I’m not looking at the goddamn flowers. I’m looking at her.
Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes shine, and her fingers tighten around mine as she continues to twirl us around.
My chest feels too tight for my own good, as my pulse pounds in my ears.
She lifts her camera again with her free hand, filming the sunflowers swaying, the blue sky overhead, our shadows tangled on the ground.
“Okay,” she says, giggling. “Tell me this town isn’t magical.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, choosing not to answer as she keeps spinning us in a circle.
She stops twirling us, turning to me then, still smiling, still holding my hand.
For a second, neither of us moves as the wind rustles through the flowers, brushing against us.
She looks down at our hands like she’s just noticing them intertwined with one another.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t pull away right away.
“That’s okay,” I say quickly.
Her smile shifts, smaller now as she finally lets go, and I wish she fucking didn’t as she steps back just a little, but the space where she was feels cold immediately.
She lifts the camera again, filming the sunflowers from a different angle, humming softly as she smiles to herself.
I stand there with my hands loose at my sides, heart still racing, wondering how something so simple, running through a patch of sunflowers with her laugh echoing around us, can feel like it’s changing something I can’t undo.
And somehow… I don’t want to. I don’t want whatever this is between us to change. I wantmore.
She lowers the camera, taking two steps toward me. “Wait.”
Before I can ask what she means, she reaches for my hands again, this time both of them.
Her fingers slide into mine as if they already know where to go.
“Layla—” I start.
“Trust me,” she says, her eyes bright, already tugging.
She spins us again, and again, laughing as I stumble over my own feet.
Sunflowers blur around us, yellow and green streaking past my vision.
I’m painfully aware of how close she is, how her hands feel wrapped around mine, and how easy it would be to pull her in rather than let her lead.
“I don’t dance,” I protest weakly.
“You’re doing great,” she says. “Very… earnest.”
I snort. “That’s not a compliment.”
“It absolutely is!”
She twirls this time, her dress flaring, her hair lifting in the breeze as she turns back to me, laughing too hard to keep her balance, and she trips.
I reach for her at the same moment she reaches for me, but momentum wins.
We go down together, hitting the ground amid laughter and soft dirt.
