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“I hate you.” Malia would say when Stiles’d make her redo an equation in math or point out something she missed when balancing elements in chemistry that would mess up her counts for the third or fourth time and he’d only shake his head like that’s not a big deal – her hating him. No biggie.
“You don’t. Now go do it, you’re almost there.”
“You don’t know that.” She replied once.
“Of course I know, I’ve already solved this exercise.” Stiles said and Malia looked seriously at him.
“I mean what I feel. You don’t know for sure if I hate you or not.” she was certain of it, she could read people by their scent and their heartbeat, but Stiles couldn’t, so he would never know for sure.
“But I do know.” He told her calmly, completely turning to her. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.” He then came closer and ignoring the confused expression in her face, gave her a peck on the lips. “You might not like me all the time, but what you really feel is far from hate. You don’t need to say it, I already know. Now back to organic chemistry.”
For a couple of seconds, Malia just stood there looking at Stiles and his honesty, and then her eyes wandered to the wall full of photos of them, taking note particularly of how she looked at him to understand what was so different about it that he would call far from hate. Soon she started to notice the same look on his face, in almost every single photo that he was looking at her – the look of how you can’t believe how lucky you are in this life. She knew what it meant, because it was what she thinks every time he’s near or he smiles or he does something so annoying that it’s adorable.
He was right, she didn’t hate him.
“You don’t hate me neither.” She said and he smiled.
“Of course I don’t. I love you.”
She didn’t have an answer for that, although her heart skipped a bit full of pleasure. Instead, she turned to her notebook.
“Now tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
And Malia so wished that he could read her by her scent and heartbeat at that moment.