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If there was one word Felix could apply to Bridgette Cheng is would be annoying.
At first it was merely her constant presence, the way she flitted around him like a mayfly, chatting incessantly about meaningless drivel. Had Felix cared enough to pay attention to her, he probably would have tried to swat her away as such a pest, however he couldn’t quite bring himself to exert the effort. He’s painfully aware of her infatuation with him, though he jadedly chalks it up to his outward appearance and teenage hormones. As if he would even entertain the thought of her!
After a while, it became smaller things that would irritate him. The way Bridgette’s long pigtails spilled down her back like velvet ribbons, the constant swishing sound insisting Felix be aware of her constant movement. One day when she spins around particularly fast, the tips of her midnight hair whip him across the eyes and he automatically raises a hand to his face, the other reaching out blindly as he stumbles backwards. A firm grip winds its way around his wrist as he gropes into empty space, pulling his weight sharply back to centre. In fact, the sudden jerk in the opposite direction is so strong that it causes him to take a fumbling step forward as he regains his balance, and he feels his body knock against something small. Felix rubs his eyes against the sting, blinking against the reflexive tears his body is trying to squeeze out from under his lids.
As the world comes into focus, so to does the sight of Bridgette Cheng holding his wrist like a vice, her other hand pressed flat against his chest from where he practically tripped into her. Bright blue eyes shine up at him, made all the more vivid by the complimentary rouge that is slowly blossoming across her cheeks. The fingers locked around his wrist loosen, and Felix idly notes that they are colder near her fingertips. Their faces are close enough that her breath ghosts across his chin, and the warmth of it contrasts jarringly with the temperature of her hand, bringing Felix back to the present with an uncomfortable insistence.
Felix places his free hand on her shoulder, firmly pushing her to arm’s length. He sees Bridgette take a breath, opening her mouth to speak as she assaults him with those too-bright eyes.
“Are you alr-“
“Leave me alone, Bridgette.”
Bridgette closes her mouth not so much with a snap, but with a certain obedience, as if her words were still squatting on her tongue behind her lips, each trying to fight their way out into the larger space.
Felix steps around her, a mere obstacle in his path, and continues on his way, but not before catching the flash of hurt that mars her features when she thinks he isn’t looking. An ember of annoyance burst into full flame in Felix’s diaphragm.
What right did she have to be hurt? He’d told her to leave him alone enough times before hadn’t he? Did she not realise how much of a nuisance she was to him?
Felix huffs to himself, hiking his bag a little higher onto his shoulder.
Bridgette Cheng was annoying.
The following day as he walks to class, he hears a familiar shout of greeting, quickly accompanied by the sound of footsteps running towards him. Felix grimaces to himself, keeping his eyes straight ahead, refusing to turn around though he braces himself for impact – a hug from behind, a slap on the shoulder, a tug on his arm.
He waits, but it doesn’t come. Felix fights every urge he has in his body telling him to turn around and see where the relentless dark-haired girl is, but a second later she streaks past him, raven pigtails flowing out behind her like silk scarves. He watches her as she darts forward, enveloping a girl from their class in what looks like a bone-crushing hug, lifting her friend far enough off the tarmac that her toes barely skim the ground. The other girl laughs joyously despite wincing, and Felix stops walking to watch the spectacle. As Bridgette drops her friend back down, the two link arms and start towards the school. Felix doesn’t move, watching them with microscopic attention as they talk animatedly to one another.
Well at least she’s finally left you alone, he thinks to himself, though his internal voice sounds more resigned that relieved, and Felix isn’t quite sure what to make of the sentiment.
Deciding not to dwell on it, he resumes his route towards the school, contemplating how much quieter his days will be now.
A strange thought weaves its way through his mind:
She didn’t even say hello.
Bridgette no longer talks to him.
She doesn’t hover around him like a mayfly he wants to swat away.
She doesn’t chat incessantly about meaningless drivel.
She doesn’t whip him in the eyes with her hair.
Felix is happy about this: His studying is now done in silence without the constant interruption of Bridgette’s sing-song tone. He now walks alone on the journeys between home and school, without the unending noise of Bridgette’s kitten heels clacking against the pavement as she skips to keep up with him.
Not once has someone knocked him off balance since that day, meaning that not once has Bridgette touched him.
She still does all of these things with other people, he notes. At lunch she is always ready to interject a conversation with a witty remark or a stimulating opinion. She is tactile with her friends, showing her care for them through small touches on the head, lingering fingers on an arm, a tight squeeze for when her love overwhelms her body and comes spilling out messily to wrap those around her in a fuzzy blanket of adoration.
Felix catches himself wondering at how she had spared some of that love for him.
Bridgette looks up to see him staring at her, and he snaps his head away, denying himself from satisfying the curiosity he has about her expression. The fact that she was still taunting him despite her absence wore on him like a river wears on a stone, slowly but relentlessly. Felix wants to spit at how much she annoys him, the cat in him turning feral with the persistent poking and prodding.
“For this project you will be working in pairs,” Miss Bustier announces from the front of the class, and out of the corner of his eye, Felix sees Bridgette bump fists with Allegra.
“Felix, you’ll be working with Bridgette.”
The words hit him like a hefty smack to his frontal lobe with a baseball bat, he back snapping straight as his eyes turn almost frantically to Bridgette. She is staring agape at Miss Bustier, who is seemingly oblivious to their mutual expressions of horror. Wordlessly, the two teens gather their bags, both heading towards the door with their eyes cast decidedly down. They reach the door at the same time, both refusing to make a move, not wanting to look at the other and not wanting to reach towards the exit. After a tense few seconds, Felix extends his hand forward, pulling the door open for Bridgette to pass through. Without meeting his eyes, she steps out into the corridor, heading in the direction of the library. He falls into step beside her, not offering a single sentence of small talk to break the stony silence the stretches out between them. As they settle into one of the library desks, the silence seems to take on a distressing tangibility, and Felix awkwardly flexes his fingers across the desk.
Finally Bridgette sighs heavily, her shoulders sagging as she exhales. Lifting her gaze to meet his, Felix is surprised at how determined she appears.
“Look, we can’t do this project if we don’t talk to each other, and I for one want to get a good grade.”
She sets her jaw as the last word leaves her lips, her gaze unfaltering as Felix takes in her resolution. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he leans backwards almost languidly in his chair as he fixes her with a challenging stare.
“You’re the one who’s not talking to me.” He says matter-of-factly, though it sounds more petulant out loud.
“You told me to leave you alone,” Bridgette reminds him, her tone blank.
If there was any residual feeling on her part surrounding the statement, it didn’t not show on her face: She had sculpted herself into an incorruptible mask of impassiveness and invulnerability, one that Felix could not see through.
“I did,” he agrees, because what else can he do?
Bridgette waits for him to continue, but when it becomes clear he is not going to elaborate, she shakes her head tiredly.
“Exactly. So I left you alone.”
Felix frowns at her emotionless tone, the vividly colourful girl painting herself in black and white simply because she was around him. The thought shot currents of irritation under his skin, and he gritted his teeth to compose himself.
“I didn’t think you would just-“
“What, Felix?” Bridgette interrupts him.
Her blue eyes have taken on a steeliness that Felix uneasy about having directed towards him, the colour reminding him more of a glacier than a clear sky.
“I didn’t think you would actually leave me alone.”
Even to himself, he sounds immature, and his surge of annoyance only grows since it is Bridgette who has caused him to feel this way.
“Is that why you said it?” Bridgette asks, her expression unchanging, and Felix shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Because you thought I’d come back anyway? Or did you actually mean it?”
Felix hadn’t even thought about it before, but the way Bridgette phrased it made him seem like a fool. And a fool he was.
He hadn’t expected Bridgette to listen to him, and now he couldn’t help but feel left out when she ignored him. But she was only doing what he told her, wasn’t she?
“I…” Felix struggles for words, a million different thoughts clamouring against the inside of his skull, winding themselves into knots he can’t untangle into sentences.
Bridgette stands, shaking her head again, and Felix yells at himself internally to say something, anything. Bridgette gives him a rue smile, a whisper of sadness pulling down at the corners of her mouth.
“You’re such a child, Felix,” she whispers, before turning on her heel and marching back through the aisles.
Felix sits forward, resting his arms against to desk as he fights the urge to shout after her.
So this was what it felt like to have Bridgette Cheng mad at you.
Felix decided he liked it less than her annoying him.
Bridgette is speaking to him now.
She has to for the project, Felix knows that, but he can’t help but tell himself that it’s also because she wants to. After all, she did have a crush on him at least once, and it’s apparent in how she sometimes goes off on a tangent whilst discussing one of their points, her enthusiasm pulling her hands around her in wild gestures like a marionette. Felix doesn’t interrupt her, choosing instead to watch the way her eyes light up when she remembers a particular thought, or how she tucks a tenacious stray hair behind her ear when she self-consciously notices herself rambling.
Bridgette smiles at him in the hallway sometimes, though more often than not it seems to be instinct, and when she realises it’s him, her smile freezes in place before she quickly looks away. It annoys Felix to no end. He wishes she would just smile at him genuinely, or not smile at all.
The way she runs her fingers over the spines of the library books fascinates him in a way that he doesn’t like to admit. It’s as if she’s telling the books her own story in those brief few seconds her fingertips linger on the covers, and Felix knows the their school library would not be big enough to hold all the books he could write about her
“This one!” Bridgette announces loudly, ignoring the aggressive shushing of the librarian as she stands on tiptoe to reach a particularly thick book.
Felix come to stand behind her, his arm extending over her head to pick the book out just as Bridgette makes an ambitious leap for it. Her fingers catch the edge of the shelf, yanking the whole thing off the bookcase as she lands. A tower of books topples towards her small frame, and she squeaks loudly as she braces herself to be buried in a literary tomb. In a split second, Felix braces his hands against the bookshelf, pressing his body up against her as he hunches his shoulders around her, a palm either side of her head. The row of books falls heavily to the floor, hitting his body sharply on their way down. He grunts with the sudden pain, screwing up his eyes against the onslaught until the last book drops with a comic finality on his head. As he lets his eyes slide open, he is greeted with that same pair of blue eyes staring back at him, a kaleidoscope of hues blown wide with surprise. His face is impossibly close to Bridgette’s, his body pressing hers firmly back into the bookcase from where he had shielded her, and her shaky breath feels warm against his skin.
“Felix,” she breathes, her tone almost reverent. “Are you…?”
Bridgette cuts herself off, and Felix realises why in a second.
“I’m alright,” he murmurs, answering the question he had stopped her asking that time. His forehead barely brushes hers as she continues to gawk at him, her hands pressed up against his chest, and he can feel the slight coldness to her fingertips through his shirt. Almost imperceptibly, he leans a little closer, watching the way Bridgette’s pupils dilate as a beautiful pink stains her cheeks. She moves her hands down his chest a little, and embarrassingly a small growl escapes him. Before he can blush he hears a loud shout cut down the aisle like a scimitar.
“MISS CHENG! MR AGRESTE! You had BEST be picking those books are right now or I will-“
The short librarian rounds the aisle, taking in the sight of Felix squishing Bridgette up against the ‘O’ section of the library, and her mouth drops open in what Felix could only describe as scandal.
“Are you…? Are you fornicating in my library!” she screeches, hands flapping hysterically as she attempts to adjust her glasses.
“I don’t think they heard you across the channel.” Felix mutters to himself, taking a respectable step away from Bridgette.
Cool-tipped fingers lace their way around his wrist, and he looks down to see Bridgette clutching him with a firm insistence.
“Come on!” she cries, giving him a harsh tug on the arm.
Felix doesn’t need to be told twice. He allows Bridgette to pull him out of the library, the warbles of the angry librarian fading into nothing more than a shrill echo as the pair sprint down the hallway and out into the courtyard. Making their way down the front steps, Bridgette leads him through a maze of back alleys, and Felix idly wanders at how she knows her way around so well.
Finally, she stops in a narrow alley, pulling Felix next to the wall beside her as she finally lets go of his wrist. He notices she’s barely out of breath, but he doesn’t comment. When she looks at him, her cheeks are flushed from the exercise, and her eyes glitter in the waning sunlight. Felix is sure that her smile could have lit up the whole of Paris.
“I’ve always wanted to do that!” she confesses giddily, leaning back against the wall as she lifts her chin to look at the sky overhead.
“What? Break a bookshelf?” Felix asks haughtily, making a show of rubbing the back of his neck.
Bridgette rolls her eyes at him, and he can’t stop the smirk that hikes up one corner of his mouth.
“Well that too,” Bridgette responds before continuing, “But I meant just running away from the scene of a crime.”
“It was hardly a crime,” Felix remarks, leaning his head back against the wall as well. The clouds above them fade from mauve to a pink so high in saturation, he’s sure the colour itself is going to drip from the sky to paint the building around them. “It’s not like there were guns involved.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Bridgette replies, and he can practically hear the smile in her voice. “After all, you did take a book for me.”
Felix turns to look at her incredulously, an irritatingly smug grin splitting her face as she peers at him out the corner of her eye.
“Bridgette,” he begins. His voice is soft and her smile wavers for a second. “That was terrible.”
Without another word, he turns his back on her a starts towards the school, though her whooping cackle ricochets back and forth between the alley walls as he adds “bad jokes” to his list of things he finds annoying about Bridgette Cheng.
The rain drums loudly against the steps of the school, dyeing the city blue and grey as it washes away the colours of the day. Felix stands at the doors of the school, waiting impatiently for a gap in the downpour.
“Felix!”
He knows the voice before he even turns around, and yet he still isn’t ready for the sight of Bridgette Cheng skidding to a stop beside him, the water reflecting off the pavement highlighting the silver strands in her blue eyes. Her long pigtails shine like oil and she gives him a timid smile as she collects herself.
“Are you waiting for the rain to stop?” she asks brightly, reaching a hand out over the threshold of the dry haven formed by the courtyard archway.
Obviously, Felix thinks dryly, but he smacks the comment out of his head as he watches the raindrops collect in Bridgette’s open palm like mercury.
“I was hoping it would let up enough for me to walk home,” he supplies, deliberately leaving the conversation open in the hope that she won’t be able to resist her talkative nature.
Sure enough, Bridgette happily tags on to the end of his sentence.
“I don’t have an umbrella,” she says regretfully, closing her fingers around the handful of water that glistens against her smooth skin.
“Neither do I,” admits Felix expressionlessly.
Bridgette glances at him, and for some reason it makes him feel stupid for not bringing an umbrella along. He shifts his weight to his other foot agitatedly in response to her stare, clearing his throat awkwardly. Bridgette remains uncharacteristically quiet, and Felix can feel the familiar itch of irritation crawl under his skin. How was it that someone could annoy him both by speaking and by not speaking? Eventually, he decided that the rain wasn’t going to let up, and he clenched and unclenched his fists as he prepared to break the silence.
“I’m going,” he states simply, turning to look Bridgette dead in the eye.
She blinks at him, quirking one eyebrow as her eye flick back to the steady downpour in a silent question. Felix huffs at that: What? She can’t even talk properly now?
With an exasperated shake of his head, he starts down the steps, the rain soaking him almost instantly.
“What?!” Bridgette squawks indignantly, but he only gives her a brief glance over his shoulder.
“Felix!” she shouts after him, but he ignores it.
A second later he hears the wet slap of shoes against rainy pavement, and he turns to see Bridgette hopping down the steps after him.
“What are you doing?” he yells at her, stopping in his tracks to watch her skip over to him.
“Coming after you, idiot!” she shouts back, the rain plastering her fringe to her forehead.
The rain in her hair makes it look like dripping ink, and Felix has to stop himself from reaching out to run his fingers through it, lest it sink under his skin and stain him with her. She comes to a stop in front of him, squinting through the veil of fat raindrops to try and make out his expression.
“You are so…” he trails of, rubbing the back of his neck, a gesture he only ever makes when truly frustrated.
“What?” Bridgette asks again, her voice stroppy as she sets her stance, one hip cocked. “Felix, WHAT?”
“You are so annoying!” Felix finally blurts out, laughing slightly as the words burst from his lips.
They were finally out of his mouth, the metallic tang they’d been leaving on his tongue dissolving into nothing more than a heavy sigh as he takes in Bridgette’s reaction. A sad frown chips her unbreakable mask for a split second, not enough to break it apart, but enough for Felix to see it, and his eyes widen at the realisation that he’s gotten under there, if only a tiny bit. The frown gives way to fiery anger, and Felix can practically see Bridgette’s blue eyes glowing through the watery haze.
“Annoying?” she demands hotly, her chest rising and falling faster as adrenaline pumps its way through her veins.
“Yes!” Felix insists, brushing his wet hair out of his face. He laughs, but it is a harsh sound, flat and unsmiling. “You annoy me like nobody else, Bridgette Cheng, did you know that?”
Bridgette looks as if she is resisting the urge to slap him, her fingers curling into fists at her sides.
“And what about me is so annoying?” she inquires, her voice steady despite her fists shaking.
“Everything!”
Bridgette looks genuinely hurt at that comment, and Felix regrets it almost instantly, but his stubbornness forces his hackles up as she responds with fire.
“I don’t understand!” she hisses out between her teeth, “I have tried so hard for you. I talk to you when no one else does, I defend you when people say you’re just a stuck-up rich kid, I make sure to fill you in on everything that’s been happening so that you don’t feel left out, and you tell me I’m annoying?”
Her voice cracks on the last word, and Felix doesn’t miss the way her bottom lip trembles. He feels like she’s smacked him over the head with a rock: Though he never particularly cared about what others thought of him, the fact that Bridgette had been standing up for him, had been putting his needs on her list of priorities… He suddenly feels overwhelmed, a hot prickling creeping up his throat and down into his stomach. He opens his mouth to tell her he’s sorry, to take back every word he said against her, but she rounds on him before he has a chance.
“Fine!” she barks, her lips pressing together in a harsh line that looks more like a slash than a mouth. “Tell me exactly what it is that’s so unbearable about my presence!”
Felix’s tempter flares instinctively, and he’s knows he shouldn’t but the words come tumbling out of his mouth before he can think better.
“It’s the way you are!” he yells incredulously, gesturing at her randomly. “The way you don’t talk to me, or you don’t look me fully in the eye when you smile, or how you make crappy jokes and drop books on me!”
Bridgette’s eyes widen slightly, but he doesn’t stop.
“It’s how you’re so affectionate with everyone else, or how you hit me in the eyes with your hair, or how you come chasing after me in the God damn rain, Bridgette! You’re frustrating! Everything about you frustrates me!”
Felix is breathing heavily, his tirade having left him exhausted, and he feels a strong urge to double over and rest his hands on his knees as if he’s just run a marathon. Bridgette remains silent, continuing to stare at him as her mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. Felix notices the rain lightening, and a small beam of sunlight manages to pierce the clouds, bathing the school in a yellow glow. Bridgette’s gaze drops to her feet, and her shoulders shake in a way that makes Felix think she’s crying, though when she speaks, her voice is firm and unbroken.
“Felix Agreste,” she says softly, raising her head to meet his eyes. “You are a complete moron.”
Without another word, she stalks past him towards her aunt’s bakery, flipping one pigtail deliberately so that it would hit him in the face as she passed.
School the next day is not fun. Bridgette is clearly pissed at him, but she hides it under too-sweet smiles and throwing herself into conversation with others. Felix watches her from across the classroom, as she quite decidedly doesn’t look at him. Felix tries not to, but he knows that somewhere in his subconscious Bridgette’s behaviour today is being added to his list of things he finds annoying about her. He turns away, flicking open a book on Chinese, and though he reads the pages the words don’t really sink in. When he’s found that he’s read the same paragraph five times over he puts the book down on the desk with a dejected sigh. Felix flexes his fingers, bracing the base of his hand against the desk as he prepares to stand, when something thuds in the seat next to him.
Allegra sits on the desk, her legs crossed, one foot resting on the seat beside Felix, and he gives her a blank look.
“So you pissed off Bridgette, huh?” she says propping her elbows on her knees and dropping her chin into her hands.
Felix was getting the distinct impression that this was about to turn into a bad episode of Gossip Girl.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” he responds coolly, reopening his book to the unreadable paragraph.
Allegra’s arm snakes out and smacks the book into Felix’s lap, earning her a glare that would have withered a lesser woman. Undeterred, she fiddles with the end of her long blonde braid, her tanned fingers weaving the golden locks around her digits.
“You called her annoying, what did you expect?”
“I see she told you,” Felix observes flatly, trying his best to keep the spike of irritation out of his voice.
“She’s my best friend,” Allegra says by way of explanation, her tone implying a very exaggerated “duh”.
Felix grits his teeth in a defensive manner; he isn’t used to people prying into his private life.
“As biased as I know this sounds,” Allegra starts, levelling him with a glare of her own, “the problem isn’t her. It’s YOU.”
Felix snorts at that, though whether out of indignation or agreement, he doesn’t know.
“Look I know you like her,” Allegra says matter-of-factly, dropping her hands behind her to lean back on the desk.
Felix scoffs at that, almost choking at the action, and he coughs to recompose himself. Bridgette shoots him a look from across the room, her eyes lingering warily on Allegra before she forcibly turns back to the conversation she’s having.
“I see she glossed over the details of what I said,” he manages to splutter out after a few seconds.
The look Allegra gives him in response was practically dripping with boredom.
“You hate the way she doesn’t talk to you, you hate how she’s affectionate with other people and not with you, you hate the way she tells bad jokes or how she runs after you in the rain,” Allegra reiterates, counting the list off on her fingers as she said them.
She quirks an eyebrow at Felix’s growing frown, tilting her head with a silent “Oh really?”
Felix has to admit that when they were repeated back to him, his reasons for disliking Bridgette sounded a lot like… He shakes his head. Even if Allegra was right, he’s too proud to admit it to her, and so instead he sits stony-faced, staring off into oblivion. Allegra sighs heavily, rolling her eyes so hard that they are at risk of falling back into her skull.
“Look,” she starts, hopping off the desk, turning round to fix Felix with a very hard stare. “Just apologise for being an ass, and tell her how you feel. She likes you too.”
Felix feels his phantom cat ears prick up at that, and his eyes travel up to meet Allegra’s, though he keeps his face impassive as he opens his mouth to speak.
“Don’t try and tell me she doesn’t, Agreste. I know her better than you do right now,” Allegra cuts him off, idly picking at a piece of lint on her skirt. “And besides, I think she’s done more than enough to show you that she cares.”
“And why should I do what you say?” Felix challenges, folding his arms across his chest.
He knows he’s being an immature asshole, but his pride had been wounded and he’s on the defence.
“Remember,” Allegra states simply, “If I have to put up with her moping about 24/7 then so do you.”
And with that, she sashays away to join Bridgette’s conversation, her braid swinging behind her like a golden rope.
The library was all but deserted; the aisles dark save for the solo light sat on Bridgette and Felix’s table. Bridgette has somehow managed to convince Mr Damocles to let them stay after hours, despite the vehement protests of the librarian. Now, the pair huddle over their project work, a dozen books open at specific pages in a fort around them, the pages marked with post-its and littered with notes. Bridgette hasn’t said a word to him save for occasionally letting him know which part of their work she was going over.
Felix checks his watch, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand as he stretches.
“I’m going home,” he informs her, packing away his notes as he stood.
Bridgette barely flicks a glance in his direction, merely nodding to let him know that she’s heard.
“Are you still working or do you want me to put some of these books away?” he asks as he closes the ones he’d been working from.
“Oh I don’t know,” Bridgette pipes up, giving him a smarmy sort of smile as she folds her hands dramatically on the desktop. “I wouldn’t want to be an annoyance.”
Normally Felix would have gotten annoyed at her facetiousness, but the small furrow between her eyebrows tells him that she’s more upset than angry, and he feel something tight grip his heart. He tries to think of something to say, but all the private tutelage in the world couldn’t have helped him form a coherent sentence when Bridgette Cheng was looking at him as if he’d kicked a puppy (and he honestly felt as if he had).
Turning away from her sad expression, he moves down the dimly lit aisles, putting his books back slowly. In truth, he doesn’t want to go home, he wants to stay with Bridgette, even if she isn’t exactly speaking to him, but the darkness slowly swallowing the library was sucking him into the void of sleep, and he feels as if someone has attached sandbags to his limbs.
Turning from the bookcase, he walks smack bang into Bridgette, knocking her off balance. She reaches out frantically as she trips over her own feet, frantically grabbing at his shirt for purchase, pulling him down after her. Felix lands fully on top of her, his head smacking the floor next to her ear, and he lets out a sharp grunt with the impact.
“Owwwww,” he groans, scrunching his eyes shut against the pain that is coursing through the front of his skull. After a few seconds, the throbbing fades to a dull ache, and Felix turns his head to come face to face once again with a very startled pair of blue eyes. Felix blinks a few times, trying to process the situation. Bridgette’s arms are bent, one hand by her head, and the other sandwiched between their chests. Her right leg is bent up along the left side of his body, and Felix aches to loop an arm around her thigh, pulling her around him. His lips are mere centimetres from hers, and he feels an uncharacteristic blush begin to creep up his throat.
Bridgette comes to her senses first.
“Get off me,” she snaps; pushing against his chest with the hand stuck between them, using her other arm to elbow him away. Felix springs to his feet, crouching like a cat before standing fully. He offers a hand to her, but she ignores it, stubbornly getting to her feet by herself.
“What were you doing standing behind me?” Felix enquires curiously, his tone light.
“Nothing,” Bridgette replies shortly, not meeting his gaze.
Felix watches her for a moment, her toes wiggling in her pumps as she self-consciously reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Felix catches her hand before she drops it, and she watches him wide-eyed as he give it a gentle tug, pulling her towards him. Her expression turns sour, and she leans away slightly, though not enough to break his contact.
“Bridgette?” he asks simply, his eyes never leaving her face.
Bridgette chews her lip, slowly bringing her gaze up to his.
“I wanted… To talk to you I guess,” she says meekly, her eyes dropping to her feet again.
She’s given him a window, Felix realises, and he all but dives through it. Only Bridgette Cheng would see someone being a stubborn proud blockhead and offer them an out.
“I wanted to talk to you too,” Felix says softly as he attempts to phrase his imminent apology in his head.
Bridgette looks up at him expectantly, her thick lashes fluttering slightly with what he assumes are nerves, and her slightly cold fingers tighten around his pre-emptively.
“Bridgette…” Felix begins, taking a breath. “I’m sorry.”
Bridgette doesn’t say anything, she just watches him, and Felix feels like he’s being examined under a microscope. Swallowing the urge to ramble, he continues speaking carefully.
“I shouldn’t have called you annoying, that wasn’t fair,” he begins, grasping for the correct way to verbalise his sentiments and coming up hopelessly short. “You’re not annoying, and you’ve been incredibly… Patient with me.”
Sorting through his words is like trying to finding matching shades of indigo, and Felix can feel himself flailing. It doesn’t help that Bridgette is looking at him with such a kind openness that he feels he’d be betraying her trust yet again if he doesn’t say the things he needs to exactly right.
“I’m just… I was wrong, and you… I mean-“
“It’s okay,” Bridgette interrupts him.
Felix forces himself to look at her, and the wave of relief that hits him is almost crippling when he sees that she is smiling softly. She brings her other hand to his face, tracing her thumb gently over his cheekbone.
“I forgive you,” she whispers, and Felix is gripping her hand so tightly that he’s worried she’ll break.
He raises his other hand to cover the one on his face, leaning into her touch as he closes his eyes, and he hears Bridgette sigh audibly.
When he opens his eyes, he realises that he has inadvertently leant forward, his forehead almost brushing Bridgette’s, and she stares at him with something new, a strange emotions that burns like hot coals just behind her eyes. Tentatively, he takes a step towards her, just as she takes a step away, her back hitting the bookcase behind her. Felix takes a moment to look at her, the way her breath hitches a little in her throat when his eyes roam over her, the way she smells like sweet perfume and home, how her pupils dilate as he looks at her lips. Dropping her hand, her takes a small step closer to her, one hand coming to rest delicately against her jaw, and she bites her lip in anticipation.
“Bridgette,” he breathes, his voice barely a whisper, and her eyes look up at him anxiously. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”
Bridgette gulps a little, but she parts her lips and gives him a small nod. Achingly slowly, Felix leans in, his lips hovering over hers for a second before he finally seals the space between them. The kiss is chaste, a tender impression of what could be, and Bridgette’s hands press ever so gently against Felix’s chest. Felix takes the small movement as encouragement, deepening the kiss as he leans into her, weaving his hand into her hair to cushion her head against the books. Bridgette sighs as he presses himself against her, and Felix takes her parted lips as an invitation to explore further. His free hand coils around her waist, coming to rest against her lower back, not pulling, but asking her to move closer. Bridgette’s arms snake around his shoulders, and she digs her nails in through his shirt, satisfied at the groan he makes. Almost in retaliation, he traps her bottom lip between his teeth, giving it a soft tug so that she leans her head back, and he takes the opportunity to dip his mouth to her neck, feathering kisses along her jaw as she gasps. Bridgette struggles to think clearly, but somewhere between the breathless kisses and the hand weaving its way into her hair, she slips her hand under Felix’s shirt, feeling the lean muscles of his back as they move in tandem with her. Felix hisses at the contact and Bridgette grins smugly to herself, pulling at the hem of his shirt in an attempt to pull it over his head. She feels Felix’s hand leave her hair, coming to wrap around her own fumbling fingers.
“I think,” he begins, struggling to speak through heaving breaths, “That might be a little fast for me.”
Bridgette realises what he’s saying: He isn’t ready to go further. Felix Agreste was a hermit crab if she’d ever seen one, and it would do no good for anyone to try and force him out of his shell before he was ready. It probably took everything he had just to admit he had been wrong. Bridgette nods firmly in agreement, her hand slipping out from under his shirt to play with the soft blonde locks at the back of his head.
“Sorry,” she manages to breathe, rubbing soothing circles into his shoulders as he buries his face into the crook of her neck.
She feels him shake his head tiredly, his smile audible.
“It’s okay, this was… You were…” he can’t quite find the word to finish the sentence, and he feels Bridgette’s shoulders shake as she chuckles.
“You were, too,” she reassures him, turning her head to place a kiss on his forehead, and he tilts his jaw to capture her lips with another kiss before pulling away to rest his forehead on hers.
He smiles at her, the corners of his eyes creasing as an unfamiliar warmth settles itself on his expression, and Bridgette believes it is the first time she has seen Felix Agreste look genuinely happy. The thought causes her to flush traffic cone red.
“C’mon, we should go,” she suggests, dropping down to scoop up an armful of books that they’d scattered across the floor in a poor attempt to hide her glowing face. Felix grins cheekily at her before following suite.
The next morning, the grumpy librarian stiffly comments that the books have been arranged neater than she’s ever seen before.