Page 101 of Love at First Sighting
[Instagram post by @elohelmartin, dated two hours ago. 230K likes, 800 comments.]
[Photo of a young white woman with brown hair, wearing dark jeans and a blush-pink sweater, leaning on the shoulder of a young white man with blond hair in jeans and a leather jacket, both smiling and looking down at a camera’s display, standing in front of Big Ben.]
Hard launch for the new brand and new boy! I’m back and in London for the first leg of what we hope to be a long jaunt around the globe. I’m so grateful to those of you who have stuck around these past few months as I reevaluated my content and my life. Moving forward, I think this page will be a mix of a lot of things, from our travel adventures to real life, and fear not, I will still keep hitting you all with the best food, products, and finds along the way. Just know every single thing I share is going to be coming from me and coming from the heart. Life’s too short to live as someone I’m not. And don’t worry, I won’t pick up an accent while I’m here.
It’s safe to say this is the happiest I’ve ever been, and it’s totally got nothing to do with this handsome guy next to me. Please give a warm welcome to @cbrodyphotos—boyfriend and photographer extraordinaire. There’s no one I’d rather see the world and spend my life with.
Anyway, you’ll be seeing lots of him around here, and he’s new at this, so give him a follow.
Photo credit goes to the random woman on the street who said she didn’t want to be tagged, but thanks!
#TravelCouple #TravelGoals #HappyCouple #NotSponCon #London #British #FishAndChips
@Cbrodyphotos:Awww my eyes aren’t even open in this one :/
@Elohelmartin:@cbrodyphotos
Epilogue
El
Six Months Later
“Now, tilt your head up just alittlebit. No, less.Less.”
When I hired my own personal photographer, finally, I didn’t think he’d bethisbossy. It’s early enough in the morning that the Champ de Mars is not full of tourists and the summer heat isn’t ravaging my hair and making me regret obtaining a beret. Yet.
The birds chirp and city life bustles with the morning rush, and Carter’s camera faintly clicks as he lines up test shots for lighting and composition.
“If your head is tilted too far down, you look kind of evil. Like a hot, evil mime.”
I frown. “Wow, thanks.”
“I said ‘hot,’ ” he corrects, looking between me and the backdrop and his viewfinder, smirking. To be fair, I am wearing a red beret and a black-and-white-striped sweater. I look like a cartoon girl from the kitschy Paris designs on plates, greeting cards, and wall prints from T.J.Maxx. But I’m having fun.
“Oh, comforting. You have an evil mime kink.”
“I will admittedly be happier when we can get back to the hotel and I can take your little hat and sweateroffof you.” He glances up from the camera with a devilish grin that tells me his agenda looks something like: photos, another café for snacks, and then sex. I can’t complain. It doesn’t sound like a half-bad day.
The last time I was in Paris, I came with a group of influencer friends I didn’t even like, and instead of hopping on tour buses and learning everything about the city, we had a full list of the most photo-worthy spots in the city. We bounced from the Eiffel Tower to the Arc de Triomphe and the Luxembourg Gardens, snapping the photos we needed and finding not the best restaurants to eat at, but the ones with the cutest patios and most aesthetically pleasing wineglasses. I captured every moment of that trip, but I hardly remembered it.
Instead, on this trip, we’ve packed our schedule full of museums and tours and food. Of course, there are photo stops along the way, like right now, but it’s less for the content and more to cement memories the two of us are creating together. Carter wanted to make sure we made it to the Louvre (obviously on my list) and the Paris Catacombs (cool, butnoton my list). I informed him that theMona Lisais actually very small, and he asserted size isn’t everything.
I’m excited to hop on tour bus after tour bus and do all the tourist activities and soak it all in like this is the first time. It might as well be. I’m not worried about appearances, because we’re here to have fun. Instead of calculated sponsored content, we’ve been running an impromptu series that’s gaining some rapid traction on our socials: Croissants with Carter, where we embark on a bold mission to find the best croissantin all of France. So far, of the three cafés we’ve stopped into, they’ve all been a ten out of ten. I have no idea how he’s rating these, but I think his bar might be quite low.
We’re getting good at this by now. We’ve been jaunting around Europe for the past two months, with stops in England, Iceland, and Spain so far, and we have no plans of returning to the States anytime soon.
Once Carter’s photography business was up and running, he gained several regular clients and started making decent money. He’s managed to snag a few photo shoot gigs in LA, as well as some across the pond, while dodging the people in his DMs asking him to take feet pics for them. There’s a lot of flexibility for both of us to keep making money to fund our travels.
I oblige Carter’s request, tilting my head back a little with a smile and raising my chin.
“Take one step to the right,” he orders. After surveying the screen one more time, he backs away from the camera and approaches me. Carter places a finger below my jaw and nudges my head exactly where he wants it, trying to catch the strongest light for my hair to shimmer in the sun. He’s excellent at finding the parts of me he loves most and putting them on display.
He finds new things every day—things I have never thought about or ever loved—and he makes me love them, too. He’s made me like posing on my left because he says my smile quirks differently on that side.
Then he tilts my hips for me, his fingertips slipping underneath the hem of my sweater. I shiver at his touch, but it makes him grip my sides harder and press a kiss along my jaw.
“Do you actually have feedback for my pose or are you just trying to touch me?”
