Page 49 of Catch Yourself a Snowmance
She laughs. “It had been a while for me too.”
“I know.” I give her hands a light squeeze. “So, I want to tell you how I feel. About you. About us.”
Alyssa’s intently staring at me, a soft, open expression on her face.
I take a breath. “I really like you, Alyssa. I love spending time with you. You make me laugh. I can be myself with you, whether that’s being goofy or serious. And I’m amazed by you. You’re so intelligent, thoughtful, creative, and you have a lot of hidden talents. As if that isn’t enough, you’re beautiful. You’re the kind of woman who makes me want to rearrange my life just to see you smile.”
She lifts one of her hands out of mine, but leaves meholding the other. Then she tucks a strand of hair back behind her ear and looks down for a moment.
“Carson.”
“Alyssa,” She looks straight into my eyes. “I want you to know I’m falling for you. I think my feelings started growing that week in the cabin. But now, I discover new pieces of you all the time, and each facet only makes me like you more. I’m in this place I’ve never been before. It’s foreign territory. I’m thinking of you whenever we’re apart. Never quite settled until the next time I see you. Happier than I knew I could be.” I pause. Here’s the part where there’s no turning back. But, like Liam said, if we’re both trying to make this work, there’s no way I’ll mess this up. Telling her will be a good thing. “What I’m trying to say is … well … I love you.”
“You … ?”
“I love you.” I hold her gaze. “And you don’t have to say anything back to me. I just want you to know. You’ve turned my world around. And I’m amazed. You’re one of the best people I know. I can’t keep my eyes off you. And now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to imagine my life without you. I love you.”
“You love me?”
“I really do.”
“Oh, Carson.” Her voice is soft. The room has gotten incrementally noisier as more people have filled the tables around us, but I hear Alyssa loud and clear. “I love you too.”
I smile at her. It seems so unbelievable that we’ve actually fallen in love—that she loves me too—but the look in her eyes tells me everything. She does love me.
I lift her hand to my mouth and kiss it. She smiles softly over at me.
“This is a pretty good surprise,” Alyssa says right as the waitress brings our appetizers.
We split bacon wrapped figs and the famous fried pimento cheese balls while the band takes the stage to warm up. Alyssa’s beaming the whole time, her eyes mostly fixed on the stage, but glancing over at me regularly with a smile that goes all the way to her eyes. I hope I get this next part right.
Addison Walker takes the stage and walks to the center mic. “Good evening to y’all. I hope you’re having a happy Valentine’s whether you’re here with the one you love, or here to forget the one you don’t.”
The crowd laughs lightly.
“I’m Addison Walker. And this is Washboards and Whistles. They’ll be helping me out a little bit tonight.”
Addison sings a few songs and Alyssa watches in rapt attention. When Addison gets to one of her top hits, she encourages us all to sing along with the chorus. I don’t. Alyssa does. And, as much as I’d like to watch Addison, I’d far rather watch Alyssa, so I do.
When the band plays the final note, Addison says, “So, this next one is a favorite. A lot of you probably know it:From Me to You.”
The crowd claps and cheers. Alyssa looks over at me and whispers, “That’s my favorite song of hers.”
“I know.” I wink at her.
Addison says, “When I wrote this song, I had just gone through one of those breakups that feels like someone dragged you down the highway behind a Mack truck, turned onto a gravel road and accelerated. I was pretty banged up emotionally. In my mind, he was the one. But we just kept on missing the mark, you know?”
The audience is still. She’s a gifted storyteller.
“So, I sat down and wrote this song about life and singleness and finding the right one, because I knew either this guy would be the one, or someone else would. And I wanted tokeep my eye on that reality. I needed the reminder that I was okay without that man, but also that someone, someday, would see me the way I wanted to be seen.”
She smiles out at us. “News flash. He wasn’t the one.” Then she looks over her shoulder. “I had to wait for a certain fiddle player.” The man holding the fiddle winks at her and smiles the smile of a man who would swim the Cumberland in winter if it would make his girl happy.
“A fiddle player, y’all.” Addison shakes her head. “God has a sense of humor, doesn’t he?”
Everyone laughs.
“Anyway, I always like to ask you to sing along when you know a song,” Addison says in her easy, familiar way that has us all waiting for whatever she’ll say next.
