Page 26 of The Score

Chapter 10

Bear

Present Time

After breakfast, Pen and I clean up, while her parents go to an appointment. We organize our stuff and, eventually, I find her barely moving on the backyard swing.

I watch her through the door window, hands in my pockets, counting my heartbeats. One of her hands holds the rope tight, and her head uses it as a cushion. Her long hair is loose, with a few strands floating in the breeze, and one of them going round and round a finger. Her eyes are lost in the flower bed against the fence. She looks deep in thought… and beautiful.

Something pinches in my torso. This swing holds a special place in my memories. We had many conversations with her sitting on it and me on one of the large decorative stones in the garden and, later, on a tree stump.

It was also the place where we kissed, but I try not to think about that.

I open the door and lean against the doorjamb. "Do you want something to drink? It's getting hot out here."

She shakes her head. "I'll go inside in a minute and have something. I just needed some room to think."

"The kind where you need some space, or to talk?"

"I'd love a chat." She smiles.

I go to my spot on the tree stump.

She sighs. "That conversation with my parents was harder than I thought."

"In what way?"

"I know we kept it as close to the truth as possible, but I didn't like the lies."

"Me neither. Problem is, I don't know how to let your dad make the most out of walking you down the aisle otherwise."

"Yeah, he wouldn't enjoy it as much if he knew we're not marrying for the romance." With a casual move of her hand, she runs her fingers through her hair to put it all over one shoulder.

It leaves one side of her neck open, with light brown, tender skin visible. The kind that would be soft under one's lips…

I frown. That's precisely the kind of thought I usually blame on the stories I read, and what they do to my head. I'll need to keep an eye on that too, it seems. If reality starts looking too much like fiction, I may need to go on a multichapter break, at least.

"I don't believe in white lies," I say. "If you want to tell him the truth, we can. I will still marry you as a friend. We can tell them it's the pact we made."

She shakes her head. "No. Let him believe it. In a way we are marrying for love, just not, you know. That kind of love."

That's what I can't forget.

I sigh. I should probably stop re-reading my favorite fanfic, too. The slow burn build up is killing me all over again, and making me yearn for things that won't happen for a few more years, especially now that I'm marrying Pen.

"Love for Tío Sergio and your mom," I say. "The friendship between you and I."

That's the kind of love I will have, and a lot of it, too.

She glances at me, then to the spot behind me where red coreopsis flowers bloom. Under them, our capsule waits.

"You know," she says, "I remember what I wrote in my letter."

"We said we weren't going to speak of what is in those letters until we opened the metal box."

I've counted on that, in fact. I wrote that letter knowing I would have a decade or so to figure out the answers to the questions I put there.

"Humor me, please?" she asks. "My mom already said something and it got me thinking."