Ready
Writing date: February 2021
Genre: fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff
Warnings: none! I personally really like this one :)
Word count: 2.2k words
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It is rare, but there are moments in life in which you are aware, with every fiber of your being, that you're making a memory that will last forever. For you, one of these moments was right now. It was a late summer evening, the sun had been down for quite some hours now, but you and your friends were still very much awake. The entire afternoon, you'd prepared for this. You'd collected blankets and pillows in all of your houses, hung up a white sheet between two trees in your friend's backyard and installed a beamer in between the giant pillow fort and the trees. Your backyard cinema was born. At first, you'd been obsessed with the aesthetic of it all, your attention solely focused on the film that was playing in front of you, but soon, your gaze had drifted off to the fantastic people around you. Your friend group was made of all kinds of people, diversity was really the key element here. Apart from all sorts of skin colours, religions, and ethnicities, you had the funny friend, the mum friend, the one who shared all their food, the really intelligent friend, the geeky friend, the enthusiastic friend. Regardless of all these differences, there were a lot of things that kept you together too, like a mutual respect for each other and the world. It was a mix that allowed you to be the most at ease with yourself you'd ever been.
"You're missing the plot."
You looked next to you, where another friend of yours was seated. In your head, he was the sweet friend, the cute friend, the butterfly friend. He was the friend you were in love with.
"Shut up. I've seen it like..thirteen times already."
He grinned at that, lifting his arm as an invitation for you to crawl closer to him, and you did. It was something typical of the two of you. While you hugged all your friends, you were particularly clingy with him, and he was very physical with you, too. You never discussed it, it just happened, and it was absolute bliss. You nestled yourself closer to him, smiling as you felt his hand rub on your upper arm, tugging you even closer. You sighed in contentment. This was nice. And it sufficed for a few minutes, until you realised you weren't as comfortable as you could possibly be. Yet.
Should you?
You'd been as close physically as you were now before, but hadn't gone further than this, his arms around you and your sides touching. You really risked making it awkward, or even worse, one of your friends making a suggestive comment- God knows they all ship you like crazy, and you didn't want to face the consequences of your action not being welcomed with enthusiastic encouragement. But a light breeze reminded you of the magic of this moment, and a gentle squeeze on your upper arm gave you the confidence you needed. Carefully, you wrapped your own arms around his torso, lifted both of your legs so they could rest straight over his right one, and finally laid your head against his chest. For a few seconds, you were rooted there, waiting for him to react. He didn't say anything like you'd expected him to do, but then you slowly felt him release the air from his longs, his entire body becoming more relaxed once he realised what had happened. The arm that had previously been resting on your upper arm was now laying on you waist, and you found that you might like that even better. You were about to protest when he lifted it, but smiled once you felt him sweep the hair out of your face.
"I'm repeating my comment: you're missing the plot if your head is laying sideways on my chest."
But there was something joyous in his tone, and you couldn't help the butterflies from fluttering inside of you.
"Then I'll repeat my answer: shut up."
After all, you'd seen it thirteen times already.
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"Does anyone want some more strawberries?"
You were in the park, enjoying a well-deserved early afternoon picnic with your friend group. All your friends were there, and then there was a new face. One of your friends had recently gotten together with a girl you'd never met before, and you had decided that she could come on this picnic with you, you were all dying to meet her, after all. You'd been in the park, telling stories and sharing food, for about an hour now, and it was wonderful being able to just relax. You'd been a bit nervous to meet your friend's girlfriend, as you always were when meeting new people, but she'd turned out to be really nice. You were sure you'd continue to get along and maybe even have a thriving friendship in the future. Closing your eyes, you leaned backwards and basked in the bright sunlight. This is what happiness felt like.
"Hey, you have something on the corner of your mouth, here..."
You burst with laughter then, opening your eyes and facing him, his eyes squinting against the sun, dimples in his cheeks. There was nothing on your mouth, it was his way of making fun of the cliche romcom you'd insisted on watching with him last week. He’d cringed particularly hard at that part of the story, and you'd thrown a pillow at him, entirely too engrossed in the movie to be annoyed with him. Because how could you ever be annoyed at him? Even now, the way he looked at you made you feel like you were melting, and not just from the sun. Okay, so maybe you had watched too many cheesy romcoms. The point was, you felt so utterly at ease with the way you were around him, and vice versa. It was so easy, so natural.
"Hm, do you want to wipe it off for me, please?"
You were trying to keep a straight face, but definitely failed as he ceremoniously picked up a napkin from the middle of your blanket and started to precisely poke the corner of your mouth, and then your cheek, nose, the arch of your eyebrow, a spot right under your hairline. Between fits of giggles, you managed to make him stop.
"Hey, you're hurting me!" He knew you weren't actually hurt, and so his voice was still filled with amusement as he answered in the fakest posh accent you'd ever heard.
"I am so sorry darling, let me kiss it better for you."
And so he came closer, quickly kissing all the places he had poked with the napkin, apart from the corner of your mouth, of course. Something inside of you twisted in disappointment at that.
"They are so cute, what the he-"
It was your friend's girlfriend, whispering to your friend, but they cut her off.
"They aren't together though."
"Wait...they aren't?"
You saw from the corner of your eye how her eyes widened in surprise, and your own did too, because the breeze of satisfaction that had blown through you at the girl's words had taken you by surprise more so than what she'd actually said.
"Nope. But they will, or at least I hope so."
The smile on your face grew as you overheard their conversation.
"Hey, are there any strawberries left? I actually wanted some but then I got attacked!”
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It happened in the late afternoon of one of the hottest days of that summer, at the beach. Your friends had gotten together and, packed with beach towels, inflatable beach balls, and what was probably an overload of snacks, you drove to the sea, to spend the day swimming, sunbathing, and desperately trying to keep the sand out of every small crevice even though? it would creep in anyway. You were definitely done swimming for today though, and had retreated to a quiet, shady area of the beach, to just lay down and listen to some music. You'd closed your eyes, your mind travelling back to the moment all of your friends had immediately shed their clothes and dived into the sea, while he had stopped you from doing the same, insisting on covering your back in sunscreen lotion first before you sought refreshment in the cool water. It's not like you minded having him rub your back. You'd done the same to him after he had been done, taking your sweet time making sure his entire back was glistening from the sunscreen, and by the time it had dried, your friends had already come out of the water, teasing you that applying sunscreen had never in the history of sunscreen lotion taken such a long time. You'd hid your face in his bare chest while they were laughing, and discovered that that did nothing to diminish the blush on your cheeks.
"Hi...you okay? You were so far away all of a sudden."
You opened your eyes, staring up at him, and nodded your head, smiling at his thoughtfulness.
"Yeah, just… a bit too much sun. And I like how quiet it is here."
He hummed in agreement, crouching down to offer you one of the snacks he had brought from your "headquarters" on the middle of the beach, and then went to lay beside you. You'd expected him to just fully lie down, maybe take your hand like he had done more and more during the last few weeks, but instead he turned so he was laying on his side, facing you, his left arm propped to hold his head up. You lifted an eyebrow in surprise, getting ready to make a dry comment, when you saw the way he was looking at you. It wasn't like he had done when you'd first arrived at the beach, the way his eyes had raked over your body while simultaneously looking like he wanted to chastise himself for doing so. You hadn't minded, not with him. If you were being honest, you had done exactly the same. No, right now he was looking at you as if he was ultimately fascinated by you. It was as if he was looking through you, or maybe he was just looking right inside of you. His eyes held a certain emotion you couldn't completely decipher, but you felt so worthy, so enveloped in him even if no part of him was touching you right now. It was in this sudden moment of clarity that you realised that this was it. There would be no other moment, you had to do it now. You felt as if on a crossroad, deciding right now what the rest of your life would look like. You felt it in every fiber of your being, in the way the cool breeze of the shadow swept over your overheated skin, in the way there was a smudge of sand covering his cheek for one reason or another. "Now. Now. Now!", your heart seemed to be chanting, but your head was so full, you were so acutely aware of your own body, and of his, and of all the things surrounding you, and-
"You're doing it again."
Your heart was pounding. Now. Now. Now.
"Doing what?"
He could hear it, he knew, you were convinced of it.Now.
"Overthinking it."
So why not be completely honest while you were at it?
"And how can I not? You're...you're one of my best friends."
His eyes held yours. He understood.
"I know, and I'm not trying to be impulsive or rash, but don't you think it's time to let go of the thinking, and just...finally do it? Finally be honest with ourselves, each other, heck, with our friends? If you don't want to, we don't have to, you know full well that I don't care about labels anyway. But I like to think that I know you very well, and I think you want to put the label on. I- worrying about it is the only thing that's holding you back from being honest that this...us...was always loving in a romantic way."
You let the words hang between you, letting them sink in your soul. He was right. You would love nothing more than to love him, officially romantically, for the entire world to see and to know. You were just worried. You didn't really know why. It was in your nature to be worried, it was the thing you knew how to do, the easy way. But you continued to look into his eyes, and it was like looking into a mirror. For the first time, your cloudy vision was clear and you saw the way you'd been living before, and the life you could've lived if fear hadn't held you back. It was in that moment that you started truly living. Tears started brimming in your eyes, and you closed them, letting out a choked sob that was audibly filled with relief, and an emotion so raw and pure that it took your breath away. Laying one of your hands on his cheek, you finally placed your lips upon his, and you felt your heart let go of the heaviness of your worries. It was time. Your time. You were ready.
