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And then her face pulled up into confusion. “Wait, why honeysuckles?” she breathlessly gushed.
“They smell like you,” I nonchalantly replied, and her eyes widened, peering innocently up at me through her lashes. She kept her gaze locked onto mine as she buried her nose in the wilting bouquet. It hid her blush as the tips of her ears turned pink.
“I love it,” she muttered. “Even if they’re a little damaged. It just adds character to them,” she gushed. Okay, so despite a tiny hiccup, the beginning of our first official date was going smoothly.
Stooping down, I grabbed my black felt cowboy hat from the ground and dusted off a little bit of snow. Tenley buried her nose deeper into the bouquet and closed her eyes.
I simply looked at her as she remained silently still, inhaling deeply against the flowers again. Something shifted in her, dancing her away from reality. A sigh fled her lips as she lifted her eyes to meet mine, dancing gently above the petals. “How’d you know?” she whispered.
I furrowed my brows. “Know what?”
“How much I love love, and romance. Like these flowers. You brought me these flowers because they smell like me. If that’s not the sweetest, romantic gesture possible, I’m not sure what is. Sappy romance may be cliche, but I don’t care. I love it”
I didn’t move, didn’t say anything as she spoke so happy and content.
I loved it. Listening to her be extremely vulnerable with me. It was beautiful. Just like her. And she found my gesture romantic.
Romantic. She loves love and romance. Sappy romance.
My heart sank. She wanted sappy romance and romantic gestures. A simple, un-sappy dinner date wasn’t even on par with that. There was only one chance at a first date, and I’d already blown it. Without even realizing it, trying for something simple wasn’t what she wanted. Safe, yes, but safe and simple didn’t always go hand in hand.
“Tenley, honey! Let him in the house!” her mother, Rosemary, shouted from inside before I responded. I tensed up as Tenley slowly slid the flowers away from her face. I had not seen her mom since the incident during Thanksgiving. Her father and I had not shared a word, even though Tenley had shared with me her father’s apology. Something turned upside down within my stomach, an unexplainable apprehension for what I would walk into.
“Let me go put these in a vase while you say hi to my parents. Then we can go to dinner,” she said, but didn’t move. Instead she tipped her head and furrowed her brows.
“All good, cowboy?” she asked.
Cowboy? Oh, I liked that, and any rigidity that was in me concerning speaking with her parents fled with that one word. Yes, I was all good.
“Tenley?” her mother shouted again, snapping both myself and Tenley out of our stupors.
She narrowed her gaze, silently asking me one more time if everything was okay.
I gave her a smile and winked. “All’s good,” I quietly replied.
She watched me for another half a second before sighing and stepping aside. “Come in.” She gestured into the warmly lit entranceway.
Removing my hat with one hand, I crossed over the threshold, following her in and closing the door after me. She gave me an encouraging smile once more and scurried across the worn, crimson and navy rug. I politely tugged my wet, square-toe cowboy boots off and set them in the corner before hesitantly following her in.
Tenley headed to the left, past the coffee-brown leather recliners her parents sat in, and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me alone with two people whose opinions of me were not clear to me. And no matter how much I tried to deny it, they were two people whose thoughts actually mattered.
Calculating, I turned my gaze to meet her parents, her dad looking even worse for the wear than before. The twinkling winter white lights on the Christmas tree behind him cast an eerie glow on his gaunt face.
The faint click of his oxygen tank ticked with each strained breath he took, mixing in with the crackles of the fire across from him. The window above the couch was dark, just as the bags under his eyes.
Yet, as I slowly approached, he placed his skeleton-like palms against the armrests of the chair. Groaning, he pushed himself upright, attempting to stand. Rosemary was closer to him, and she got ready to rise from her recliner herself, but I was faster.
Reaching out a hand, I offered him some help, regardless of the tension between us, it was the polite thing to do. But he shook his head, silently refusing. Rosemary inhaled sharply, her own chair rocking back and forth behind her plump body as she stood stock-still, watching.
Eventually, Charlie was able to push himself completely out of his seat and stand. His eyes, so like Tenley’s, green and large, watched me for a moment.
“Weston,” he began, his voice strained. “What I said, the things that I spoke about you…” He paused, his body shaking as he placed a hand against the armrest to steady himself.
“It’s fine, sir,” I replied, but he shook his head again—thin, wispy gray hair holding tightly to his skull.
“No. It is not fine. There is no excuse for my behavior.” He inhaled deeply, wheezing. “I simply should not have said what I did, especially since you were right. Are right. Not one of those things I said about you are true.”
Once more, he gasped for air, and it took everything in me to not reach out and try to help. But I knew I shouldn’t. For his sake, as well as my own, I had to let him finish.
