Mine Would Be You (48)

It feels like forever as I count each step painfully. Music fills my ears as we get closer to the mystery activity and the muted conversations of others as we pass. We stop after about a hundred counted steps, and he removes his hands from my eyes.

“Swan boats.” Jackson is grinning as we stand in front of the large Central Park pond.

The large paddle boats float a few feet away on the dock. A lot of them are out on the pond, different couples and groups paddling away on the pond water. My eyes flicker back to Jackson.

“Paddle boats?”

He nods excitedly. “Yes, but swan-shaped ones. I’ve never done them before.” And I laugh at the image of a tall Jackson cramming himself into one of these boats next to me.

I’m skeptical of the pond water and the boats in general, but it’s what he wants, and it means I get to look at the goofy smile as much as I want. It’s only fifteen for an hour I read as the couple in front of us pays.

Jackson begins to reach into his pocket, but I put my hand over his. “Don’t even think about it, galán.”

“Nina, it’s a date. I’m paying.” He eyes me.

“It’s your birthday, so no, you’re not,” I say, raising an eyebrow.

I bump his shoulder gently and slide the booth attendant fifteen dollars in cash as Jackson gives up the fight for his wallet. We walk down the dock, past the geese floating on the surface and the few fallen leaves, the perfectly blue sky reflecting in the murky pond water, until we stop at one of the swans.

Jackson steps in first, tucking his own bag under the seat, and I wait until he’s settled to step in. He holds out a hand from his seated position, and I grasp onto it, the warmth from his hands seeping into mine as I step in carefully. When I look back at Jackson, his eyes have darkened slightly as he trails them slowly from my exposed legs back up to my face as I sit down.

“See something you like?”

“Yes. I do.” His voice comes out low and deep, and I can tell he means every single word.

And if my heart was beating, it isn’t anymore. My skin tingles with the aftermath of his gaze, and my cheeks are blazing as heat floods every single pore. I’m probably as red as my dress. I clear my throat that has gone bone dry as I will myself to look back at him.

He’s smirking when I do. “Oh, just start paddling,” I instruct with an eye roll, and he does. We start pumping our legs in sync until we and the swan are moving away from the dock and towards the middle of the pond.

Jackson smiles at everyone we pass, which isn’t something I’m used to or I’m sure half of New York is used to, but every single person smiles back because it’s infectious and almost impossible not to smile back at him. We paddle through the water, with the late afternoon sun peeking through the trees that line the pond, and somehow, even the murky water looks beautiful from above. Geese and ducks rest peacefully, idly watching everyone in the boats.

“All right,” Jackson says, looking at his phone where he has timer set for the hour and stops paddling, putting us at rest in the pond. “We’re taking a picture with the swans.”

“You are obsessed with them,” I laugh.

He doesn’t bother denying it and instead leans forward as he holds out the camera. That gives me a bit of anxiety at the possibility of him dropping it, but I lean forward with him. Our faces are so close our cheeks almost touch as we smile into the camera.

The swan head takes up so much of the screen, but I see the pure joy radiating on Jackson’s faces as his dimples appear. I’m fully aware of his free hand resting softly right above my knee, the skin heating under his gentle touch. Little tiny shockwaves spread from his palm all over me.

“One, two, three,” he counts, and I can’t help but let my eyes flicker to him as the camera clicks. He takes another one, and I make sure to look forward for it, but all I want to do is look at him.

“I got this for you,” I say, remembering my gift for him tucked into my bag. “Ignore the wrapping, I can’t do it to save my life. But here.”

Jackson takes it from me, his fingertips brushing mine. “You didn’t have to.”

I shrug, smiling softly. “I wanted to. It’s nothing big anyway. Just open it.”

He unwraps the gift easily since the tape is barely holding a corner together as it is, and confusion flits over his face at first until he fully sees the cover of the book. A huge grin follows.

“A Spanish-English dictionary? For me?” His eyes are trained on me, bright with excitement.

“All for you.”

“This is great.” Jackson turns it over in his hands a few times. “Now I don’t have to use Google Translate anymore.”

I raise a brow, my heart fluttering in the fact that he did that at all. Even though the app is questionable at best.

“You know what this means?”

“What?”

“This means you want me around, doesn’t it?”

I do. My cheeks warm but I shrug, playing it cool. “Maybe.”

He laughs softly, flipping through the pages for a moment with a cheeky grin before setting it down.

“Oh, and these.” I pull out the Ziploc bag of sugar cookies I made for him. He takes it happily and I smile, unable to keep the emotion off my face.

We start paddling again as Jackson wants to play a first date version of twenty questions with the remainder of our time on the pond, and we mostly cover the basics. Every so often we paddle close to the edge, falling under the cover of trees until appearing back in the sunlight.