Except nothing felt simple anymore. Not with him standing on the other side of the door. Not with my heart answering every sentence he spoke like a secret it couldn’t keep.
I stepped into the kitchen just as he set a plate on the island. Steam curled up from the food, but I couldn’t taste the smell of it. Couldn’t feel anything, really. My body moved before my mind did—I sat down, picked up the fork, and pretended to eat.
He glanced at me, concern knitting his brows. “Hey...seriously, are you okay? You don’t look good.” Before I could answer, he was already moving toward me, his worry too gentle to bear. His palm brushed against my forehead, then my cheek. “You’re warm,” he murmured. “You might have a fever.”
I froze, caught between the shock of his touch and the wave of longing it pulled from somewhere deep and foolish. My breath hitched, and I forced a small laugh, shoving his hand away. “I’m fine. This is just how I look. Guess that means you’ve always thought I didn’t look good.”
He offered an exasperated stare, but didn’t push. His gaze shifted to the small bag beside me. “What’s that?”
“Oh, um, it’s for you.”
His eyes widened. “For me?”
“Yeah, I got you a present for...you know.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“I know. I wanted to.”
He opened the bag, pulling out the glasses, curiosity turning to confusion. “I already have a pair.”
“They’re not regular ones,” I told him. “They’re for your color-blindness. The thing you keep pretending you don’t have.”
He gave me a half-amused, half-skeptical look—the one that saidI don’t know whether to thank you or prepare for chaos. He was about to put them on when I said, “Wait.”
Before he could protest, I grabbed his signature sticky notes and started moving around the apartment. “If you’re going to see colors correctly for the first time, you might as well know their names,” I said, sticking one to the fridge, another to the plant, one on the couch cushion. Each note bore a single word in looping handwriting:red,green,blue,yellow,orange. I even pressed one gently to his shirt—gray, written just below his shoulder. When I finished, the loft looked like a ridiculous love letter.
Subtle, Lilly.
“Okay. Now you can put them on.”
He hesitated, then slid the glasses on. His breath caught, shoulders stiffening as if his body needed a second to recalibrate.
“Holy...” His voice trailed off. He turned in a slow circle, eyes widening. “Is this really how you see it?”
I nodded, but he wasn’t really looking at me anymore. He was lost in the colors. He picked up the coffee mug from the counter, studying it like it was a precious artifact. “This is red?” he asked, and when I nodded again, he laughed under his breath—a disbelieving, boyish sound I’d never heard from him before. I didn’t believe in hidden chambers of the heart, but if my soul had a language, it would speak in the sound of his laugh.
He moved on to the plant by the window, crouching down. “That’s green? It’s—God, it’s alive.” His gaze landed on the fruit bowl next. “And the oranges...they actually look like the word.”
I leaned against the counter, watching him trace his world anew. Every reaction, every laugh, every whisperedwow—made me chuckle, stupidly proud of the effect, hating how happy it made me feel to be giving him something he’d never even asked for. “You’re adorable right now.”
He spun toward me at that, glasses slipping slightly down his nose. “Your eyes.”
“What about them?”
“They’re my favorite color.”
It was such a simple sentence, but it hit me hard. He stepped closer, his stare locked on mine with the awe of someone witnessing sunlight for the first time.
His fingers ghosted over my cheek. “God knew what He was doing.”
I swallowed, pulse hammering. “What do you mean?”
“If I could see your eyes like this all the time,” he said quietly, “I’d never be able to stop staring. Not that I’ve ever been particularly good at trying.”
Heat pooled in my stomach in a slow and ruinous burn. I couldn’t tell if it was courage or desperation that pushed me forward. My body moved before my mind could catch up, closing the gap until I could taste his breath on my tongue.
But at the very last second, he shifted, a subtle turn, just enough to reroute the collision so my lips skimmed the line of his jaw instead of his mouth. Our faces stayed pressed together, his cheek warm under my lips, his ragged breathing fanning against my skin like he hadn’t decided whether to run or close the remaining distance.
