Page 70 of Clichés & Curses

Then, it was my turn to be shy. ‘I had a free hour, and I googled the team you guys were competing against to see if they had a live stream of the game. And they did, so I thought I would tune in while I waited for my next class,’ I explained. ‘And you just so happened to hit that home run during the time I was watching.’

Colton stayed quiet upon hearing my admission, his mind seemingly caught elsewhere.

‘Colton?’ I gently prompted, calling him back to me.

‘You watched the game,’ he murmured.

I gave him a nod. ‘I did.’

‘And you saw me hit a home run.’

‘Yeah.’

A tender look came across Colton’s features, his tone soft as he asked, ‘Sounds like it was fated, don’t you think?’

I smiled at him. ‘Who knows? Maybe it was.’ I shrugged, my voice teasing when I added, ‘I mean that home runwasfor me, right?’

A small but genuine smile made its way to his face. ‘Yeah, it was.’

‘Anyway,’ I said, snapping out of the trance Colton’s attention seemed to bring me to. ‘What are you doing here?’ Noticing that he had both his hands behind him, I arched an eyebrow at him, teasingly. ‘And what are you hiding back there?’

He gave me a massive grin in return as he brought his left arm to the front, his hand grasping the handle of a bag. He held it up to me, the look of excitement on his face urging me to take it from him.

I gave him a suspicious look before grabbing the handle of the bag and sneaking a peek to see what was inside.

It was bubble tea.

Not one, but two of them.

‘What is this for?’ I asked, slightly confused.

‘Well, I did promise you that you’ll get your bubble tea this week,’ he answered. ‘And this is me delivering on my promise.’

‘But why are there two of them?’

‘You didn’t think I would get one for you without getting one for myself, did you?’ he said, a teasing tone accompanying his words. ‘And like I said, bubble tea is our thing, so the other one is for me. But if I had known your sister was here, I would’ve gotten an extra one, so your sister can have mine.’

I snapped my eyes back to him. ‘Colton, you don’t—’

‘It’s fine, really,’ he reassured me.

‘Thank you,’ I said with a smile on my face. ‘But you really didn’t have to do this.’

‘That’s not all.’ He stopped me, as he brought his other arm forward, revealing his other surprise. ‘I also got you these.’

Gripped in his hand was a bunch of flowers, enveloped with a cellophane wrap and strapped together by the stems with a rubber band.

Flowers.

Colton got me flowers.

And they weren’t just any flowers.

They were pink flowers.

In not just one kind but a variety of them, different shades of pink from different types of flowers, all wrapped together. ‘Flowers,’ I breathed out, stunned by the gesture. ‘You got me flowers.’ My hand reached out to receive the offered gift.

‘I know that you usually get them after our weekly ASL practice. Since we didn’t get to do that this week, I thought I would get them for you,’ he explained, his voice getting a little quieter towards the end. ‘I figured you might have gotten them today instead. But even if you have, these are still yours.’

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