Mirrorball (Jamie Tartt)

have i known you 20 seconds or 20 years

When Jamie finally gets home, he's carry two overflowing bags and a tenseness in his shoulders. His voice is light as he tells them about his day, but she can't help but focus on the way he keeps fidgeting. As if there's something desperate to get out of him.

"You alright?" She asks later when they're finally alone.

"Yeah," he says. "Fine."

She's sitting on the bathroom counter as he wanders in and out of the en-suite getting changed for dinner. It's silly in a really sweet way that he's putting so much effort into it. They're not going anywhere. The only people who are going to see him are the last people he needs to impress.

"How's my mum been?" He asks as he shrugs out of his t-shirt, swapping it for something smarter and less startling than his usual shade of highlighter neon. As she watches him fumble with the buttons, she realises that she's never seen him wear a shirt before. Especially not one with a collar.

"Amazing," she says, gently brushing his fingers out of the way so that she can take over. "She loves you so much."

"Yeah?"

Thea laughs, "yeah."

There it is again, that tenseness. She's only just finished with the last button when he starts pulling at the cuffs of his sleeves. She wants to tell him that he doesn't have to wear the shirt if he doesn't want to. But he's never been one to do something he didn't want to.

"She was telling me about this friend of yours."

Jamie cocks an eyebrow, "what?"

"Oh, you know, this mysterious person who you're always talking her ear off about."

He shakes his head, "she's a snitch."

"So you don't deny it?" Thea asks, pulling the back of his shirt so that he's standing in front of her.

"You're lucky I think it's sexy when you manhandle me like that."

"Don't dodge the question!"

"Look, I thought it was alright because I wasn't using your name or anything." He looks guilty. "I swear. I didn't know she was gonna start acting like some fucking MIA agent." His voice gets slightly quieter. "I'm not used to keeping secrets from her."

The idea of it is mind blowing.

People had often felt the need to talk about Thea, both in front of her and in private, but none of them had ever felt the need to be so kind about her. To find her qualities good enough to share.

"I told her," she says quickly. "About us."

The hope in his eyes is so fragile that she can't help but feel scared, "Really?"

"I mean, I think she already knew but, yeah, I didn't deny it. I didn't want to deny it." He's moved even closer to her now, boxed in on either side by her thighs. "Not that sneaking around the house after she went to bed wasn't thrilling."

He tilts her chin up with the length of his finger, running his thumb over her bottom lip to stop her from talking. Smart. She wouldn't even manage a word with the butterflies that have broken loose in her stomach. "No more sneaking around?"

It's a question and an instruction.

But she's only ready to deal with one.

"No," her lips curl into a smile under the weight of his finger. "Guess you're kind of stuck with all of me."

His smile matches her own as he replaces his thumb with his lips.

"I've never wanted anything more," he says against her.

This kiss is so gentle that she melts into it entirely. This is her favourite sort of kiss. Entirely without expectation of more. A moment of calm in the storm carved out for just the two of them. It's like standing in a meadow in the summer, heat on her shoulders and the soft sway of grass against her legs. A reminder that the the world might always be moving, but sometimes, very rarely, it can be soft in how it does it.

The kiss that follows is not gentle at all.

Which, admittedly, is her second favourite type of kiss. Thea suspects that it's slipped Jamie's mind that his mum is downstairs waiting for them, because his hands have already made their way under her jumper and are tracing rough swirling patterns across the length of her skin. Between heavy breaths, he nips at her neck and she has to push him away so that they don't embarrass themselves.

It doesn't feel embarrassing, though, to be with him like this.

It's been so long since Thea last felt comfortable being loud with her affection. But, with Jamie, it's deafening no matter how quiet she tries to be. Even in the smallest moments. Their thighs touching when they sit next to each other. His fingertips stroking absentminded circles into the dimpled skin of her shoulders while she reads. The smile that she reserves for the safety of their company. The tiredness that they both wear openly, knowing that the other will understand.

It's unbelievable that they'd fallen so deeply in step with each other in only a handful of months. How, in very little time at all, Thea had come to not only accept his constant presence in her life but to crave it. To wake up and miss the warmth of him. The sound of his voice. The feel of his touch. The weightlessness that blooms every time he so much as looks in her direction. Their lives intertwined now. Like he is an invasive species that, entirely without her noticing, had taken up root.

"We should go."

He groans, leaning his forehead against hers.

"What if we didn't?"

"Well, your mum will start to worry and then she'll send probably send a search party out in search for us." Thea smiles. "And it only takes one person with loose lips for everyone in the country to know that you like to get hot and heavy in dress shirts."

"Fuck," he groans, dragging out the sound, "My reputation would never recover."

"On the plus side, you'd probably get some sort of kickback from all the shirts that people would be buying to try and get you to shag them. Could be lucrative if you play your cards right."

He rolls his eyes. "Well, they're shit out of luck then because there's only one person I want to rip a shirt off of."

Every part of her wants to throw caution to the wind and see exactly how long they can hide away up there. But, if there is anything that Thea Wallis is good at, it's depriving herself of the things she wants.

"Well, we better go see if Father Christmas has brought me one for Christmas then." She says, pushing herself off of the counter and past the hard wall of his body. "Because if not, the masses aren't going to be the only people shit out of luck."

"Fine," he huffs. "But this isn't finished."

"Of course not," she grins. "And I'm sure you'll come back strong in the second half."

Any other time, he would have teased her for that.

But today, maybe because it's Christmas, he just smiles and pulls her into another kiss.