“John Hughes?”
“You know, the moviemaker from the eighties.”
“You weren’t born in the eighties.”
“They’re still teen movies!”
“If I say you’re hot when you’re angry, will you hit me?”
I motioned that I would throw the cup of coffee in his face, which only made Bo laugh more.
“Okay, okay. Sorry. Tell me why this is appealing, because it sounds kind of pathetic to me.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t seen Say Anything.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“I’m pretty sure I was too busy killing people in Call of Duty to watch that movie.”
“In Say Anything, Lloyd Dobbler stands outside his love’s window and holds up a boombox that’s playing their song. In the rain. It’s very romantic.” I held up my arms to mimic the gesture.
He looked at me skeptically.
“It’s a sign of his true love,” I argued.
“I think true love is signified by more than some dippy guy standing outside in the rain playing music for a girl.”
“What’s an act of true love, then?”
“Throwing your body on a grenade so your buddies don’t become pieces of shrapnelized flesh.”
“My God, did you do that in the war?” I was shocked. I’d seen Bo without his shirt on and didn’t recall seeing any marks. Maybe I’d been blind? I shuddered at the thought of him being hurt.
“No,” he sighed, “but I know a guy in a different unit that did.”
“Okay, but that’s not something you could do for a girl here.” I frowned.
“True love means that you’d be willing to sacrifice all for another person.” That was pretty profound. Bo believed that?
“So maybe Lloyd was sacrificing his ego for Dianne in the movie,” I countered.
“Possibly. Still seems like a passive, weak-ass move.” Bo rubbed a finger across his chin and relaxed back in his chair.
“What should he have done?”
“To express his love?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, leaning toward him. My hands were planted on my legs and I felt poised to jump him, either in frustration or desire.
“Actions speak louder than words. Or singing, as the case may be.”
“He was out there, in the rain.”
“But he wasn’t doing anything. You show a woman you love her by what you do for her, from opening her door to making sure that bumps in the road of life are smoothed out. That she wants and worries for nothing. That when you think about sex, it’s her face in your fantasies, her body you’re touching, her lips you’re kissing. That every day you remind her that she’s the first thought in your mind when you wake up and the last thought before you drop off to sleep.”
“Oh.” To hear Bo express something so romantic in his own way made me kind of delirious. I could only manage a sound of acknowledgment. This wasn’t the sentiment of a guy who wanted only a series of emotional physical encounters.
“Yeah, oh.” Bo straightened in his chair and the humor of the moment seemed like a long distant memory. He held out his hands in supplication. “I’m a bad bet, Sunshine, but if you’re willing to give me a whirl around the ring, I’m yours. Because you’ve got me so twisted up inside that I barely know if up is down. I’m so inside my head that I’m coming out of my asshole. Have mercy on me.”
I took a shaky breath and stared at him. Maybe he was too good at persuasive speech, but all my reasons for saying no seemed to have evaporated. Right there in the coffeehouse, I melted into him and his arms came crashing around me so tight I thought he might squeeze me until I burst. But what a way to go. His embrace was like being folded against a tree, strong and straight and rooted deep. The winds of winter could buffet us, but Bo would keep me warm and protected.
“Holy shit, Sunshine. Your hesitation was about two seconds too long,” he breathed into my hair.
I giggled. “I didn’t even pause.”
“You did. But that’s okay. I’m going to make it so good for you,” he promised.
“You better. All those stories you’ve told and I’ve been told about you—they’re giving me big expectations,” I sassed.
“They were all practice for the real thing. You.”
“That’s a pretty good line,” I told him, uncertainty creeping in again.
“I’m going to tell you something.” Bo reassured me, as if sensing I was tottering on the edge again. “I’m scared, too, but neither of us are going to get what we want if we don’t take a chance.”
“I want to take this chance with you,” I admitted.