“She makes my heart speed up, man. She puts butterflies in my stomach.”
Jordan Spinelli rubbed his forefinger over his brow. Porco’s words made no logical sense. He supposed it was hyperbole, and not meant to be taken literally. But what else were you supposed to do with words if not take them for their definitive meanings?
If Porco meant that Jules made his heart race, then he could mean that she was engaging his fight or flight responses. In which case, his friend’s new wife was either a predator who would eat him alive. Or she was prey that he planned to chase after. Neither seemed an ideal situation to Spinelli’s mind.
Then there was the bit about butterflies in the stomach; an idiomatic phrase. Spinelli had excelled in school, except when it came to the English language and words that had contrasting meanings when put together in different sequences. He didn’t understand how an expression that colloquially meant to make one nervous, could be used to describe love.
“That’s not love,” said Spinelli. “That’s a medical condition.”
To be honest, he’d never truly understood the meaning of the word love. The dictionary told it was a deep and intense feeling of affection. A secondary definition was that it was interest and pleasure. Spinelli had always found those denotations lacking. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one.
Down at the end of the aisle, he saw a woman’s shoulders straighten at his words. Her head gave a nod, as though she were in total agreement with him. Porco was still talking, but Spinelli stepped around him, wanting to get a look at the woman who appeared to share his thoughts.
His feet were moving before he had conscious thought to set them in motion. His ears twitched, like a dog’s who heard the high pitch of a whistle from its master calling. His fingers tingled, as though the electricity in the room had increased and become a tangible thing. A chill skittered across the back of his neck, even though he’d stepped away from the refrigerated section of the store.
All the while, he kept moving forward. One step, then another. Closer to her, as if drawn.
What was happening to him? Whatever it was, Spinelli wanted to understand the phenomenon. To study it and pick it apart.
His eyes were glued to the woman, whose back was still turned to him. All he could see of her was her hair. Short spirals of black, bronze, and gold radiated from the crown of her head. As though she was a ball of burning gas and her hair was the radiation it gave off.
As though she sensed him coming near, she turned, and Spinelli stopped in his tracks.
His heart rate sped up. His stomach muscles fluttered. His palms dampened. Was he having a medical condition of his own?
Then her gaze found his. Intelligence shone brightly in her hazel eyes. In the slight smile she offered him, Spinelli felt understood, even though he didn’t know this girl. He felt seen, even though this was the first time he’d laid eyes on her. For some reason, she looked familiar to him. But his brain was short-circuiting and he couldn’t place her.
They stared at one another. Spinelli spoke six languages. At the moment, he couldn’t remember a greeting in any of them.
“Hello,” she said.
Spinelli snapped his fingers. That was the word. He repeated it back to her.
And then they stared some more.
She squinted at him as though he was a problem. He could see her mind trying to work him out. Her astute gaze took in his body, taking her time as her eyes roamed over the muscles stretching his shirt. He wanted her eyes back on his face so that she could see that he was smart too.
“You’re right,” she said finally.
“I am?”
“It is a medical condition.”
“What I’m feeling?” The racing pulse. The sweat on his brow. The thrumming in his ears of a single word on repeat. The word sounding like mine.
“Love,” she clarified, looking past him. “It’s a medical condition. One that my sister’s new husband seems to suffer from quite a lot.”
Spinelli followed her gaze. Porco was where he’d left him, but his friend was no longer alone. A woman trailed a finger down his chest and Porco looked to be doing nothing to stop it.
“I tried to tell her that there’s no such thing as true love.”
Spinelli turned back to the woman who he now deduced was Jules’ twin sister. How had he not seen that before? Maybe because they looked nothing alike. Romey Capulano didn’t have that same starry-eyed look as her sister. There was a sparkle in Romey’s gaze that Spinelli could only quantify as brilliant.
“I need to find her and put an end to this marriage.” Romey turned on her heel and stormed out.
With a glance at his friend, Spinelli hurried out the door to follow Romey. Like a magnet, he was on her heels, attaching himself to her side. “I’ll come with you. I know where she is.”
I don’t know about you,
but I think what just happened might be love at first sight between Jordan and Romey.
But these two are going to deny it until there’s no other solution before them.
Forget the science and fall in love with
“The Rancher takes his Love at First Sight.”