#mcwinters

Hoisting the last box over the tailgate, Macey glances around at the collection, her most important possessions - her life - broken down to half of a truck bed and the man beside her. 

A life could be worse. 

Preston’s biceps flex under the black cotton of a t-shirt as he closes the gate. He taps twice on the rim, rust and flakey red paint fluttering beneath his fingers as he turns to her. 

Somewhere, somehow, the boy grew up into a man, apparent by dark hair that grows on his jaw and upper lip despite shaving yesterday. It’s in the lean muscles, sharpened features, deeper voice, and lines next to eyes that squint when he smiles at her. 

Yes, a life could be far worse. 

“Well, shall we get to it?” He asks, fingers catching a piece of her dark hair that’s fluttered out of a ponytail before they linger on her cheek. 

He stares at her in a way that makes something crack inside her chest, like a wildflower that can’t help but push through the dirt when it gets that little bit of attention it needs from the sun. 

Her fingers catch his as they leave her skin, before they can get too far, lips skimming his wrist in a chaste kiss that makes his cheeks twinge pink. 

Macey smiles, a little proud she can still make the man just as flustered as the boy.

“I’m ready if you are.”

“Oh, Mace,” he laughs, shaking his head at her as he murmurs, “You have no idea how ready I am.”

It’s her turn for cheeks to turn pink when he pulls their entwined fingers up to his mouth, kissing her wrist, her palm, the silver metal on her finger all the while keeping bold eye contact. 

Not for the first time, Macey is grateful she didn’t just let her sun give attention, but that she allowed him to nurture, to care, to prove he could be trusted with something so fragile. 

Something inside of her is finally set free, Love - hope - ready to blossom in the environment they were always meant to. 

Macey backs away, hip hitting the truck as she tries to keep her cool and act like the mere thought of being married to him soon isn’t sending her heart rate flying at a totally not calm and collected rate of an operative. 

“You’re lucky I think you’re cute.” A half hearted threat against all this public display of affection she’d normally never stand for. 

Preston beams at her from across the truck bed, their steps towards the front of the borrowed truck in perfect sync until they’ve reached their prospective doors. 

She hops in, slamming the door before turning to find his face incredibly close to hers. So close she can smell the cinnamon of his toothpaste on his breath that fans over her lips, so close that if she tilted her head just an inch her mouth could part over his and taste it too. 

“You think I’m cute?” His voice is low and husky and so not fair. 

“I-”

Lips brush the corner of hers, kissing up her jaw before he quips breathlessly against her skin, “Not roguishly handsome? Charming? Sexy?” 

He presses another kiss just below her ear that is entirely not chaste before he whispers like they’re the only two people in the world. 

“I think you’re beautiful Macey McHenry.”

bex has experience in like, dancing stuff. At some point her parents took her to some country and she was 'undercover' as a ballet student to spy on the instructor, but continued the lessons afterwards bc she enjoyed it. Tried literally every other type of dance too.

liz has adhd. most people dont notice bc they're used to it, but liz got it checked out and she got diagnosed. doesnt affect her very much tho.

cammie can bake simpler stuff like cookies or plain muffins but nothing harder, and zach can cook like no one's business. they have the best dinner parties.

macey picked up drawing as a hobby (like, light sketching, a bit of painting) when she was free and now has loads of sketchbooks of both finished and unfinished drawings, and they're actually really good.

preston started taking krav maga after the whole circle incident, one of the reasons why he's a little buffer now.

zach and cammie regularly mix up their clothes bc cammie keeps taking the former's and zach can somewhat fit into cammie's biggest shirt. its just a little too short.

bex confessed to liz secretly around when cammie disappeared, because she starts realizing that in the business everyones lives are too short and she couldn't lose the slight chance of being with liz, and they were kinda unofficially dating around when they went to rescue preston, so it was never really mentioned by cammie, and started dating officially after graduation.

macey likes to go on coffee dates and picnic dates and amusement park dates and roseville is perfect for that so preston visits ofte so that they can go on nice dates.

bex and macey are chess buddies.

cammie and zach go with bex and liz and preston and macey on triple dates, or just double dates depending on which pair is free.

bex likes mint chocolate chip ice cream, liz likes caramel ice cream or good ol' vanilla, cammie prefers vanilla or chocolate, macey likes cookies and cream