𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑⁰¹ʰᵉᵐᵐⁱⁿᵍˢ✓

⁶⁶sweet cherry

clementine

The paper in my hand rustles as I fold it on it itself, divided in half and slathered with glitter that becomes rough under my fingers.

One by one, I produced at least twenty flimsy cards, all matching in big red hearts on the forefront. Inside bore the general greetings of “happy valentines!” or “i hope you have a valentine!”, written in a stark white marker with glitter hearts displayed everywhere.

When I look up, I glance at Luke’s focused state; his eyes are squinted at the space between his marker and the paper, the space between his brows knitted and creased, his back curved to serve his attentiveness to what he's trying to do.

The warm, honey light seeping from my balcony drenches his hair more golden than usual, more angelic than I’d seen before. I spot wisps of hair straying here and there, curls covering his ears and covering half his neck, grazing his shoulders.

When he’s like this, I could let myself stare as though I’ve all the time in the world, as though he might not look up and I might not look away. If only there could be some chosen things you could do forever.

His phone lays between us, playing soft blues that I notice he’s tapping hit foot to, in time with the beat. Then he straightens his back, blinks, and returns to his position, trying his best to draw.

“What if the person we give a card to doesn’t have a valentine, what do we do?” Luke remarks, his face close to the card he’s working on. 

I shrug, placing my last card on my pile. “Then we run,”

He scribbles a small stickman holding a heart on the bottom of the card before closing it and placing it on his pile of cards. “You ready, then?” He smiles, leaning back with his hands propping him up, still ever so sunbathed.

I nod, getting up and stretching my legs, having my first look over how many cards we’d made in the last two hours of squatting on the floor. “Let’s count them up, divide, then head out,” I advise, gathering my cards and situating myself on the couch.

Luke follows my lead and starts to organise and count his cards, whispering the numbers under his breath.

My fingers feel through the corners of the cards, mentally keeping track of how many I’m flipping through. “Twenty-one. You?”

“Nineteen,” He stacks his cards and scoots closer towards my legs, leaning them on my knees as he opens the topmost.

I huff out a breath, calculating. “So that’s forty. Okay, so we stack twenty for me, twenty with you, so then we have even amounts,”

Luke gives a lopsided smirk, a dimple showing itself and looking far deeper than usual due to the shadows. “I don’t like how you just did the math so quickly in your head,” He states, chuckling.

I press a thin smile at this. “Okay, Mr-Easily-Impressed, give me your stack,”

He blows a breath through his lips. “Hey, I’m just saying,” He says as he hands me his nineteen cards.

“My guy, your mother was a Maths teacher. I wanna bet you’re far better than I am at calculating,” I sort through them and make two even stacks, each of twenty cards, listening to Luke try to defend himself by saying he doesn’t actually remember a lot of the things he learnt. Which I don’t believe.

“Let’s-ah go-ah!” He exclaims once we have our things ready. “Darth! Where’s Darth!” He looks around the floor, entering and exiting my bedroom in search of the small creature. 

I slip the stacks into my bag and point at the peaceful feline relaxing on the counter. “There, you fool,”

Luke immediately grins and scoops Darth into his arms, smothering him with kisses as the latter scrambles within his hold, most certainly alarmed. “Mwah. We’re off now. Stay safe. Don’t drink. Don’t do drugs,” He ruffles Darth’s fur before dropping him onto the floor, landing quickly on his paws looking like a tousled ball of fur.