hvrtagain:
he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself, but, hell, how can he not? “if they what now?” he asks, even though he knows, because he wants to hear her say it. josh reaches out to pinch her in the side, gently this time, so she knows she doesn’t have to answer. he’s joking but he also isn’t, and it’s nothing new. maya knows how ready he is for them to be together, to be dating, to have everyone they love know that they’re in love. he’s not being the most patient and for that, maybe he’s kind of an ass, but for years she’s didn’t believe he would ever get to this point. maybe she’s even enjoying being the one who makes him wait. she can be very sadistic. and, though he would never admit it to her, he does see the benefits of what they have now. much as he hates the idea of sneaking around, it does afford a certain sense of privacy that they may never reclaim once their families know the truth. “i only care because my family is important to me and it’s hard for me to feel like i’m lying to them. and…when you really really like somebody, you just want to yell about it, to everyone. i mean, i do, at least. you don’t have to–we don’t have to. it’s hard not talking about you, though, with my parents. when they ask me what i’ve been up to, i just want to tell them about all of the recipes we’ve butchered and complain about how you totally mess up the pillow coordination i have going on the couch and that i’m suddenly drumming on my thighs all the time because my hand feels empty when yours isn’t in it. but instead, i say, ‘just school and work. boring.’” and it’s fine. it is fine. he just wants to talk about her all the time and he can’t talk about her with anyone who isn’t…well, her. when she comes up naturally in conversation he has to quiet his heart, pretend the long game is still in the planning stages. “hey, whenever you want me, you got me.” another word for this feeling is whipped, but sure, why not? who wouldn’t be, she’s maya goddamn hart. hunter. and thinking of shawn does have a way of making him suddenly more patient.
“if it’s not a secret, then i don’t see why i have to admit to anything.” maya has never been the troublemaker she’s made out to be. does she love rules? no, but she has always had a kind heart, and a moral compass that keeps her from doing worse things. when they were younger, he did consider her to be something of a terror, but that’s because he was always been a stickler for the way things are intended to be and she has always challenged him in that belief. “i’m only doing it to mess with you,” he says, then completely invalidates his own argument by putting his hands on her waist and pulling her closer. josh still doesn’t think he’s handsy, as a person. he just wants as much of her as he can get at all times. their chemistry has always been undeniable, but that’s the thing, he’s had to deny it. and now that he can touch her, it seems impossible not to. or, at least, like he’d be an idiot not to take every opportunity. and not in a gross way, not even in an overtly romantic way. sometimes it’s more intimate than it is sexual – his fingers brushing her wrist, her hand supporting her elbow when she gets up, or on the small of her back when she needs guidance. they’ve always had that closeness of knowledge, of knowing each other inside and out, and now they’ve simply added the physicality. “if that takes years, then i’m already going to argue it’s because i’ve changed. i fully plan to grow into the guy who deserves you, i just need a little more time.” but he doesn’t regret being with her now, if anything, he regrets not being with her sooner. even when he really didn’t deserve her. he would have shaped up in an instant, given the opportunity. “la fille que j'aime?” he tries, because it’s easier than saying it fifty more times, though he has no doubt that he will. even if she hadn’t asked him to say it in french, he’s thinking it, she must be thinking it too. sometimes josh wants to kick his past self in the ass, but at least he’d said a few things right. at least they’d always have those older moments, markers in time, fond recollections. most of them fond, anyways. “i don’t want to forget,” he says innocently, as if he could ever. “i’m afraid i’ll get too distracted, thinking about how much you love me.”
she chuckles at him, her tongue caught between her teeth momentarily before she answers as boldly as she is sure he expects from her, “that we’re going steady, boing. we wouldn’t want them to find out simply by the wedding invites.” the concept of exposing their love affair does get far less terrifying the more they discuss it, but she can’t tell if it’s because it’s actually being processed in a healthy way or if she’s just so wrapped up in her josh and me against the world can handle anything! mindset that they’re truly untouchable at this point. maya takes a breath, her expression serious and calm so that she can portray to him that she means what she’s sharing. “i don’t ever want you to feel like i don’t realize how hard this is for you.” his family is the most important thing to him. for the longest time- hell, even now, she wants to be right up there with them, and she sometimes is vain enough to feel as if she is. she needs him to know that she understands what it means that he’s putting their relationship above open communication with his parents. “and soon you can tell them all about us and how perfect you think i am.” it’s that simple, she decides, right between his rambling about his pillow coordination and his hand feeling empty because she loves him. she loves him so fucking much and this is something he really wants, so she’s going to give it to him. it’s oddly humbling to be this horrified. maya isn’t one to be so openly scared of something, usually bluffing her way into situations over her head and touching her way out because hart women are cut from a very strong cloth. she knows that she isn’t doing it alone, though. she has josh, has his heart and his support, and he’ll be beside her through it all. “we can tell them all about us, and there will be no more lying.” she scrunches her nose and raises her fingers to pinch at the air. “okay, perhaps a little lying for us to sneak around because secret bathroom makeout sessions are hot, but i don’t think your parents are missing out if they’re left in the dark on that one.”
“maybe i just wanna hear you say it.” she flashes a cheeky grin. sometimes, she wonders what it would’ve been like if they’d been rebellious teenagers at the same time. she doesn’t let her mind wander there often, but the few times it does? she really doesn’t know if she can see josh doing the things she finds herself doing. she can’t picture him shotgunning beers on a saturday night a handful of hours before the sun rises. she can’t see him hitting a joint from a stranger outside the venue of an indie concert he snuck out to see because seventeen year old josh was getting into college while seventeen year old maya spent her birthday weekend in the city being irresponsible. her biggest fear is that they wouldn’t be the same type of teenager had they been raised in the same place at the same time; that they wouldn’t find each other. that’s the danger in imagining these things, though. the possibilities would eat her alive if she let them. she knows that eventually, in every timeline, they would wind up together, but it’s hard to think that if what would’ve been stopping them now didn’t cloud their minds, they still would’ve been waiting. “you said it in french,” she says breathlessly, mostly to herself. she didn’t even have to make the dumb nostalgic request, he said it without prompt, a reference to one of the most vulnerable moments they’d ever shared. it was the beginning of all of this, in a way. where his feelings came to light, and where she fully confirmed hers. he agreed to the long game at that lodge, and as traumatizing as some of her friends and most of the adults she knows find that place, it’ll always be somewhere she will smile on because it’s an important milestone in her and josh’s story. “i do love you,” she shamelessly agrees, beaming up at him. her original mindset of teasing him tossed aside when he repeated his words back to her in a foreign language. “i’m going to love you for the rest of my life, i think. how terrifying is that?” only mildly, if she’s being honest, but she likes to turn up the dramatics to his face. “i love you more than i know what to do with, then you do something cute like say that i’m who you love in french and i love you even more. and-” she huffs out a little laugh, giddy and pure, “you’re not even my boyfriend yet.”
















