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She’s laughing at the changing season, at the leaf that’s blown into his hair. It sticks fast even in the brisk wind which ought to have blown it away again, and after a while her laughter is strong enough to force her to double over clutching her stomach. The light sweater she’s wearing rides up in the back, exposing a colorful belt and a tiny strip of pink over the waistband of her jeans.
Marlowe looks away.
Hitch continues to laugh at the leaf, and when she looks up, catching her breath, she nearly falls down. Instead, she allows her bag to drop off of her shoulder. It lands on the campus bricking with a thud.
“What’s so funny now?” he asks, unsure if he should be upset or delighted. She always makes him feel too many things and he hates when they conflict with one another.
She snorts, an ugly sound that he finds borderline endearing, and tries to pull herself together. Sort of.
She looks up at him, smiling brilliantly. There are tears in her eyes from laughing so hard. “You’ve acquired another leaf,” she tells him, cheeks flushed.
Still giggling about his latest hair accessory, she stands on her toes to take the giant maple leaf out of his hair, and then the first leaf, something he doesn’t recognize from a small, nameless kind of tree.
He enjoys her touch more than he should and his heart is hiccupping when she falls back onto her heels again and holds up the leaves for him, still grinning. She sets them free in the wind, but he doesn’t watch their trajectory as they swirl across the campus. The late afternoon sunlight is warm on both of them; he chooses to watch her, instead.
She’s still laughing. There are tears on her face.
“It’s really not that funny,” he insists, but when he puts his hands in his hair as if afraid of collecting more leaves there, she only laughs harder.
“I dunno,” she wheezes after a few moments, bending to pick up her bag, settling the strap over her slim shoulder. “I guess the leaf look does suit you.”
“Absolutely not,” he says, and frowns, but he can’t keep the corners of his lips down. With a light crunching smack, another leaf crashes into the side of his head.
Hitch almost screeches with amusement, clutching onto his arm to keep herself upright this time. He sighs loudly and peels it off of his head, crunching it in his head before scattering the pieces. It doesn’t help his situation any; she seems to find it even funnier.
“God, Marlowe,” she says, voice trembling with amusement as she wipes the tears from her eyes on his shirtsleeve, “I love you. You so…you!”
His heart lurches hopefully at her words, but he pushes the feeling back down. She’s only teasing. She doesn’t mean it. That he has to remind himself of these things is pathetic; he knows better—or should, by now. She loves a lot of things. He’s no different than her favorite coffee drink.
“If you stop cackling—”
“I’m not cackling,” she insists, voice still wavering pleasantly. “I’m laughing. At your leaf magnetism.”
“If you stop laughing then I’ll take you out for coffee.”
She grins, links her arm with his. “Oh yeah?”
He knows he’s being played, but maybe he almost wants to be. “I’ll even pay. But you have to stop laughing.”
She bites down hard on her lip to quash her smile. “I love you even more now,” she says, hugging his arm tight.
He wishes she wouldn’t say it so lightly, so thoughtlessly. But she doesn’t know how he feels. It’s not her fault. She’s just being herself.
While he’s trying to think of a suitable reply, she speaks up again.
“Actually, I was kinda thinking you’d maybe agree to come to my place since my roommate’s gone for the weekend.”
He swallows hard. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” She looks nervous, chomping down on her lower lip. “We could study.”
“You? Study?” He’s teasing, one slightly arched eyebrow the only evidence of his sense of humor.
She colors slightly and elbows him in the side. “I study,” she insists. “Sometimes. But maybe not tonight. We could watch a movie or something. So…?”
He’s trying to learn how to stop letting his stupid passions dictate what he does and when, but he can’t help his immediate response to her invitation: “All right.”