Pietro hugged her back, cheeks going pink under her searching look. "I've been thinking about it for a long time," he assured her. And he'd been planning almost as long. Any fleeting fancy would have passed long ago, and even though Pietro still longed to just blurt it out nearly every day, the antisipation was actually almost starting to have genuine appeal to him. He really was growing up.
He gave a flustered laugh, "I was so afraid you'd say you hated her."