he who hesitates is toast

Her hands slide a little, to the sides of his neck, and she worries her lip for a second when she meets his eyes.

"There's not," she starts, "we don't –"

Pause. She feels like she's back in junior high, and if she's wrong about this?

She'll probably just ninja off the roof herself and go on the lam because she's not sure she'd ever be able to face him again without spontaneously combusting with embarrassment. "There isn't a me and Steve. We spent maybe two hours together when I was in New York and most of it was him talking about you. And he doesn't really know me at all. Not even my last name."

She's chewing on her bottom lip; an old stress reaction from decades ago. "But you do."

They've spent, what. A grand total of three days together? But those three days were in a pressure cooker. It feels more like three years.