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“trust me, i’m not any happier about this than you are,” is the first thing that falls from vincent’s lips the moment he opens his front door to your immensely displeased face.
a raised brow joins your already disgusted expression, and you hug your books closer to your chest with one arm as you prop up a hand on your waist. “is that any way to greet a lady, whittman?”
“with the way you’re looking at me right now, i don’t think you exactly count as a lady in my books,” vincent shoots back snarkily, stepping to the side so he could pull the door open even more.
your mouth falls open. “oh, thanks a lot!” you let out a short, disbelieving laugh, pushing past him in the doorway. “real gentlemanly of you, asshole.”
vincent scoffs and throws up his hands as you pass him, an irritated grin playing on his lips. he kicks the door shut with his foot. “language, princess.” he sings mockingly under his breath.
of course, it doesn’t escape your sharp ears. “do not call me that.” you throw him a nasty glare over your shoulder, all but slamming your books down onto the coffee table.
“that’s mahogany!” he shrieks in horror. vincent scrambles over to where you stand in the living room and slaps your offending hand away from the table, but you sharply smack his head with the other hand in immediate retaliation. “ow!”
“must you always be such an ostentatious jackass?” you demand, snatching up your copy of shakespeare from the top of the pile and plopping down on the sofa with enough haughtiness to piss him off.
vincent’s still doubled over in pain, and he shoots you a dirty look from the corner of his eye as he rubs a hand over his head. “hah?”
“it means pretentious, you ostrich.” you kick the back of his knee with the tip of your shoe, to which he lets out another yelp and falls back onto the couch next to you in a sprawled heap. “you really ought to brush up on your vocabulary, romeo.”
the tips of his ears turn pink in an embarrassed fluster at his unbecoming position. vincent immediately rights himself up, clearing his throat as he tries to regain even the slightest bit of his dignity. straightening his vest and his collar, he hisses out, “again, i’m not any happier about this than you are, juliet.”
you give him an unimpressed stare. “yeah, thanks for reminding me that neither of us had a say in the casting choice this year.”
vincent throws his head back against the cushions with a long groan. the tips of his fingers meet below the nosepads of his horn-rimmed glasses as lets out a muffled, “i am going to kill charlie.”
you hit him over the head again, though lighter this time, and with the worn edge of the old romeo and juliet copy you’d borrowed from the library. “about six other people in the school would kill you for saying that, you know,” you remind him blandly. “your precious, darling mrs. morningstar—!” your voice rises to a higher, girlish pitch as you mock the stupid little crush he’d had on the principal’s wife and charlie’s mother since you were in middle school, “—included.”
one of his hands shoot out to flick your forehead at that, but you dodge, giving him a shit-eating grin in return. vincent grumbles and instead snatches the book away from you, randomly flipping through the pages like it made him look like he knew what he was doing. newsflash—he didn’t.
“whatever. let’s just get this over with.”
“uh, we can’t get it over with if you’re hogging the book all to yourself, genius,” you say sarcastically, scooting over to his spot on the couch as you try to yank the novel back.
“aww, still haven’t memorised the lines, princess?” vincent juts his lips out at you in a sardonic pout, holding the book away from you and above his head. God, you really hated that nickname.
“as if you do!” you snap, reaching up for the book even as continues to wave it around high in the air. “give it— vincent!”
“you want it?” he taunts, intentional provocation rolling off him in waves. his irritating smile resurfaces again. “come and get it.”
a snarl builds up in your throat as you pounce for the book—a choice that vincent was definitely not expecting; you can tell by the mix of shock and fear that replaces the mischief in his eyes. he clambers backward with a frantic, “wait, hey— hey!”, though a second too late, because while you may have managed to grab the novel in his small window of weakness, it ends up with you landing unceremoniously upon his chest.
“got it!” you announce triumphantly, pushing the spine of the book against the space between his eyebrows. “choke on my smoke, daffodil.”
he can’t even manage a splutter—nothing but his mouth involuntarily falling open and shut in dumbfoundedness from your sheer proximity. red spreads across his neck and brushes the curve of his jaw, and for the first time since you’ve had the displeasure of knowing him, vincent whittman seems to be at a complete and utter loss for words.
“hey.” you poke him again, beginning to shift off his lap and back onto the cushions. “save the starstruck look of love for when we actually do the play, would you?”
that snaps him out of his stupor. “wh- no!” he exclaims, though his voice cracks slightly at the end. “the fuck are you—? piss off!”
a dramatic gasp accompanies the perfect ‘o’ your lips form. “such vulgar words, mr. whittman! why,” you fan yourself, feigning total scandalisation. “i thought you were above that sort of thing.”
“oh, shut up, (name),” vincent clicks his tongue, resuming a proper sitting position. he’s close enough to let you feel his knee brush against yours, though far enough to avoid being in the direct vicinity of your fist. “this isn’t a judy garland movie.”
“yeah, it’s fuckin’ shakespeare.” you drop the act, a flat expression settling over your face again. “romeo and juliet, no less.”
vincent’s eyebrows raise at your language.
“what?” you sass, patting down your skirt. “i thought you said this wasn’t a judy garland movie.”
“i- yeah, just…” vincent looks away from you, looking entirely discomforted. “i don’t really hear you… swear.”
you bark out a laugh that’s just shy of being unladylike. “maybe not to your face.”
the short chuckle he breathes out in return is a silent truce all in itself. “fair enough.” vincent crinkles his nose to shift his glasses higher up his face as he peers at the open page lying between the two of you, and your heart gives a traitorous flip at the small motion.
“what were we going to practice today?” he asks, looking back up at you through his lashes, just over the rim of his glasses. “still act one, right?”
you hate the way he’s looking at you. why is he looking at you like that. “y-yeah. just, um, where we left off from before.”
“the-” vincent flings his gaze back to the book, incredulous. “that’s- that’s still in scene one! (name), come on, we’ve made more progress than that!” he points to himself with both hands. “i’ve made more progress than that!”
“you haven’t perfected the short monologue, idiot,” you point out.
“i can perfect it later, (name), might as well just try practicing the other scenes so i’ve got more to perfect!” he protests.
“you’re- that’s not making any sense!”
“if you’ve ever taken a mock-SAT test on an abysmal time limit, it does,” vincent insists stubbornly. “come on, dollface! give me some, ‘but soft, what light, through yonder window breaks’, here. the fun stuff, you know!”
“are you implying the rosalind monologue isn’t fun?” you ask amusedly.
“who fucking cares about rosalind?” vincent complains loudly. “she doesn’t even show up in the play, and romeo’s nothing but a yearning, limp-dicked pussy of a loser about her!”
“vincent!” you scold, though you can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you.
“no, seriously!” there’s genuine pleading in his eyes now. “i’m sick and tired of, ‘o brawling love! o loving hate!’ and ‘love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs’, and all that nonsense!” he wails, a far cry from the annoying tease he was being just a while ago. “c’mon, (name), i’m so not an angsty teen. i’m sick of channeling some… variant of my fourteen-year-old self for the sake of portraying that fuckwad montague.”
“ehh.” you tilt your head to the side, as if to scrutinise him. “you’re definitely angsty.”
his jaw drops, affronted. comically enough, his mouth falls open and shut multiple times—again; it was a really funny habit of his—as he gawks at you like a fish, until he finally manages a low, insulted, “how dare you.”
you simply give him a cheeky smile, nudging the book closer to him. “read up, buttercup.”
“you’re corny.”
“you’re annoying.”
“bossy.”
“douchebag.”
“priss.”
“minute man.”
vincent’s whole face twists in offense. “you take that back!”
“after you practice the damn lines, vincent,” you sneer in his face, emphasising each word with carefully structured venom.
“you’ve never even slept with me!”
“or anyone, for that matter.” you retort dryly. “and i know damn well you haven’t, either. virginity is so not the point here, dingus. we’re in high school.”
vincent mutters angrily under his breath, flipping back to page 13 from where he had been on page 45. “as if you’ve ever been kissed.”
your eyebrows practically fly up into your hairline. “and you have?”
“why would i tell you that?” vincent pettily turns his face away from you, lip curled in disdain. his fingers finally brush over the stupid line you’d been wheedling for him to practice.
“well, whoever she was, i pity her.” you grimace, wrinkling your nose. “poor girl.”
vincent momentarily turns back to give you the nastiest look. “you do know we’re gonna have to kiss one way or another in this production, right?”
your ears pipe with embarrassment. “i know that!” you exclaim defensively.
the contempt on his face slowly melts into an impish grin. “well, there’s one more thing to add to practice.”
much to your chagrin, the burning sensation unwittingly spreads from your ears to your cheeks. “what?”
“wait.” your reaction only makes his shit-eating smile grow wider, and his eyes gleam with triumph. “you’ve seriously never been kissed?”
“wh- it’s none of your business!”
“as your now-co-star and unfortunate love interest, it so is.” vincent pushes the book off his lap and leans into your space, grinning all the while. “goody-two-shoes juliet, never been kissed. oh, that’s rich!”
you inch backward with every millimetre he crosses, shoving a hand up in between the two of you, features strewn with indignation. “i’m sorry, what the fuck is your problem?”
vincent halts his advances, and the mischief on his face is schooled into one of complete displeasure again. “the fact that you won’t let me practice anything other than romeo’s bitching.”
“well, maybe you could stop being a complete douchebag for once and actually give me a good reason to,” you hiss at him.
“i’ve already memorised their dialogue in the masquerade ball.” vincent gives you a smug smile that practically screams, ‘haha, i win.’
you blink in disbelief. “what?”
“the kiss scene.”
“no, i heard you.” you straighten your posture on the couch, eyes flicking nervously from the book to his face. “i meant ‘what’ as in what. i thought you haven’t memorised shit.”
“oh, don’t give me that look.” vincent waves you off. “it’s a popular sonnet, you know. we both know you have it memorised, too.”
“what.” word of the fucking day, you guess. since when were you so monosyllabic?
he looks back at you, unimpressed. “please, (name). i’ve seen you mouthing along to the lines in that scene like some lovesick idiot whenever professor sera shows the film in english class. you’re not fooling anybody.”
your mouth feels stupidly dry. “you watch me in class?”
vincent’s ears flush red again, and he immediately grows defensive. “th-thats not the point!”
“then what is?” you press.
“the-” vincent has to take a moment and inhale deeply in a very painful attempt to not start yelling his head off. “i want to practice a different scene, (name). a new scene. we’ve been doing scene one for days and i’m sick of it,” he explains with uncharacteristic patience, though you can hear how his voice holds the slightest tremble with the effort of keeping his barely constrained temper in check. “and it just so happens that we both considerably have scene five committed to memory—which also happens to be the scene i want to do.” vincent practically deflates once he finishes his long-winded appeal, and he looks up at you wearily. “there. happy?”
your mouth is parted in surprise as you meet his helpless expression, feeling thoroughly flustered. “i- sure. whatever.” you lick your lips, pursing them as you pick the book up from under his knee. “y’could’ve just said so.”
“i was-!” vincent explodes, before catching himself. his eye twitches indignantly. “you’re fucking crazy.”
having regained a slightly higher ground, you give him a small smile. “and you’re not?”
that effectively gets him, though not without a grumbled sigh and a roll of his eyes. “...okay. fair.”
“that’s what i thought.” you flip the pages over to the sonnet, shaking your head in amusement all the while. “if you wanted to kiss me so bad, you could’ve also just said so, too, you know.”
“ha! as if.”
“you’re not being very convincing, romeo.” you coo, chucking his chin—to which he lets out a noise of protest—before chucking the book back at him.
vincent near-effortlessly catches it in his hand and sets it down onto the table, narrowed eyes not breaking your gaze once. “we won’t be needing this.”
you raise a brow. “confident.”
his lip quirks up along with a shrug of his shoulder. “i try.”
cracking your knuckles with both thumbs, you tilt your head up to meet him at eye-level as much as you could. “okay. so how are we gonna do this?”
he blinks slowly at you. “we… recite the lines.”
“no shit,” you deadpan. “i meant, are we gonna stand up? figure out the blocking and movement already?”
“i… no.” vincent shifts his body to face you entirely. the slightest hint of nervousness lines his brow. “we just work on the dialogue. for now.”
“okay,” you say again, more nervous than you’d have liked to be, as you catch the inside of your lip between your teeth. “you… you start.”
and, well, insufferable as the guy was, vincent was a pretty damn good actor.
he almost immediately snaps into character, easing his tense shoulders into a more relaxed posture. his hair sweeps across his forehead as he slightly tosses his head to the side, and when his face tilts back to meet your gaze, it’s almost as if the eyes that looked back into yours really were romeo montague’s and not vincent whittman’s.
you can only hope juliet capulet was gazing through your eyes, too.
“if i profane with my unworthiest hand,” he begins softly, slowly— “this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this; my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand…” his eyes flicker to your lips. “to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.”
well, damn.
“good pilgrim,” you chuckle softly, shifting closer to him as you settle into character. if you had blinked, you’d have missed the way his pupils swelled at your proximity. “you do wrong your hand too much.” a smile curves your mouth, “which mannerly devotion shows in this: for saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch…” your throat bobs as your fingers hesitantly reach out to curve beneath his, until he lets both your palms meet as one between your bodies. “and palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”
vincent leans the slightest bit forward, and you feel his breath ghost over your fingertips before he intertwines his own between them. his touch is gentle against your hand as he whispers, “have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?”
“ay, pilgrim.” fuck, you can feel yourself faltering. juliet must’ve been faltering, too. right? wouldn’t she have been? “lips that they must use in pray’r.”
his eyes—his stupid, beautiful eyes—crinkle with a smile before his mouth does. “o then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do,” he says smoothly, turning your entwined hands over and tenderly running his thumb across your skin. “they pray—grant thou,” vincent hums, pressing his lips to your knuckles in a featherlight kiss, gaze never leaving yours, “lest faith turn to despair.”
holy shit.
“saints do not move,” you reply without missing a beat, despite the traitorous pound of your heart. to really sell the act, you coquettishly tilt your head to the side in a way you imagine juliet would have done. “though grant for prayers’ sake.”
vincent—or romeo, rather; goodness, was he even acting?—breathes out a laugh as he brings your hand to linger over his chest, just above his thrumming pulse. “then move not while my prayer’s effect i take,” he says matter-of-factly, quirking a brow with a mischievous, boyish sort of charm—until his nose is nudging gently against yours, and the mint of his breath ghosts across your parted lips.
false as they were, each word fell from his tongue with a tenderness you never thought possible to be aimed at you; most especially not by him. “thus from my lips, by thine,” he murmurs, his other hand finding the cusp of your jaw with the minutest tremble—was he nervous? “my sin is purg’d.”
his lips hover over yours, almost as if asking for permission, and something unnameable and entirely stupid possesses you to meet him halfway.
and you could feel the way that he melts against you.
it’s just acting, (name), you scold yourself, so act, for the love of God, act!
but it’s pretty hard to not lose sight of yourself and just why the hell you were doing this when his hand moves up from your cheek to cradle the back of your head as he deepens what should have been a stage kiss; and damn it all and vincent whittman especially to hell—it was almost heartstopping enough to make you forget your name.
you try to pull back before you end up falling too deep, planting your hands against his chest to push him away as you breathlessly gasp out the next line, “th-then have my-” the relentlessness of his mouth upon yours muffles your attempt to recite, “my lips-”
vincent, the unrelenting bastard, changes the angle of his kiss, and you feel his nose brush from the swell of your right cheek to the apple of your left. unintentional or otherwise, you fall backwards into the couch, you just barely manage to gasp out, “have my lips the sin that they have too- vincent,” as your back meets the leather.
“romeo,” he corrects, pulling away the slightest bit to continue the dialogue—but just barely; he murmurs the rest of his line against your flesh. “sin from my lips?” vincent chuckles, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth, to your cheek, then your jaw, smiling all the while—and you feel the tiniest smile betray you, too, despite yourself. “o trespass sweetly urg’d!” he whispers mischievously, “give me my sin again.”
vincent dives back in to kiss you with twice as much fervour, and the moment you dazedly reciprocate, you faintly register the pleasant, buzzing sensation of him humming contentedly into your mouth.
it’s enough to snap you out of your stupor. you go rigid, bringing up your heel to press it against the centre of his sternum, and hurriedly push him off. you scramble backwards until your waist hits the armrest of the couch, placing a considerable distance between the two of you. your chest heaves, and so does his—and you seriously hope you don’t look half as debauched as he does.
“wh…”
his glasses slip halfway down his nose, and red flushes from his chest to the neck above. sweat lines his forehead, and you feel a droplet trickle down your own temple as you falter in the attempt to find the right words to say.
intelligently, very intelligently so, you blurt out: “what the fuck.”
vincent blinks slowly, almost as if brain was taking a bit too long to catch up to his mouth. “i… don’t think that’s the line.”
you stare at him in disbelief. “no. no… no, of course it isn’t.” the warmth on your face morphs into an uncontrollable, embarrassed heat that spreads throughout your neck and your chest once you finally register what had just happened. “no. oh my gosh.” you wring your hands and stand up from the couch, practically stumbling on your heels as you step backwards.
when you start to pace the room, vincent stands up, too, looking terribly confused. “what- what’s wrong?”
“what’s wrong?” you pause your pacing, whirling around to gape at him. “what’s wrong? vincent, you just kissed me.”
“was i… not supposed to?” gods above, you might actually hurl yourself out of his window. “it’s part of the script.”
“i kissed you back.”
“were you not supposed to?” vincent looks so incredibly lost, and you might have found it begrudgingly adorable if it weren’t for the earth-shattering crisis you were currently undergoing.
“vincent, we hate each other.” you stress, eyebrows furrowed with what you figure to be an expression so upset it’s enough to make him falter. “and that… that felt a little too real.”
“did you not want it to be?”
you’re speechless. “did alastor put you up to this?”
an offended look immediately overcomes his face. “i- no? what does that fucker have to do with anything?”
“because he-” you squeeze your eyes shut and press the tips of your fingers into them, groaning in frustration. “damn it. damn you, whittman.”
“he what?” vincent demands, stepping into your line of vision and prying your wrists away from your face. “seriously, what does-”
“he knows how much i hate you,” you spit, refusing to look at him. still, you allow vincent to capture your wrists in his hands, though you pointedly avoid his unyielding gaze. “and i do. i really do. i can’t stand you, vincent. you’re insufferable, and belligerent, a-and arrogant, and-” you finally throw your eyes to his bewildered face, laughing out a perplexed, “goodness, you are so annoying!”
“okay, yeah, nice list of adjectives you’ve got there,” he huffs out, brow furrowing in frustration. “good to know someone still reads their thesaurus—so what?”
“so what? so what?” you ask incredulously. “vincent, we kissed.”
“ah-ha-ha-ha, believe it or not, sweetheart, you’ve made that exceedingly clear,” vincent raises his eyebrows, sporting a completely flummoxed grin. “and it was phenomenal. i’d like to think i did a great job, a-a-and, as much as i’d hate to admit it, you did, too. so what’s the big—” he cuts himself off, thoroughly perplexed, though a barely concealed look of hurt flashes over his eyes. “look, (name), if you hated kissing me that much you could have just said so.”
“that’s the thing, vincent.” you bemoan, tugging your wrists away from his grip and sinking into a heap on the floor. you hide your face into your hands, letting your hair curtain around you as your elbows press into your thighs. “i…”
“you…?” he prompts, joining your place on the floor as he softly nudges your chin up with his knuckle. “talk to me.”
you look back up at him, eyes just bordering on being bloodshot, and his own flicker with something you can’t read.
“i… liked it.” the words are hard to force out of your throat. “more than i should have.”
“huh.” vincent pauses, then lets out a short laugh. “...with the way you kicked me off, i wouldn’t have thought.”
“vince.”
“no, seriously, though.” he tilts his head down to meet your downcast gaze, infuriatingly—and frankly, uncharacteristically—gentle. “is that such a bad thing?”
“terrible.” your eyes begin to water—and fuck, you feel so stupid, why are you crying?— “horrible, really. atrocious. devastating.”
vincent looks simultaneously vexed and, ironically enough, horribly endeared all at once. “why?”
“because opening night is in five weeks.” you fight back tears as you stare down at your lap. “because you’re you, and i’m me, and if i start looking forward to every rehearsal ‘cause of… this, it just goes against everything i’ve tried to build around myself, because,” you let out a watery, pitiful laugh, “how can i say my lines from here on out if all i can think of is how your lips feel like when you kiss me?”
he blinks, and his eyes soften in the most impossible way; so does the tiny smile he wears. “call it method acting.” vincent nudges your chin up again and gently brushes away a tear that threatens to slip past your cheek. “no need to cry, juliet.”
your pride shrivels up like a flower during the height of el niño in summer, and you wager that if you had been any younger, you’d have probably flopped over and thrown a tantrum.
but alas, you were still at the tender age of sixteen, practically still a child in more ways than you knew or believed. your eyes water even more, and your voice grows wobbly as you blubber out, “but that was my first kiss. i can’t believe my first kiss was you, out of all people. i don’t even like you.” you sniffle, before emphatically adding, “i hate you,” once more, though it seemed to stray further from the truth with each declaration of hatred that fell from your lips.
vincent coos, clicking his tongue as he cups your face in his hands. “aw, no, no, no. don’t give me that, sweetheart. can’t have you starting to pity yourself. don’t do me like that, huh?” his left eye crinkles as a corner of his mouth quirks up in what was probably his idea of comforting, and you want to punch him.
“what do you mean?” you complain despairingly, albeit muffled from how squished together your cheeks are between his fingers.
“didn’t you say earlier that you pitied whatever poor girl happened to be my first kiss?” vincent asks rhetorically, oozing with self-satisfaction. if you squint, you’d probably see his chest puff up in triumph. he cheekily squeezes your face one more time for good measure, before tucking the hair that had fallen over your eyes back behind your ear. “well, i usually like people who stay true to their word, darling, but i’ll make an exception for you this time.”
you stare at him, trying to process what the hell he just said.
vincent seems to take the hint and drops another one, “again, can’t have you pitying yourself tonight. we’ve still got scenes to practice.”
it finally clicks.
you let out a strangled gasp, suddenly sitting up straight and jabbing a finger in his face. “you!”
vincent leans back, throwing his hands up in surrender and looking entirely too smug as his long legs stretch around where you’re kneeling on the floor. “me?” he echoes in mock surprise.
“you lied!”
“no, i didn’t.” vincent raises his brows, amused. “the answer i’d given you was as good as a, ‘no comment’.”
your mouth falls open in shock, eyebrows furrowed together in scandalisation. “that was your first kiss, too?”
he shrugs with one shoulder, before throwing you one of his stupid, crooked, and horrendously charming smiles. “guilty.”
your hand drops to your side as you continue to gape at him in shock. “i never would have thought.”
“what can i say?” vincent retracts his legs, pulling one up to his chest and tucking the other one behind the latter ankle. “i’m a good actor.”
you let out a disbelieving laugh, casting your eyes to anywhere but his stupid, stupid face. “i can’t believe you.”
“doubt thou the stars are fire,” he suddenly says, tilting his head to the side as he studies your increasingly confused expression. the slightest grin forms on his face again. “doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar…” vincent nudges his foot against yours—real elementary, this one—“but never doubt i love.”
“...was that hamlet?” you make a face.
vincent just lets out a delighted, boyish laugh, looking every bit the passionate, intense romeo he was to portray.
“oh, you cornball!” you return his laugh despite yourself, shoving him backwards by the shoulders. “vincent, that was so bad i could vomit.”
he only keeps on laughing, reaching out to snatch your sleeve and yanking you forward. “wh- hey!” you protest, nearly face planting into him for the second time tonight. “vince!”
vincent shushes you before he falling back onto his elbows, grinning dopily all the while. “get used to it, dollface. who knows, maybe they’ll have us do hamlet and ophelia next.”
you make a face again, leaning against his bent knees. “eugh, wasn’t hamlet, like, fundamentally… morally worse than romeo?”
“semantics,” he waves you off. “depends how you look at it, really.”
you swat him. “you’re horrible.”
his grin only grows. “you’re beautiful.”
giving him the most unimpressed, disgusted look you could muster, you grimace, though you can’t deny the tiny flip that flutters in your chest. “really, vincent?”
he feigns innocence, before immediately recoiling when you threateningly raise your fist at him. “okay, okay, my bad.”
“that was disgusting.”
“you liked it.”
“you need to die.”
vincent lets out a dramatic gasp, pressing a hand over his heart. “oh, you wound me, dearest.”
you roll your eyes at him—tears long forgotten as you wipe at your nose and reach over to collect your fallen book from the floor. “save it for rehearsals, romeo.”
“oh, but of course.” he sits up, putting on an act of seriousness once again, but you see how his poker face quivers with a near-uncontrollable grin at the edges. “i’m a very professional man.”
you can do nothing but give him another exasperated glare, and he relents, shoulders deflating, before he moves to readjust his sweater and collar. “alright, sorry. behaving now.”
vincent takes the book from your outstretched hand, and you straighten out your skirt as his eyes playfully flicker up from the page back to you.
“so… where were we?”