His favorite color was golden brown.

She didn't know what golden brown meant or what it looked like necessarily, but after he told her, she thought of the warmth of autumn in September, and imagined everything around them, ranging from the oak trees to the leaves on the ground, to become a tawny, crispy bronze. She thought of acorns and open fires and how the woods looked in Lake Tahoe when she'd visit before the snow fell, and she imagined flaky apple pies and sienna sweaters. The images were lovely, and she suddenly saw why he enjoyed the color so much.

When he asked for hers, she said the first color that had come to mind which was sunflower yellow. Sometimes dandelion in the summer, or pastel in the fall, but right now it was sunflower yellow.

Raffo's face contorted with disgust at her less than popular color choice, his nose wrinkled as if he just swallowed down a splash of sour lemonade. "What? Yellow?"

"All the best things are yellow! Sunflowers, lemonade, the sun, the song Yellow, pineapples, and bananas. The yellow brick road to get Dorothy to Oz. You know, all that good stuff," she listed, her smile growing.

"None of that convinced me why I should like yellow," he teased, humored by her elaborately poor execution of why yellow was the 'best' color.

"Yours is the color of literal poop. On a good day," Ruth pointed out.

Raffo used this as his opportunity to swipe the ball from her hands and made an easy basket toss. Her phrase of his favorite color made him look back at her with amusement, his eyes laughing before his lips were. He said nothing to disagree with that logic.

"Okay, my turn. What brought you back to Oklahoma?" he asked, jumping right into the more important questions.

Ruth pursed her lips. Though any question was fair game, she didn't realize she was going to be so caught off guard by the straightforward question. Not that big of one, but it still threw her for a brief loop.

"Uh, I just wanted to reconnect with my family," she admitted.

Raffo dribbled the ball again, and the two went for another quick game, full of dodging and grumbling and blocking. Ruth caught him off guard with a pretty twirl around his body and swiped the ball from his hands, tossing the ball into the hoop this time.

"What's your favorite song?" The words were choppy, her breath nearly winded already.

"Right now?" He took a moment to ponder the question. "Cruisin' by Smokey Robinson."

She nodded, impressed. He asked for her favorite song out of curiosity too, and all she could come up with on the spot was "I Remember Everything" by John Prine. A safe choice, though relatively good. She missed the hoop in the next round, and he easily snatched the ball midair, tossing it in the net instead. His turn.

"Favorite character from a movie?"

"Jackie Robinson from 42. Hands down," she admitted. Raffo smiled crookedly at her choice and her heart just got a little fuller in her pounding chest. "Yours?"

"Easy. Victor from Smoke Signals," he said, breezily.

"You do give me Victor vibes."

"You've seen it?"

"I told you I'm Native American too, didn't I? Of course I've seen it."

Her father only made her watch it a hundred times.

"And you liked it?" he asked, curious.

"Loved it," she corrected. "Thomas was my favorite."

Raffo snorted. His eyes gleamed with amusement as he mockingly shook his head in disappointment. "And here I thought there was hope for you."

She playfully gaped at him. "Thomas is underrated! He cares about Victor and tells such amazing-"

"Bullshit," Raffo interjected.

"Stories," Ruth finished.

Raffo laughed loudly this time, the sound bringing more life to his features than what Ruth had witnessed from him before. He didn't seem like the guy who smiled often to Ruth, but when he did, it was a sight for the sorest eyes. It reached the emotionless part of his pretty eyes until they crinkled and smiled, curling the softest tips of his usually frowning lips. She wasn't a poet by any means, but whenever he smiled or laughed like that, and she was there to witness it, she swore she could break out into soliloquies and haiku's on that grin.

Sunflower smiles and rich, golden eyes would be the title.

And once again, the urge to write was there in Ruth's fingertips.

"Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree," he finally said. His eyes danced around her as he dribbled the ball.

Basketball seemed to pull another side out of Raffo. His shoulders were relaxed and his eyes held more expression and emotions than she could have ever expected from him. The other two times she'd met him, he was brooding and not as talkative and joyful. But with a basketball at his hip, and a hoop across the court, he was an entirely different person.

"Looks like it, Sas."

"Sas?"

"Well, do you want me to say Sasquatch every time?"

There went that laugh again. "Guess not."

For the next ten minutes, they went back and forth between shots and learning small things about one another. Raffo enjoyed playing the guitar and shooting hoops when given the opportunity, and Ruth admitted she loved to read and scribble ideas of stories that she'd love to read about in her notebooks. Learning this vital information spiked his interest almost immediately, as they were complete opposites of the majors she told him about only a few days before.

"Writing, huh?" he murmured, bouncing the ball off of his bicep.

Ruth bit her tongue. Her cheeks flared with warmth as she mentally groaned at her accidental slip up. Her writing wasn't necessarily a secret, but it was one of those hidden gems that made you embarrassed to share it out loud. How many people her age actually enjoyed writing? With all the college papers they have to write?

"You didn't want to major in it?" he continued, curious.

"It's just a hobby," she dismissed, avoiding the question. "I don't think I could get a degree in writing."

There was a pause.

"Why not?"

"I-" she cut herself off abruptly. Her eyes fell to the asphalt once again, her feet shifting uncomfortably.

Her mother always told her she couldn't, so she just got used to saying it out loud without ever really exploring why. No one's ever asked her why. Whenever she'd say that she couldn't major in it, they usually left it at that. Those who knew her mother knew better than to ask why Ruth couldn't pursue something so risky. With the medical field, there was nothing risky about it. No matter where she would go in the world, she will always have a job. There will always be room for more nurses somewhere, and she will always be able to financially take care of herself.

To her mother, writing was uncertain. The money was uncertain, and unless you scout for a superb job with a million dollar company, your life will always be uncertain. And anything uncertain to Shantelle was not worth the risk.

"I wouldn't be any good at structured writing," she finally went with.

"You wouldn't know that unless you took a writing class," he pointed out. He shot another basket. "If you could be anything in the world, what would it be?"

"I think you already know the answer to that."

Ruth's words were strained, her thoughts scattered with alarm. He wasn't wrong, but she didn't want him to ask the questions she didn't know the answers to, or was too scared to admit aloud.

"I don't," he lied, his eyes coaxing the truth out of her like a suction cup. He wasn't going to back down from what he was trying so hard to get her to admit, even though he didn't know her enough to know the answer. He didn't know the complications with her life and her inability to act irrationally.

She was trapped. "But why- I mean, I-"

Raffo quickly put his hand up. "If you don't wan-"

"There you are, cuzzo!" Jana yelled behind the unsuspecting pair.

Ruth and Raffo turned to face the oncoming girls who were making their way towards the two of them. Mirana's eyes sought Raffo out first, her eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. She must not have gotten a reading on him with his blank stare, so her gaze swiveled over to a sheepish Ruth instead.

"Oh! I know you!" Mirana said, her voice cheerful. She held out a manicured hand for Ruth to shake. "We didn't properly meet before at the coffee shop. I'm Mirana."

Ruth smiled back and shook her hand politely. "Ruth."

"Nice to meet you, Ruth," she beamed. "You like basketball?"

"I love it," Ruth admitted.

"She isn't too bad at it either," Raffo interjected. Ruth and the other three girls looked over at him, surprised by his quick compliment, but he paid them no mind as he shot a few more hoops.

When Ruth looked back at Mirana, she realized she was suddenly quiet, her eyes shifting about uncomfortably. Ruth watched her swallow thickly, and her hands shoved themselves into the pockets of her pencil skirt. She forced a smile across her small lips.

"You guys got room for another player?" Mirana asked hopefully.

"Actually, you guys can play. I'm kind of tired and we have plans with our family today," Ruth said, gesturing to Terry and Jana, who verbally agreed. Mirana deflated, but glanced to Raffo hopefully, her eyes wide and earnest. She didn't even realize that Raffo was paying her no attention at all, but rather looking passed her to the shy brown girl with the wild hair.

"I'm tired too, Mirana. Maybe we can all play another time," Raffo said, his eyes still on Ruth, as if waiting for her answer and her answer only. It was a suggestion only for her, and the other girls knew it as well.

Mirana looked even more upset now, though she tried to hide it with a painful grimace that barely passed as a smile. Terry looked confused. Jana was ecstatic, for whatever reason. And Ruth? Ruth was flabbergasted.

"Yeah uh- next time," Ruth finally stuttered.

Raffo half-smiled and nodded his head. "Cool. See you guys around."

"See you, Raffo," Jana grinned, a mischievous glint in her eye. Ruth wanted to kill her at the suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows, but didn't want to draw too much attention to it in case Raffo or Mirana saw.

"Later, guys. Bye Mirana!" Terry waved.

"Bye Terry! Jana! It was nice to meet you, Ruth," Mirana said, smiling genuinely. Her eyes were kind, just as she was and for a reason Ruth couldn't explain, she felt almost . . . guilty.

"It was lovely to meet you, Mirana," she murmured. Her eyes flickered to Raffo's handsome face and she tried not to melt. "Chi pisa la chike, Sas."

Raffo rolled his eyes at her, but he couldn't stop the twitch of his wide lips from spreading in amusement. "Chi pisa la chike, tiny."

The look they shared was a look that neither of them could ever forget. Not for a long time.

It was a look that would forever haunt those in eyeshot of it, which somehow happened to be only them. That kind that made ankles twirl and blushes of scarlet to shoot across one's cheeks like a comet hurdling across the sky. It made your stomach churn with a sickly, butterfly effect, like trapped birds were desperately twisting up your insides to claw their way out of captivity.

It was the blossoming of an understanding between the two.

*****

notes: translation (from choctaw to english)

♡ chi pisa la chike - see you later

♡ smoke signals - greatest native american movie of all time so go watch it