Page 34 of Love’s a Script (Hearts Collide #1)

Chapter Thirty-Four

CHESA SALVADOR: What’s the appeal of speed dating?

KENT CAMDEN: It happens so fast. You’re able to get out of your head in a way that might be difficult on a longer date.

The people who are the most successful in speed dating, and I’d argue dating in general, are those who throw out the script they’ve always used and let the person sitting right in front of them influence the interaction.

* * *

“Plungers, the event will begin in fifteen minutes. Please start making your way to the beachfront,” announced an omnipresent voice as Mary stepped out of the change tent into the cold in a sports bra, underwear, rubber boots, and her felt mermaid costume.

She headed toward the spot she and Hattie had planned to meet, expecting to see her sister ready to go in an identical ensemble.

“What’s going on?” Mary asked. “Why aren’t you changed?”

Her sister was still in the warm clothing she’d arrived in and didn’t seem in any rush to change that.

“I’m feeling a little sick all of a sudden.”

“Oh,” Mary said, touching her sister’s forehead with the back of her hand. “Let’s leave. I’ll quickly get my?—”

“No, stay. Ruben’s going to take my place in the plunge.”

“I-I don’t understand,” Mary said. She assumed Ruben had already left, and she didn’t want to see him again. The ride in the car with him had been torturous. She’d played as if his casual talk and laughter hadn’t pained her, but it was clear life had moved on for him.

“Here he comes,” her sister said, nodding to where Ruben was exiting the changing tents wearing, as many around them did, a rented robe and tall rubber boots, but with his height, more of his bare legs were visible.

“I’ll watch you guys from the beach. Have fun,” Hattie said, darting off before Mary could ask any of the several questions she had.

So instead, she turned to meet Ruben with a smile she hoped didn’t reveal her anxiety.

“I’m not prepared for this at all,” he said, laughing.

“You know, you don’t have to do this.”

“It’s for charity.”

“The fundraising has already happened. The plunging is more symbolic.”

He shrugged. “For fun, then.”

His robe fell open at the top, exposing a portion of his chest that Mary studied, remembering how it had felt to rest her cheek there. To feel his steady heart, the rumble of his voice as they lay in his bed, temporarily free of impending reality.

“I’m going to find a spot on the shoreline,” she said abruptly, spinning around toward the beach where fellow plungers were already gathering.

Mary thought she’d successfully left Ruben behind while bobbing and weaving through the crowd, but when she settled on a vacant patch a distance from the icy waters, Ruben was standing beside her.

“Damn,” he said, blowing into his hands and jumping in place a few times.

“Not too late to back out,” she said.

But Ruben, looking directly into her eyes, replied, “Not a chance.”

Shortly after, robes and blankets were dropped as the event’s announcer stationed on a platform nearby with a microphone declared it was showtime.

A bell rang out, and the plungers cheered as they raced to enter the lake.

No matter how many years Mary had participated in the plunge, she was always shocked at the temperature of the water.

She waded in until it reached her chest. Ruben had to crouch a bit to get on her level.

His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open as he rigidly said, “Cold.”

The rowdy cheers from many of the participants faded into scattered hoots as people buckled in for the two minutes.

This was when Mary and her sister would typically cling to each other to make it through, but with Ruben in Hattie’s stead, Mary kept a respectable distance between them.

The lake was packed, and Mary had a low vantage point, so it was impossible to look anywhere but at Ruben.

Time moved under a different currency there, and together, they shivered and cussed under their breaths.

As the first minute neared, she could feel nothing and everything, and it got harder not to swim back to shore. All her best intentions evaporated, and she reached for Ruben’s hands under the water. His fingers immediately interlocked with hers, bringing forth some endurance.

She stared into Ruben’s dark eyes, at the constellation of his freckles, his wide mouth, the coils that made up his hair, and a pang traveled through her chest and expelled from her as a gasp.

Ruben squeezed her hands as if to say they were in this together. But it all became too much for Mary. She had to leave, get away from him.

“I can’t,” she said suddenly.

“Just a little while longer,” he replied.

So she stayed and bore the freeze. When the other plungers started loudly counting down from fifteen, Ruben said something over the din.

She shook her head. “What?”

He laughed, drew close, and repeated, “I. Love. You.”

Stunned, Mary stared at him as a bell began to toll and people shouted, “Get out, get out, get out.”

She arrived on shore with her teeth chattering and Ruben by her side. He pulled her into his body, and her arms locked around his middle. She couldn’t feel her fingers, her toes, or her face. Oh, but could she feel his heartbeat, his touch, his breath, and the weight of his arms.

They, along with the other freezing plungers, were hastily guided by event volunteers into the warming zone, and soon after, Mary lost track of Ruben as she entered a change tent to get out of her soaked clothes.

Her limbs moved slowly and independently of her buzzing mind to dress her.

And by the time she exited her tent, she believed she might’ve hallucinated Ruben’s declaration.

She searched for him in the warming zone and then around the hot beverage station, eventually finding him fully dressed, tying the laces on his Converse shoes near the backside of a tent facing the lake.

She could hear her pulse in her ears as she approached.

She didn’t give him a chance to unfurl from his lowered position before asking, “Did I hear you correctly out there?”

He rose to stand with that impish half smile of his. “Yes. If what you heard was that I love?—”

“Why now?” she asked desperately, having to make sure before hope bloomed. “Why here? Why not weeks ago or yesterday or tomorrow?”

“Because today was the first day I gave up trying to reason myself out of loving you,” he said, taking a step toward her.

“This wasn’t how things were supposed to go for us.

I’ve been fixated on how I shouldn’t know that you purse your lips when you’re angry and trying to hide it, or that you have a rasp in your voice first thing in the morning, or even that you hate mushrooms and love to dance the polka.

Yet I do. And I want more. I want to learn everything that gets you excited, makes you angry, and makes you sad.

I want to fall asleep to the sound of your voice.

I want to wake up at the edge of the mattress with your elbow in my solar plexus.

And dammit, I want to watch every godawful action movie with you. ”

Mary looked down to the dirt-snow mix beneath her feet, trying to hold herself together as his beautiful words seeped into her pores.

Ruben loved her, and her mirrored feelings that she’d downplayed for weeks, that she’d eclipsed with work and routine and positive mantras, threatened to erupt in an unpredictable display.

“Mary…”

She lifted her gaze to find Ruben’s brows furrowed and the confidence that usually raised the corners of his mouth gone. He was uncertain. Uncertain of what? Surely not her feelings? Mary couldn’t imagine that her love for him was not plainly written across her face.

“Mary, if you need time?—”

She cut him off, reaching for his face and planting a kiss. Ruben’s surprise quickly turned to reception, and he kissed her back, long and tenderly, chasing the chill from her lips. And the contents of her soul chimed in songful harmony.

“I love you too,” she told him between their fervent kisses.

His arms tightened around her, and they stayed in their embrace, oblivious as crowds thinned, the tents dismantled, and snowflakes fell around them.