All Over Again

| Chapter Six |

His favorite color was golden brown.

She didn't know what golden brown meant or what it looked like necessarily, but after he told her, she thought of the warmth of autumn in September, and imagined everything around them, ranging from the oak trees to the leaves on the ground, to become a tawny, crispy bronze. She thought of acorns and open fires and how the woods looked in Lake Tahoe when she'd visit before the snow fell, and she imagined flaky apple pies and sienna sweaters. The images were lovely, and she suddenly saw why he enjoyed the color so much.

When he asked for hers, she said the first color that had come to mind which was sunflower yellow. Sometimes dandelion in the summer, or pastel in the fall, but right now it was sunflower yellow.

Raffo's face contorted with disgust at her less than popular color choice, his nose wrinkled as if he just swallowed down a splash of sour lemonade. "What? Yellow?"

"All the best things are yellow! Sunflowers, lemonade, the sun, the song Yellow, pineapples, and bananas. The yellow brick road to get Dorothy to Oz. You know, all that good stuff," she listed, her smile growing.

"None of that convinced me why I should like yellow," he teased, humored by her elaborately poor execution of why yellow was the 'best' color.

"Yours is the color of literal poop. On a good day," Ruth pointed out.

Raffo used this as his opportunity to swipe the ball from her hands and made an easy basket toss. Her phrase of his favorite color made him look back at her with amusement, his eyes laughing before his lips were. He said nothing to disagree with that logic.

"Okay, my turn. What brought you back to Oklahoma?" he asked, jumping right into the more important questions.

Ruth pursed her lips. Though any question was fair game, she didn't realize she was going to be so caught off guard by the straightforward question. Not that big of one, but it still threw her for a brief loop.

"Uh, I just wanted to reconnect with my family," she admitted.

Raffo dribbled the ball again, and the two went for another quick game, full of dodging and grumbling and blocking. Ruth caught him off guard with a pretty twirl around his body and swiped the ball from his hands, tossing the ball into the hoop this time.

"What's your favorite song?" The words were choppy, her breath nearly winded already.

"Right now?" He took a moment to ponder the question. "Cruisin' by Smokey Robinson."

She nodded, impressed. He asked for her favorite song out of curiosity too, and all she could come up with on the spot was "I Remember Everything" by John Prine. A safe choice, though relatively good. She missed the hoop in the next round, and he easily snatched the ball midair, tossing it in the net instead. His turn.

"Favorite character from a movie?"

"Jackie Robinson from 42. Hands down," she admitted. Raffo smiled crookedly at her choice and her heart just got a little fuller in her pounding chest. "Yours?"

"Easy. Victor from Smoke Signals," he said, breezily.

"You do give me Victor vibes."

"You've seen it?"

"I told you I'm Native American too, didn't I? Of course I've seen it."

Her father only made her watch it a hundred times.

"And you liked it?" he asked, curious.

"Loved it," she corrected. "Thomas was my favorite."

Raffo snorted. His eyes gleamed with amusement as he mockingly shook his head in disappointment. "And here I thought there was hope for you."