{"id":319,"date":"2025-09-12T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/demo.everestthemes.com\/viable\/demo\/?p=319"},"modified":"2025-09-22T06:01:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T06:01:58","slug":"black-ping-stars-with-a-smiley-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"Black Ping stars with a smiley face"},"content":{"rendered":"
The bell above the bookstore\u2019s door jingles at 10 p.m., and I step into the familiar hush\u2014old paper, fresh ink, and the soft tick of the clock above the register. I head for the poetry section, my usual spot, but stop short when I spot it: a small black sticker on the spine of a Mary Oliver book, hand-drawn with a lopsided smiley face. Scrawled above it, in messy blue ink: \u201cBlack Ping says hi \u201d<\/div>\n
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I laugh, running a finger over the sticker. I\u2019ve been coming here for months, and I\u2019ve never seen these before. I pull the book off the shelf, and another sticker tumbles out\u2014same black circle, same smiley, this one with a tiny heart next to its eyes. It lands at my feet, and when I bend to pick it up, I hear a gasp.<\/div>\n
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\u201cSorry! That\u2019s mine.\u201d<\/div>\n
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I look up, and there she is: standing by the armchair, a stack of books in one hand and a sheet of black stickers in the other. Her brown hair falls in loose waves, catching the floor lamp\u2019s glow like honey, and she\u2019s biting her lip, like she\u2019s embarrassed to be caught. \u201cI\u2019ve been leaving them around,\u201d she says, holding up the sticker sheet. \u201cMy friends call me Black Ping\u2014don\u2019t ask, it\u2019s a college joke\u2014and I thought\u2026 maybe they\u2019d make someone smile. Not that they\u2019re good or anything.\u201d<\/div>\n
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\u201cThey\u2019re perfect,\u201d I say, holding up the sticker I found. \u201cI was just wondering who the mystery artist was.\u201d Her cheeks flush pink, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. \u201cLila,\u201d she says. \u201cI just moved here last month. This place feels like\u2026 I don\u2019t know, a secret. Figured I\u2019d leave my own little secrets too.\u201d<\/div>\n
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I tell her my name, and we end up sitting in the armchair\u2014her on the edge, me on the floor\u2014passing the sticker sheet back and forth. She draws a smiley with starry eyes on the cover of my Rumi collection; I add a tiny coffee cup next to the smiley on her notebook. \u201cI work at the caf\u00e9 down the street,\u201d I say, tapping the coffee cup. \u201cIf you ever want a free latte\u2026 for the artist.\u201d She grins, and her eyes light up\u2014warm, like the lamp\u2019s glow. \u201cI\u2019d like that. But only if you let me bring you a sticker for your coffee cup.\u201d<\/div>\n
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We talk until the clock hits midnight. She tells me about her job at a graphic design studio, how she draws Black Ping stickers when she\u2019s stuck on projects. I tell her about writing poetry in the caf\u00e9\u2019s back room, how I\u2019ve never shown anyone my work. \u201cYou should,\u201d she says, leaning in. \u201cThe world needs more people who see beauty in small things\u2014like stickers in bookstores.\u201d She tugs a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and I resist the urge to do it for her.<\/div>\n
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When Mr. Henderson, the owner, announces closing time, Lila and I linger by the door. She pulls a sticker from her pocket\u2014Black Ping, smiley face, and my name scrawled underneath\u2014and presses it to my wrist. \u201cSo you don\u2019t forget me,\u201d she says, her voice soft. I take a pen from my bag and write my caf\u00e9\u2019s address on the back of her sticker sheet. \u201cSo you know where to find your free latte.\u201d<\/div>\n
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She waves as she walks down the street, her hair glowing in the streetlight, and I touch the sticker on my wrist\u2014warm, like her smile. I go back inside to thank Mr. Henderson, and he nods at the sticker. \u201cBlack Ping\u2019s been coming here every night,\u201d he says. \u201cSaid she was looking for someone who\u2019d notice the little things.\u201d<\/div>\n
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I grin, touching the sticker again.<\/div>\n
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The next day, Lila comes to the caf\u00e9. She orders a lavender latte, and slides a Black Ping sticker onto the cup\u2014smiley face, plus a tiny poem: \u201cRumi says love is a mirror. I think it\u2019s a sticker.\u201d I laugh, and hand her a notebook I made\u2014filled with my poems, each page marked with a tiny Black Ping smiley. She reads one, and her eyes tear up. \u201cYou\u2019re good,\u201d she says. \u201cReally good.\u201d<\/div>\n
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We start meeting every night\u2014sometimes at the bookstore, where we leave stickers for each other in our favorite books; sometimes at the caf\u00e9, where she draws smileys on my coffee cups and I read her my new poems. The Black Ping stickers multiply: on my fridge, on her laptop, on the bookstore\u2019s front door (Mr. Henderson even lets us keep it there.<\/div>\n
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Three months later, I take her back to the poetry section. I pull a book off the shelf\u2014Mary Oliver, of course\u2014and inside, there\u2019s a Black Ping sticker. But this one\u2019s different: smiley face, plus the words \u201cWill you be my person?\u201d I look up, and Lila is holding a sticker sheet, her hands shaking. \u201cI\u2019ve been practicing this one,\u201d she says.<\/div>\n
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I kiss her, slow and soft, and stick a Black Ping sticker on her cheek\u2014smiley face, plus a heart. \u201cYes,\u201d I say. \u201cA thousand times yes.\u201d<\/div>\n
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That night, we leave a sticker on the bookstore\u2019s clock: Black Ping, two smiley faces holding hands, plus the words \u201cLove starts with a notice.\u201d Because that\u2019s the truth\u2014love isn\u2019t just grand gestures. It\u2019s a sticker in a book, a lavender latte, a poem read in a quiet caf\u00e9. It\u2019s noticing the little things, and holding onto them.<\/div>\n
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And for us, it all started with Black Ping\u2014and a smiley face.<\/div>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bell above the bookstore’s door jingles at 10 p.m., and I step into the familiar hush—old paper, fresh ink, and the soft tick of the clock above the register. I head for the poetry section, my usual spot, but stop short when I spot it: a small black sticker on the spine of a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xsslovedating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}