What she was seeing on his face was not unfamiliar. She'd seen it on other faces - many others. So few of them had been looking at her, however, and it had never been him. Relief washed over her when she realized he wasn't going to pull away. She didn't relax, not even when he reached for her, because she also saw the... She'd seen him angry, disappointed, frustrated, but this... it looked like fear.
She wanted to erase it from him. She toed her flats off her feet and nudged them away with the side of her foot, then stepped closer still. The moments were too expectant to speak into them. She stood on her tiptoes instead and kissed the side of his jaw, carefully and slowly, with as little pressure as the hand on his waist. This close, she could smell his aftershave and the warm scent of his skin under it. She kissed the corner of his mouth. It had been over a year, and almost two, since they stood in their bookstore and said that they wanted to belong to the other. She dug her fingers softly into his side to keep her balance when she kissed the skin his open collar revealed.
Apart from that flippant line she'd tossed out at the bowling alley, she'd never told him that she loved him. Neither had he, but he had less time to come to realize it. She'd known since the night he saved her in the street. She'd loved him even when he'd been gone, even through the impossible days when she had no reason to believe he'd ever return. When she dropped back down on her heels and looked up at him, she still didn't tell him outright - but, like him, there was no counterfeiting and nothing hidden in her expression. She ached for him from the inside out, and she didn't dare more than what she had - despite her bold intentions of not a few moments past.