told him that even though they just met, she felt like she could tell him anything.

He told her she could.

She told him that he was the first person she had met at this stupid college full of stuck-up rich kids she felt she could really truly be herself around.

He told her she could.

She told him that around him, she felt slightly less plain, slightly less ordinary, slightly less insecure, and slightly more beautiful.

He told her she was.

The next day, Austin promised Ally they could do whatever she wanted. So, she elected that they go cloud watching.

Austin could've thought of about a million things he would've rather done, but the way Ally's eyes lit up when she talked about cloud watching made him unable to say no.

"I know you probably think this is super lame, but I think it's really fun. Gets my creative juices flowing and it's really relaxing. Sorry, you're probably gonna be super bored," Ally said as they walked to her favorite spot to cloud watch in a small area of the quad.

"Nah, I won't be bored."

"Most people are," she said, sitting down in the grass. He sat next to her. "I don't understand why, though. Clouds are so pretty, and it's so cool when you can find a shape in them and turn it into something. I love it." She glanced at him. "Sorry, I'll stop talking now."

"Hey, don't apologize. Say what you wanna say," Austin told her.

He found it heartbreaking to think that at some point, someone Ally knew and cared about judged her for liking cloud watching. They probably told her that they didn't care, that no one would, that it wasn't important. This was obviously something she loved doing, and someone she respected shot her down at some point simply for talking about something that made her happy.

"It's okay. I'm done talking, anyway," Ally said. She lay down on the grass, and Austin mimicked her actions.

The brunette next to him looked up at the clouds, smiling contently, but Austin couldn't tear his eyes away from her. He knew it was a rare sight to see her smiling genuinely, and he felt a bit guilty. He wondered if many of her friends saw her smile that much, or her boyfriend if she had one. If not, he felt like he was stealing all her smiles for himself and not leaving any left for everyone else.

Yesterday, they had talked a lot. But only about themselves. Their likes and dislikes and families and random facts, no relationships or friendships or anything like that.

For example, he knew that her parents were divorced and she had had an imaginary friend named Mrs. Pennyworth growing up, but he had no idea who her best friend was or whether she was currently seeing somebody.

He figured that if he was gonna allow himself to truly crush on this girl, he had to know if she had a boyfriend. (Of course, his feelings for her were completely out of his control at this point, but he would've smashed his camera to pieces before admitting that just yet.)

"Hey, Ally?" he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the peaceful moment.

"Hmm?" she replied.

"I just realized, we never really talked about our friends-"

"Later," she said, cutting him off. "There's another place I wanna take you in a little while."

"Okay," he replied. "I'm just gonna take some pictures, if that's okay. Just keep doing what you're doing."

She nodded and he stood up.

He walked in a circle around her, taking pictures from different angles and distances.

"Could you close your eyes for a second?" Austin asked. "You look really pretty and peaceful and I want some with you looking even more peaceful. If that's okay with you."

"You're just asking me to close my eyes. Why wouldn't it be okay?"

"Well, I just wanna make sure," Austin said. "I don't want you doing anything you're not comfortable with. I'm obviously not gonna ask you to do anything weird, but if for some reason you don't wanna do something, just tell me."

"Okay," Ally said, smiling a bit. She closed her eyes.

Austin took a few more pictures, smiling the entire time. She was just so gorgeous, he couldn't help it.

"Alright, you're good," he finally said, laying back down next to her.

Ally opened her eyes again and looked at the clouds. Austin kept looking at her.

Eventually, she sat up. He did the same.

"C'mon," she said, "now for that place I wanna take you to."

"Okay." They stood up and he followed her as she walked across the college campus, listening intently to her story about her first time meeting Peter Pan at Disney World.

"It was, like, the greatest day of my life," she finished as they stopped in front of a small café that Austin had probably walked past a hundred times but never noticed. "Here we are."

"I like it," Austin said immediately. She grinned and led him inside.

"I don't know what you like, but I usually get-"

"Pancakes!" Austin exclaimed when he saw his favorite food on the menu.

"The chicken salad. But pancakes work too," Ally said with a giggle.

"Sorry," Austin apologized for his outburst. "I love pancakes."

"Yeah, you told me."

"If I could marry pancakes, I would."

"You probably could in France."

"Why France?"

"I dunno. If I were gonna marry a pancake, I'd imagine it being in France."

"Ah," he replied.

Ally looked up at the menu hanging above the counter, and he took the opportunity to snap a few pictures.

After they ordered, Ally led him to a table next to a big window facing the quad.

"I come here a lot."

"I don't blame you."

She smiled at him, and he raised his camera to take a picture.

It's been a few weeks now, and they've taken hundreds and hundreds of pictures. They've also talked more. (Yes, she is single, and yes, he is happy about it.)

He's also fallen even harder for his beautiful little muse.

"I wanna take a picture of you!" she exclaims randomly when they're in the middle of taking pictures at the beach.

"But I'm the photographer," he tells her. "That's not how it works."

"One picture. C'mon."

He rolls his eyes, a smile forming on his lips because of just how much he likes (coughlovescough) this girl.

"Fine."

He hands her his camera and goes to stand in front of the ocean. He closes his eyes, smirks, and holds up rock-n-roll hands. He hears her giggle, and then the click of the camera. He walks back over to her and takes it back.

"Alright, cutie. Go do your thing again," he tells her.

"Yes, sir," she says, saluting him.

"Do that again," he tells her once she's in the right spot. "That was cute."

"This?" she asks, saluting him again.

He nods and takes a few pictures.

"You are so cute," he says, as she switches poses and he snaps pictures. "So, so cute. Man, you do things to me."

He rambles on like that, mostly because he's too focused on taking pictures to concentrate on filtering himself.

But then he drops the bomb.

"I freakin' love you, kid."

She stops posing and looks at him.

"What?"

He knows she's used to all his other comments, but he's never told her he loves her before. He doesn't take it back, though.

"I love you. I'm in love with you."

"You can't. You don't," she says immediately. "I'm…I'm nothing special."

"Don't say that, Ally. You're incredible."

"I'm nothing."

"You're perfect."

"I'm not perfect."

"You're my perfect."

"I…I have to go," she says, sounding overwhelmed. And then she hurries to her car and drives away.

He curses himself till he loses his voice.

He looks over his post one last time before making it available to the world.

The top is all the pictures, arranged in a grid. At the very bottom of the grid of pictures are the ones she took with the letters at the meadow their first day. The pictures are arranged so she's spelling the word beautiful.

Under the pictures is the text describing them. He reads it to himself.

This is Ally Dawson. I saw her one day as I was walking around my college campus, and I was immediately drawn to her. I asked her to be my muse, and instead of calling the cops, as most girls probably would if a random guy walked up to them and asked to take pictures of them, she agreed.

Ally has a lot of insecurities. She doesn't think she's anything special or important, but I know she is. This post is to prove it to the world, to show all those people who brought her down so far that she can't seem to bring herself back up that they are wrong.

Ally Dawson is the most incredible girl I have ever met. She is funny and adorable and sweet and unique and fun and once she's comfortable enough around you to be herself, she isn't afraid to do so. I am lucky enough to be one of the people she is truly herself around, and I wouldn't trade that for the world. She is beautiful, and I am completely in love with her.

-Austin Moon

He nods to himself and posts it. Then he bites his lip and texts Ally the link, telling her that he finished it.

They haven't spoken since that day at the beach. It's been killing him.

His phone shows that she read the message, and then a few minutes later he receives a text from her.

Wow.

He swallows. One three-letter word, and his heart is about ready to beat out of his chest. He texts her back.

Do you like it?

It's amazing.

He smiles.

Thanks, cutie.

"Ally Dawson," he says, walking up to the brunette at the quad. She looks up at him. "I haven't seen you in forever. Have you been avoiding me?"

"No. I've just been deliberately not being where you might see me," she replies.

"I'll brush that one off. Are you really that freaked out about me being in love with you?"

"I was. But I'm okay now."

"Good. I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too. The pictures are incredible."

He smiles. "You're incredible."

"Don't do that," she says with a blush.

He smiles wider. "Do what?"

"That."

"That narrows it down." He chuckles. "No but seriously, you wouldn't believe what people are saying about the pictures."

"A-are they bad?" she asks, her insecurities showing through.

"People say it's my best work. Everyone wants to know who this Ally Dawson is, who she's modeling for next, why she isn't famous yet. I'm not the only one who thinks you're beautiful, Ally."

She smiles a bit.

"Really?"

"Really. And guess what?"

"What?"

"Some dude who works for this high-end clothing brand found the pictures, loved them, and offered me a job taking pictures for them!" he exclaims, grinning.

"Austin, that's amazing!" Ally exclaims.

"There's a catch, though," he tells her.

She frowns. "What is it?"

"You have to be the model. He said he wants me to photograph you in the clothes. It pays really well, and all you have to do is look cute in some expensive clothes while I take pictures of you. You'll be all over the stores, in magazines and catalogs, on billboards…" he trails off and looks at her hopefully. "So, what do you say?"

"Me? A model? But…but I don't even know how-"

"You just have to be you, Ally. I told you you're a natural. The guy said you're real, and that you're the perfect face for the brand. And that you and I make a good team."

"That's…wow."

"Will you do it?" he asks. "Please?"

"I…Yeah," she says, smiling. "Yeah, I'll do it."

He grins and in his excitement he takes her face in his hands and kisses her. She starts pulling away in shock, but then suddenly she's the one pulling him closer and she's kissing him back.

When they finally do pull away, he says, "I love you so much."

"I-I think I might love you too. And even if I don't, I think I will soon."

He smiles wider than ever and opens his eyes to look at the beautiful girl in front of him. He kisses her once more and lays down in the grass, pulling her down with him.

It started with a shy girl and a not-so-shy photographer.

It ended with something beautiful.

I started this a while ago and I just found it and I really liked it so I finished it. I hope you liked it, too. :)