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It was cool, having Selena back in his life - like a gentle humor that didn't really exist outside the sphere of her was suddenly back softening the edges of his life into something more tangible, something that actually felt real. Nick appreciated that; Nick thought often things in his life were too illusory, half the time, for his own liking.
She had been at his show the night before and all of a sudden he felt the world expand, his own personal life seemed so much bigger than he had expected; when you stand up on a stage without your brothers you have no safety net, no I'm-the-youngest to fall back on. And she had been there; she had been there and she had cared about being there and it was like not being lonely any more, like this largeness of his personal reality was manageable. Easy. Safe.
They were taking a walk outside, and Nick's hands were stuffed in his jacket pockets, head turned down against the wind. Selena looked impossibly upright and glossy and Nick wondered for the thousandth time how Selena had ever become so poised. Nick's own bearing came from a tense place; hers was simply graceful. And yet they walked in sync, snow-dusted, damp grass beneath their feet; right and then left foot, right and then left. Like heartbeats, he thought.
"I kind of like it being a little cold, though," she was saying, and of course she did, Nick thought, because she was a splash of brightness against gray - wasn't that just something she did? It was so natural that it had to be part of her purpose. He'd never really noticed that before, not even last time they tried this out - he had been so used to seeking out the overt raucous laugh, the voice that rose above the rest. He hadn't appreciated, until possibly this exact moment, the beauty in stillness. The candled flickering of vitality that was Selena.
Selena was the kind of girl you wrote poetry about.
The kind of girl you wrote songs about - but Nick already knew that. "Are you seriously talking about the weather?" he asked, lifting his head to glance at her, his half-smile genuine.
"Are you seriously letting me?" she asked, and there it was: the mischief that sometimes flashed in her eyes. Nick warmed to it - warmed to her - and though it was barely noticeable, he leaned into the space between them just a little more, banishing their distance from 'awkward' and right into 'comfortable' (a safer space in only some degrees). She tilted her head, just so, to the side, and Nick ached to run his fingers, fret-like, down the curve of bone. To play her newest song.
"I don't think I could stop you from doing anything you wanted right now," Nick murmured, his eyes a little wide. He meant it, and while Nick never said anything he didn't mean, he usually didn't say anything so dangerous, those things he genuinely wanted. He lived his life under careful self-surveillance, and it wasn't the first time he'd defied his own security for a girl.
It had just never been Selena before.
Which, in retrospect, could explain a few of their past problems.
Selena's smile was sudden and surprised, and he understood why it had come; she knew him, but more than that she knew the unguarded moments. She had her own, too, and hers were almost as rare. He'd actually glimpsed one of them the night before, when he had mentioned Demi - just some on-set thing from the movie - and Selena's gaze had turned briefly heavenward and her shoulders had stiffened. She'd said, "I miss her," and "How is Kevin?" and Nick had let it drop, which is what was done, he knew that, and it had been over - just like that.
Just like now.
Except it wasn't over at all. Selena reached out and touched one gentle gloved hand to Nick's cheek. He had no choice but to lift his head, meet her eyes.
"Nick," she said, and she seemed so young and so old all at once; this intriguing, mesmerising collocation of experience and romance. If they hadn't been outside in the world, he would have kissed her.
His breath caught in his throat. Somewhere, a dog barked.
Nick closed his eyes.
It was sudden but suspended in timelessness; her hand left his cheek and she leaned forward to kiss him - but just his cheek. The opposite cheek, high, above his ear. She smelled like vanilla perfume and spearmint and her lips lingered in this perfect shape just for a second, the pressure soft but so definitely, completely there.
"You're sweet," she said quietly, that hand finding his shoulder, sliding slowly down his arm, briefly resting atop his hand - but only briefly. "But you've been sweet to me before."
"I'm sorry," he offered, half-mumbled, half-strangled, all bewitched. "About that."
"I know. Because if you weren't," she countered, "I wouldn't be here."
Nick was silent for a long moment. There wasn't a safe way to answer that; to respond and not fall - again, and Nick had a really bad habit for falling again, and for being influenced into falling and he just didn't want anything to take away from this; from the way her hair curled onto the collar of her coat and he had always loved that, when her hair got long, and she looked like a doll, beautiful and perfect. From the way she smiled when he spoke, from those perfectly shaped, soft, everything lips on his cheek.
And... "I'm glad you're here," he admitted, looking down at his hands. Looking away was self-preservation.
Besides, he didn't have to look at her face to know she was smiling (he felt it like falling).