I wanna hurry home to you, put on a slow dumb show for you and crack you up

Her laugh is the reason he does most things. When her eyes light up and her soft peal breaks the stupefying silence, just for a moment. 

When he knows he has her. Just for a moment. 

He watches her leave, head ducked, watches her arrive, quiet and drawn. And he aches with stupid, silent want. 

You showed me my tomorrow beside a box of matches, a welcome threatening stir 

She catches it sometimes, nearly close enough to touch. 

His smile coaxing her to take the jump. His eyes challenging her when she doesn’t. His palm hot against her stomach and his laugh stirring her hair, entirely secure and entirely terrifying. 

He’d burn a lifetime of settling to ashes, if she only dared let him. 

But our communication is telepathy

She can guess his thoughts from a quirk of his brow. He can read her from one blink. 

Jinx is a breeze (until it wasn’t). 

So he doesn’t understand why his kiss didn’t tell her it’s her, only her. She doesn’t understand why her nod didn’t tell him I have to, not I want to. 

I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted 

She sees it now, that the gauntlet he hurled down on the cold asphalt was an act of desperation and not of war. Too late. A violent plea to end years of not a big deal, before she’d even grasped what the deal was.

She’s pulled her defences too high and the words never form.

Caricatures of your wrecking ball gown in my mind all the time 

Silk under his hands, shimmering blue. Warm skin, hearts beating too fast. 

She’s smiling up at him again, shoulders bare, that smile he plays on repeat, that makes his heart pound with hypothetical hope. 

This time it’s him watching her leave, still in a silk dress. And it’s still his heart that she wrecks, again.