Her eyes drop. To my mouth. One second. Maybe less.
They come back up. I have not moved and she has not moved and the honey jar is warm between our hands. The space between us has become charged with crackles of lightning.
“Tristan,” she says quietly
“I know.”
But I don’t move back.
And neither does she.
The honey jar stays between our hands and I make a decision. Not impulsively, I don’t do anything impulsively, everything I do is considered. I make aconsidereddecision that this moment deserves more than careful handling. That she deserves more than someone who is always,alwayswaiting at the correct distance.
I lift the jar.
She watches me open it. The wildflower honey catches the carnival lights like something amber and warm. I dip a finger. One finger, slowly, and I hold it out toward her.
“Taste it properly,” I say. “Not on pastry. Just the honey.”
She looks at my finger. She looks at me. She leans forward and takes my finger into her mouth.
I go completely still.
She takes her time. She’s not putting on a show, not teasing, just genuinely tasting, the way she does everything with her full attention. Her tongue moves against the pad of my finger and the honey is there, the wildflower complexity of it, and her eyes close for a moment and then open. My pants get very tight.
“It’s layered,” she says. Her voice has changed register. Lowered.
“Yes,” I say. My finger is still warm from her mouth.
“The clover first. Then something darker.”
“Late-season wildflowers. The bees range further in fall.” I am having this conversation while my entire nervous system has relocated to the hand she just had her mouth on. “It finishes differently every year.”
“This year’s is…”
“Yes?” I prompt.
She looks at me. And then I close the remaining distance between us and kiss her.
Slowly.
That’s the only word for it. Not cautiously, there’s no hesitation in it, no tentativeness. Slowly in the way of something that has been given space and time and is now arriving at its destination without rushing the arrival. My hand finds her jaw, the angle of it, and she makes a sound that is very quiet and very real and opens toward me like something that has been waiting.
She tastes of the honey. Complex and warm, exactly as described. I kiss her the way I make things. With full attention, with care for every element, with the understanding that this particular combination of ingredients will not occur in exactly this way again and deserves to be treated accordingly.
Her hand comes to my arm. Not pushing. Placed. I feel her feeling it.
We stay there with the small prep table between us, the honey jar open, the low carnival lights shining through the stall canvas. The kiss deepens, not with urgency but with the slow accumulation of rightness, each moment finding the next one naturally.
When we separate it’s gradual. Her forehead drops to mine. We breathe the same air for a moment, her hand still on my arm, mine still at her jaw.
“Tristan,” she sighs.
“I know,” I reply.
“That was…”
“Yes.”
