She turns her face back to the moon, “Riddle me this.”
My mouth tugs up at the corner. Another game.
“Two people go to dinner.” She starts, “They both order drinks with ice.”
“Okay.” I answer.
“But both drinks are poisoned. One of them drinks their glass real quick and doesn’t die. The other drinks theirs slow and dies. Why?”
I ponder the riddle, replaying each sentence, “The ice.”
She whips her head to me.
“The poison is in the ice.”
She nods, urging me to go on.
“The one who drank it quick, the ice couldn’t melt so she didn’t get poisoned but the one who drank it slow was poisoned because the ice melted.”
“You’re right,” She laughs, “Most people look over the ice.”
The water gently laps beneath my feet, “I have to look at every detail,” I murmur, voice almost drowned by the sound of the tide.
“I can see you as a man who never misses a single detail, even the tiny ones.”
She doesn’t know how right she is. In this, with her right now and in every minute of my life. She probably doesn’t realize I’ve been counting the freckles on her nose and face, though I’ll never be able to get them all, or that she has a small mole above her brow, right at the tip of the arch and another beneath her lip. That her eyes look like they house flames, beautiful amber flames and she has so many different colors in her hair I wouldn’t be able to name.
“Your turn,” She says, “Pick a game.”
“I’m not very good at picking games, trouble.”
“Then what do you do for fun? Other than whittle of course.”
“I sleep and I read.”
A tinkle of laughter has my face turning toward her, “You sound like an old man, Kolten.”
I am older than her, I already know that, by at least ten years. “How old are you?” I blurt.
Her brows shoot up, “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to ask a lady her age?”
Never once in my whole life, “No.”
“Clearly,” she giggles, “I’m twenty-one.”
So, eleven years, I was close.
I don’t much care about the age gap.
We sit in each other’s company for a few more hours, the night passing by. Sleep is needed but I can’t bring myself to be the first one to leave.
“I could sleep here,” Vanessa yawns.
“You shouldn’t.”
She snorts a laugh, “No, really?” She quirks a brow.
“I’ll walk you home.” I offer.
