Page 6 of Sweet Valentine
Her shoulders hunch in a shrug, frustratingly nonchalant. “Presumably. Let’s open the packets,” she declares, shaking her own packet over her head like a maraca. Colton drops down to sit on the bench, shifting uncomfortably in the seat, chill seeping in through his trousers.
It was the sudden heat creeping up the back of his neck that couldn't cool. Least of all when Patty, with a decisive jingle, drops to her knees while she rips open the package with her teeth. She hums to herself a tune he doesn’t even try to place, sorting through tiny heart-shaped candies. He looks like she’s enjoying herself, utterly oblivious to him slowly losing his mind.
“Aaaalrighty, Sheriff,” she says, voice light as air. Despite the challenge she shoots through the space between them like Cupid’s arrow. “Show me what kind of poetry you’ve got up your sleeve.”
Colton grunts tersely. The playful glint in Patty’s eyes threatens to distract him. His head ducks, self-conscious as the schoolboy he hasn’t been in decades. “Poetry’s not exactly in my wheelhouse.”
Patty isn’t offended—or deterred. She plucks out a little candy heart, and plonks it down like a chess piece. “Freak less. They kind of do the workforyou.” She holds up another;Be Minethe little heart reads. Patty considers it, then drops it into the pile.
“Easy for you to say,” he mutters under his breath, sifting through his own bag. As he absorbs the pastel-hued phrases, Colton wishes he’d lucked out with a simpleBe Mine. Each one in his possession was absurd and too much, saccharine, unbearable. Nothing that remotely resembles what he’d consider saying to her.
His fingers fumble with a heart stamped withKiss Me. Nope! No. Not that one.
Patty doesn’t push. No impatience to be found when she asks, “Any luck?”
“Just… trying to put together something that doesn’t sound ridiculous. Which isnotwhat these work for.”
“It’s supposed to be fun,” Patty reminds delicately. “No one’s grading us. Just me here.”
Colton almost groans. As if he isn’tabundantlyaware of it. Like the fact makes this any easier, instead of possibly harder. He exhales heavily, and grabs a handful at random; from the mini-pile, he plucks the least embarrassing combination of words. Which isn't saying much, since the entire set-up is toomuch. Grades would have been the least of his problems. This is pressure. Pressure to give away something he isn’t ready to.
It feels like forever before he straightens up, his stomach tight with nerves. “Okay. Okay, here goes.” One by one, he lays four tiny candy hearts down.
Miss You.
Dream.
Be True.
Forever.
In what seems to be slow-motion, Colton watches Patty pale. She starts off speechless, blinking. Then, her brows knit together. The air shifts with more than just February’s frost; her smile fades, turns wan and haunted. She just stares down at it. “Uh… wow,” she coughs out. Her fingers pick up the heart reading ‘Forever’ gently. “That’s – unexpected.”
“Too much?” Colton asks meekly. His heart hammers inside his chest. What had he been thinking with that?Forever?He wonders if he can just plead temporary insanity in his defense.
“No. No, Colton, it’s just—” His mouth goes dry. He can see they realize it together: it’s the first time she has ever said his name. Her eyes, lashes impossibly long, flicker up to meet his eyes. Uncertainty clings to every contour and lineation of her pretty face. “It’s… kind of intense.”
What an out of body experience, watching your fear be realized in real time.
“I mean – ‘Forever’?” she questions. The furrow of her brow appears pained. Colton had known, on some level, this was a bad idea. His heart still sinks.
“It’s just candy, Patty,” he rushes to remind, downplaying the whole thing for both their sakes. It’s too late, though. Obviously,they both know it. Awkwardness settles between them like an elephant. He watches her smile, and watches it not reach her eyes.
“Just candy,” she echoes. Her thumb brushes the printed letters of the heart she chooses from her own little pile of them. “Well… maybe mine will make some sense.” Carefully, she puts them down. She had chosen:
Nice Guy.
Smile.
LOL!
Wink.
One of the most passionate, eloquent women he had ever met and she gave him… “Wink?” Colton stares down, dumbfounded.
It’s a needle to the balloon that had grown to suffocate him from within his body, when Patty bursts into another wave of laughter. Like air-conditioned air out the open window in July, the tension evaporates in seconds. “I guess I’m not much of a poet either!” she says cheerfully. “But hey, the honor is in the attempt, isn’t it? We tried.”
He manages a weak chuckle. His mind still reels from his mistake. The tension might evaporate, but Colton can’t shake off as easily the way Patty’s expression had shifted at the sight of the wordForever.He thinks:too far, too fast, can’t take it back.Dread gnaws within.
