Little mate.
Two words.
Sitting in my chest like something that landed and hasn’t decided what it is yet.
I don’t look at them directly.
I walk beside him on the path back from the lake and look at my feet, at the light through the trees, at the way the morning smells like cold water—and definitely not at his mouth or his hands or the two words he said after that which I am absolutely not thinking about.
Little mate.
My stomach swoops again!
Fourth time since the lake.
My stomach has developed strong opinions, and those opinions are entirely inconvenient, and I would very much like it to stop.
It does not stop.
“You’re quiet,” he says.
“I’m thinking.”
A beat.
“Ahh,” he says.
Then, quieter—something warm underneath it—
“Take your time.”
Like he means it.
My chest does the s
