Page 95 of My Infatuation with Isabella

I burst out laughing and shove his shoulder, and that cracks him up too. “Please tell me how the years have made you so much hotter, yet you’re still such a dork!”

The joke was so bad, but we can’t stop laughing, the sound reverberating off the concrete. My giggles turn into a full-blown scream when the fountain comes alive, and water starts spurting out from all around us. I’m sitting right on top of a nozzle, and the spray hits me directly in the face, wetting my hair and soaking straight through my pajamas.

“Holy shit! It’s freezing!” I yell. “What the hell is going on?”

“It’s three o’clock. It must work on a timer.”

He stands up, then grabs my hand to hoist me up as well while water showers over us from every angle. The lights change color in rhythmic spurts as if it’s a little show that’s supposed to go in time with music. He steps closer, water trickling from his spiky brown hair, and his T-shirt clings to his chest. I’m a shivering, sopping mess when he wraps his arms around me.

“So, it looks like date number two was an epic fail,” he says with a laugh, pulling his hoodie over my head as if that will help me stay dry. “I had one shot left...and I blew it. Bad food and then the waterworks. I mean, I was hoping to get you wet tonight...but not like this.”

“Well, let’s rather look at the ends and not the means.”

He grins. “So...what are the chances of me getting a third date?”

“Hmm...I think we should leave that in the hands of fate.” I bend over to lift a coin from the fountain floor. “This coin is going to decide if you get another date.”

He lifts the hoodie a little so that it’s not covering half my face. “Okay, let’s do this.” He takes the coin from my hand. “Am I calling it?”

“Sure.”

“Alright, heads you go out with me again.” He flips the coin and slaps it over his other hand when it lands. He glances at the coin for a quarter of a second and immediately flings it over his shoulder before I even get a chance to look at it. “Wow! Would you look at that? It was heads.”

I’m snickering again. “It was not!”

“It was. I mean, what are the odds of that happening? It’s like you and I are meant to be,” he says as if it’s some mystical prophecy.

“I remember a specific fortune-teller who said something different.”

“Forget about her,” he says quickly, brushing his wet hair off his forehead. “She was a nutcase. I traced her lineage back, and she has the same ancestors as...Dr. Burkman, so I don’t know if we can trust what she said. Besides, her power is far surpassed by the magical fountain coin.”

“I think we should do best two out of th?”

He shuts me up with a kiss, and the heat of his mouth overshadows the cold I feel everywhere else. “The coin has spoken.” He pulls my arms around his neck. “Now enough about date three. I still have forty-eight minutes from date two that I’m going to cash in.”

His lips capture mine again, and I stop arguing. Dylan is just that typical, run-of-the-mill good guy. There isn’t one particular thing that sets him apart from any other guy. Nothing big. Nothing spectacular. But then...there are a million small things that put him in an entirely different league.

It’s that spark of determination he had to find me even though I threw every obstacle I could at him.

It’s the way he held my hand so I wouldn’t slip when I climbed into the fountain.

It’s the fact that he remembered I don’t eat meat three days a week and his desire to make me a decent vegan hot dog.

It’s the hoodie I’m wearing even though I know he’s cold too.

It’s the phone call to my show as Brock from Long Island.

It’s the Rosy bear.

It’s the dorky jokes and the sheer abundance of cheese.

It’s the way he holds me like he would fight off demons to protect me.

And then it’s this kiss...this kiss that makes me feel like these are the only lips I should ever be kissing.

It’s just a million small things. And they accumulate to set an impossibly high standard that no other man can reach. The water showers over us, and his mouth makes love to mine with such exquisite tenderness. I realize then that, yes...yes, this is why I haven’t been able to connect with anyone since 2019. No one is ever going to compare to him.

---