She looks at Baxter, then back at me, and something in her expression shifts by a degree I can't quite measure. "I like him too."
A pause opens between us that neither of us fills.
Then, across the park, a dog barks and Baxter's ears go up, his whole body coiling with that particular energy that means he is about to make a catastrophic decision. He launches off her lap and bolts toward the commotion before either of us can grab him.
We both say his name at the exact same moment. We look at each other. She laughs. It's a short, surprised sound, somehow both helpless and bright, and I feel it like something loosening in my chest.
We stand, and the shift puts us closer than the grass did, close enough that I notice she still has dog hair on her sleeve from an afternoon she didn't plan for.
She's looking at me with that expression I've been failing to decode for months, and I think, clearly and with full awareness:this is the moment where I should step back.
My feet stay exactly where they are. In fact, I feel the urge to move closer to her and wrap my arms around her.
The park noise seems to fall away. There are no other dogs, or kids shouting by the fountain, or low murmur of distant traffic. There is just her, and me, and the dog hair on her sleeve, and the way she's not moving either.
"Tessa."
I give her time to back away.
She doesn't.
I close the distance. I gather her in my arms, and allow the pull to close the gap between us.
The kiss is soft and warm and tentative in the best possible way, the kind that asks a question. She answers it immediately, one hand catching the front of my jacket like she's making sure I stay put, and I think:oh, there it is. There it is.
When we separate, neither of us speaks, and the silence is not uncomfortable. It's the kind that means something has been settled.
Then seventy pounds of golden retriever hits us from behind at full speed.
She grabs my arm to keep from going down, which doesn't work, and ends up laughing so hard she has to sit in the grass anyway, one hand still loosely around my wrist. Baxter plants himself between us with his tongue hanging out, enormously pleased with whatever he believes he just accomplished.
I look at her laughing in the afternoon light with grass stains on her jeans and eyes bright in a way that has nothing to do with the sun.
The variable I've spent months failing to account for resolves itself with sudden, absolute clarity.
I'm in love with her.
Baxter licks my face.
