THE SIGHT OF HER always brings a smile to his face , and he steps into her home , the familiarity of their interactions calming his nerves . The sound of her voice silences the inner one he has , and he thinks himself foolish for ever thinking the things he thought , the pessimism that pervades his entire sense of being . ❛ Hey , you can always just take the pineapple bits out before taking a bite , ❜ he says , before raising the bottle . ❛ Should I put this into your pantry or should this come with us ? ❜ He’s not familiar if her schedule would allow for such a night of much merriment , but either way , he supposes it doesn’t matter . Her presence alone is enough ; he doesn’t need alcohol to let loose with her . He finds it comes naturally : a miracle in an of itself .
He settles in quickly , finding an empty chair and making himself comfortable , his eyes surveying the inside of her home . He takes his own phone out of his jacket and checks the weather report , before he calls out : ❛ Weather report says it’d be 66º out , if that helps in picking out something ! ❜ His voice is all at once too loud in the confines of the four walls of her abode , and he feels oddly self - conscious again , before he shakes his head , trying his best not to dwell too much on thoughts like that . ❛ They said the theme tonight was classics ——— which could mean anything really . ❜
He stands up again , skittish , before resting on a counter and putting the bottle aside . ❛ Wanna bet that it’s Casablanca or some other old black and white movie ? ❜
❛ maybe you should put in the pantry. i wouldn’t want the town’s favorite judge to be caught with an open container or driving under the influence. ❜ lotte said, following behind him through the kitchen towards the laundry room. she was teasing, of course, bordering on flirtatiously. that was the thing about mari that she could never put her finger on — if he liked her, too, or if it was all in her head. she’d met him at a point that was close enough to being rock bottom that she didn’t know what to do with herself. somewhere between slowly and all at once, she found herself looking at him differently until it clicked: she had a crush on him.
lotte, a thirty five year old grown woman, had a crush. it wasn’t embarrassing by any means, and any person with two eyes could see that mariano was as handsome a man as they come, but crush was one of those words people used to describe teenage girls in romance novels and in love was too much for her to reconcile without knowing if he even thought she was pretty ( pretty in the your soul is made of the same stuff as mine kind of way and not the i guess you look pretty or whatever kind of way ).
taking a deep breath, steadying herself from a dizzying pace of thoughts, she focused on the sound of his voice as he called out the weather. jacket, right. she stood in the little hallway between her kitchen and laundry room that led out to the garage, staring at the clothes there for a moment before she called back, ❛ it does help, thank you ! ❜
walking back into the kitchen with her jacket on, she gathered her hair and gently pulled it out from under the collar, running her fingers through loose curls and patting at her backside to make sure she had her phone. lotte looked at him for a moment, a dopey little half smile on her face. whatever nervous energy boiled inside of her seemed to fizzle out, if only for a moment and only came back at full force when she realized she wasn’t saying anything. ❛ y’know, for boot hill, part of me wouldn’t be surprised if the classic was psycho but i’ll take that bet. i have a feeling it’ll be miracle on 34th street — a classic christmas movie, if you ask me. ❜
