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A flick of his finger sent Miggs’ pen spinning in his hand, his attention hardly at all on the papers spread over the table in front of him. He stilled the pen’s spinning automatically after a second, bouncing it against the table a couple times to extend and retract the nib. Another flick and it was spinning again, a rhythm his fingers always seemed to start doing when he was distracted. He was supposed to be handing this set of tests back tomorrow, but Miggs found himself instead tempting the creeping deadline by spending his lunch hour today watching Peter grade his own students’ work, like a good teacher. He was probably grading ahead too, the bastard. No wonder he always laughed when Miggs complained about scrambling to keep up with his own schedule sometimes.
Peter glanced up from his papers and caught Miggs staring, and a smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth when Miggs tried to look away without being obvious about it. Miggs fought the urge to wince visibly when Peter laughed softly, the sound alone making his stomach swoop. This grade-school crush garbage he’d developed for the man across the picnic table from him was terribly inconvenient, since if Miggs was anything, he was a coward when it came to things like feelings. Especially things like love.
It wasn’t love though, Miggs scowled as he went over the essay in front of him, pen pausing in its spins to automatically mark mistakes here and there. He wasn’t that stupid. Peter wasn’t even interested and Miggs had learned early that loving just gave someone all the power to hurt you. If he was honest, the idea of being in love with Peter terrified him a little.
Chewing his lip, Miggs glanced back up to see Peter had returned to his work as well, hair stirring a bit in the slight wind catching under the patio roof, rain drizzling and misting at the edges. Miggs’ stomach lurched like he’d missed a step on a flight of stairs, heart seizing in his chest as he wondered, exactly, how anyone couldn’t be terrified of love.