A slow, real smile spreads across my face, a smile that has nothing to do with a camera or a client or a character. It’s all me. And in that moment, sitting on a park bench in the twilight, I know exactly what I have to do.
I’m not going to rush. I’m not going to push. I’m going to court her, properly. I’m going to earn her trust, one patient, honest gesture at a time. I’m going to show her what real looks like, no matter how long it takes.
Chapter 15
Snow
After changing three times and second-guessing every choice, I finally settled on a soft, marigold-yellow sundress Preston had hated on sight. Wearing it today feels like a small, personal victory.
The frantic fluttering in my stomach is a foreign sensation. I stand before the mirror, analyzing it with a detached curiosity. This isn’t the familiar, cold dread that used to precede a Darlington society event, that icy anxiety born from the fear of saying the wrong thing, wearing the wrong dress, using the wrong fork. This is different. It’s a warm, hopeful, terrifying flutter. It’s the nervousness of possibility, not of judgment. And that, more than anything, is what scares me.
It’s not like we haven’t spent time together these past three weeks. We have. Coffee twice at the Seventh Street Café, where we talked until the barista started wiping down tables around us. A small gallery opening in Huntington, where Wyatt knew the photographer. Lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Thai place he swore by. A movie on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, where we shared popcorn and he didn’t try to hold my hand even though I kindof wanted him to. And we text. Every single day. Good morning messages that make me smile over my tea. Photos of things that remind him of me. Late-night conversations that range from the profound to the ridiculous.
Wyatt: What’s your most unpopular opinion?
I think pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity. Yours?
Wyatt: Books are better than their movie adaptations. Always. No exceptions.
Even The Princess Bride?
Wyatt: … okay, ONE exception.
Wyatt: Honest question - do you think a hot dog is a sandwich?
It’s 11 PM, and you’re thinking about sandwich taxonomy?
Wyatt: Can’t sleep. This is important.
Wyatt: What are you most afraid of?
That I’m making the same mistake twice.
Wyatt: What’s the last thing that made you feel brave?
Texting you back.
But this feels different. More intentional. Like we’ve been circling something, and today we’re finally going to step into it.
A wave of doubt washes over me, the familiar urge to cancel, to retreat back into the safety of solitude. I snap a quick, nervous selfie, the angle all wrong, my smile a little too wide. I texted it to Nico.
Is this okay for a farmers' market? Feeling 16 again.
Her reply is instantaneous, a little ping of validation that lands right in my heart.
He is going to lose his actual mind. That dress is everything. GO! HAVE FUN! Report back with details. And I mean ALL the details.
Her confidence is intoxicating. I take one last deep breath, the air tasting of freedom and lavender, and grab my keys.
The Northport Farmers Market is a vibrant, chaotic symphony of life. The air is thick with a hundred competing, wonderful smells: the sweet perfume of ripe peaches, the sharp, earthy scent of fresh basil, the yeasty promise of baking bread. A local musician with an acoustic guitar is playing a cheerful, folksy melody that weaves through the happy chatter of the crowd. It’s loud and messy and unapologetically alive. I love it immediately.
Wyatt is waiting for me near the entrance, just as he promised. He’s not scrolling on his phone, his attention lost in a digital world. He’s watching the crowd, a small, observant smile on his face, his gaze taking in the details of the scene around him. He’s wearing a simple gray Henley that stretches across his broad shoulders and a pair of worn-in jeans that fit him in a way that makes my mouth go a little dry. When his eyes land on me, his smile widens into something breathtakingly genuine, a crinkling at the corners of his deep blue eyes that feels like it’s just for me. The warmth in that look travels across the space between us and extinguishes the last of my nervous flutters.
“Wow,” he says, his voice a low, appreciative rumble as I approach. “That dress. You look like sunshine.”
The compliment is direct and genuine, and it makes my cheeks burn. With Preston, compliments were always transactions, public declarations designed to reflect well on him. “My wife has such impeccable taste,” he’d say, his hand a heavy weight on my back. Wyatt’s words feel different. They feel like a gift, freely given.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a shy smile of my own. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
