i know i’ve kissed you before

You’d had a crush on him for long enough that you’d stopped being able to identify when it had crossed from inconvenient into embarrassing. Somewhere between the nights spent helping him organize case notes at two in the morning and the afternoon he’d appeared at your apartment with your favorite takeout because you’d mentioned having a bad week, friendship had become something significantly less manageable.

You’d dealt with it by never saying anything. Tim, presumably, had dealt with it by either not noticing or being remarkably good at pretending he hadn’t.

“Sure,” you said.

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Sure?”

“You need a fake girlfriend. I can fake being your girlfriend.”

The words came out with far more confidence than you felt, particularly when Tim’s attention settled fully on you. He stared for a second as though recalculating something, then nodded once.

“Okay.”

That should’ve been the end of it.

At 8:17 the next morning, Tim sent you a document titled Relationship Continuity Notes.

It was eleven pages long.

You opened it while standing in your kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and initially assumed he’d accidentally attached something else. Then you reached the section labeled Public Timeline and understood that Tim Drake had apparently approached fake dating with the same degree of preparation he used for covert surveillance.

According to the document, you and Tim had been dating for four months. Since you’d actually been friends for years, there was no need to invent how you’d met or explain why you already knew so much about each other. The fabricated part began with your supposed first date at a small Italian restaurant outside Gotham, where the likelihood of running into photographers was lower, followed by becoming exclusive three weeks later. Two Wayne Foundation events you’d actually attended together as friends had been folded into the cover as discreet couple appearances, giving the relationship a public history without requiring either of you to invent one from scratch. The lack of public confirmation was intentional rather than suspicious.

There were sections covering likely questions, acceptable public displays of affection, subjects to redirect away from, and several possible explanations for why neither of you had posted about the relationship.

Tim had also included your preferred tea order.

You stared at that line for a while before continuing.

He’d noted that you didn’t drink coffee because it upset your stomach, that you didn’t drink alcohol, and that if someone ordered something for you, a sweet-tart mocktail would be the safest choice. He’d specified that strawberries were your favorite fruit, that you enjoyed raspberries and blackberries but disliked getting seeds stuck in your teeth, and that you liked kiwi despite being allergic to it.

There was even a note about oranges: likes flavor. Dislikes pith and sticky hands.

You called him.

Tim answered on the second ring. “Morning.”

“Why did you include the orange thing?”

A pause followed, short enough that anyone else might not have noticed it. “You hate pith.”

“I’m aware.”

“There’s fruit on the menu.”

You lowered the phone and looked at the ceiling before bringing it back to your ear. “You included fruit contingency planning.”

“It’s not contingency planning.”

“Then what is it?”

“Relevant information.”

You closed the document before discovering what else Tim considered relevant information before nine in the morning. “Eleven pages, Tim.”

“The last two are mostly reference material.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

He seemed genuinely puzzled by that assessment.

You should’ve known then that Saturday was going to be a problem.

The garment bag arrived at your apartment shortly after noon on Saturday.

You knew it was from Tim before checking the note because nobody else in your life would’ve sent something in packaging expensive enough to make you afraid of touching it with unwashed hands. Inside was a dress, carefully wrapped and unmistakably chosen for a Wayne-level event rather than anything already hanging in your closet.

It was also beautiful, which irritated you more than it should’ve.

You’d expected something generic, the sort of dress an assistant could order after being given your approximate size and the gala’s dress code. Instead, it looked like something you would’ve chosen for yourself if the price tag hadn’t made you immediately put it back. The fabric fell elegantly without feeling restrictive, formal enough for the ballroom Tim had described but comfortable enough that you wouldn’t spend the night worrying about moving incorrectly.

Then you tried it on.

You stood in front of the mirror for a very long time because it didn’t merely fit well enough to make do. The waist sat exactly where it should, the length worked with the shoes you’d planned to wear, and there wasn’t a single place where the fabric pinched or hung incorrectly.

You had never told Tim your measurements.

By Saturday evening, you’d developed approximately twelve explanations for how he’d gotten them, ranging from reasonable to criminal.

You were still debating which category was most likely when your phone buzzed.

I’m outside.

You glanced at the time.

Exactly seven.

Of course.

You told him to come up while you dug through your jewelry box for the earrings that matched the dress. He already knew how to get into the building; Tim had been to your apartment often enough that there was no reason to send him the code again.

The knock came two minutes later.

You grabbed your bag, crossed the apartment, and opened the door.

Tim forgot whatever he’d been about to say.

His mouth opened, but nothing came out. One hand remained slightly raised as though he’d been about to adjust his cuff, while his gaze moved over you before returning abruptly to your face.

You waited, but Tim Drake, who could fill silence during interrogations, board meetings, and conversations with Batman when Bruce had decided monosyllables constituted communication, continued saying absolutely nothing. The pause lasted long enough for nerves to creep in.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.” The answer came quickly enough to nearly overlap your question, and Tim blinked as though realizing that saying nothing else might actually be worse. “You look…”

His gaze dipped again despite himself.

“You look beautiful.”

Something warm and dangerous unfurled beneath your ribs. Tim complimented you sometimes, usually with the same straightforward sincerity he applied to everything else, but this wasn’t like that. He looked genuinely startled by you.

“Thanks,” you managed.

His hand finally completed its journey to his cuff. “The dress fits?”

The warmth inside you faltered.

Slowly, you looked down at yourself before lifting your eyes back to him. “Tim.”

His expression changed immediately.

“How did you know this would fit?”

“I estimated.”

“My measurements?”

His attention flicked toward the elevator as though briefly considering whether the mission gave him grounds to retreat. When you crossed your arms, he sighed.

“I know what sizes you usually wear.”

“How?”

“You leave clothes at my apartment.”

“One sweatshirt.”

“Two.”

“That still doesn’t explain this.”

“You’ve complained about sizing before. I know which brands run small on you, and you mentioned having to size up in one of them because the cut was wrong through the—”

He stopped, and when you stared at him, Tim had the decency to look faintly uncomfortable.

“You were going to say bust.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You absolutely were.”

“It was relevant to the estimate.”

“You reverse-engineered my measurements.”

“I estimated them.”

“The dress fits like it was tailored.”

“I allowed for some—”

You pointed at him. “Do not say margin of error right now.”

His mouth closed.

For perhaps the first time since you’d met him, you won an argument because Tim had apparently determined that continuing it posed an unacceptable operational risk. Instead, he held out his hand.

“Ready?”

You looked down at it.

You’d held Tim’s hand before. He’d pulled you through crowds, steadied you on icy sidewalks, and once kept your fingers trapped loosely in his while falling asleep on your couch after thirty-six hours awake.

This was different because both of you knew what it was supposed to mean.

You slipped your hand into his, and Tim’s fingers closed around yours. His thumb brushed once over your knuckles before he seemed to notice himself doing it.

Tim’s car was waiting downstairs. It wasn’t a limousine, which you appreciated, although it was still polished enough that the doorman watched the two of you with obvious interest when Tim opened the passenger door for you.

You settled into the seat and immediately noticed a pair of flats on the floor.

Your size.

You turned toward Tim, but he was already walking around the front of the car, leaving you several seconds to contemplate the implications before he climbed behind the wheel.

“You brought backup shoes.”

“You hate wearing heels for more than a few hours.”

“I don’t remember telling you my shoe size.”

“You ordered sneakers from my laptop once.”

Of course you had.

You decided not to ask whether Tim remembered the credit card number too.

The first twenty minutes of the drive passed easily enough. Tim reviewed the broad points of the investigation without drowning you in details, which suggested he’d actually listened the previous three times you told him that you didn’t need to understand the corporate structure of every criminal organization he investigated.

Bellamy was moving money for someone, and the encrypted work phone tied to the transfers would be locked in the private hospitality suite he was using as an office for the evening. Tim needed several uninterrupted minutes with it to clone the contents and confirm who was on the other end of the transactions.

Your role, operationally speaking, was mostly decorative.

“Comforting,” you said.

“I mean for the investigation.”

“Much better.”

Tim’s mouth twitched.

You were searching the center console for a charging cable when your hand closed around a familiar foil packet.

You pulled it out.

Lactaid.

There were several more underneath it.

You turned slowly toward Tim, who kept his eyes on the road.

“Why do you have this much Lactaid in your car?”

“You’re lactose intolerant.”

“I know why I have Lactaid. Why do you have enough to supply a small restaurant?”

“There’s more at my apartment.”

You stared at him.

“That was not the reassuring answer you thought it was.”

“You keep forgetting to buy it.”

“So you stock it?”

“You keep eating dairy.”

“Because cheese is worth suffering for.”

“Which is why I keep Lactaid.”

The logic was maddeningly circular.

You dropped the packets back into the console and tried very hard not to think about the fact that Tim apparently planned for your potential consumption of pizza even when you weren’t around.

The gala occupied three floors of one of Gotham’s older hotels, all restored marble and enormous windows overlooking the river. Tim’s hand settled against the small of your back when you entered, warm through the fabric of your dress, and remained there as you moved through the crowd.

You reminded yourself that it was part of the cover.

That reminder became less useful when his thumb shifted gently whenever someone passed too close behind you.

Mrs. Bellamy found you within ten minutes.

She was charming, curious, and devastatingly pleased by the discovery that Tim Drake had apparently been hiding a relationship from Gotham society for four months. It made immediate sense why Tim had described her as someone who noticed everyone. She remembered you from previous Wayne events and apparently kept track of how rarely Tim brought a date with him.

“How did you finally convince him to stay at one of these things for longer than half an hour?” she asked.

You smiled. “I threatened to start telling people he made me up.”

Tim looked down at you. “You said you wouldn’t use that.”

“It was in one of the appendices.”

Mrs. Bellamy laughed, and Tim’s expression softened enough to sell the joke.

You wished your heart would stop interpreting every useful piece of undercover behavior as evidence.

A server approached with champagne. You’d barely opened your mouth before Tim shook his head politely and took a glass of sparkling water for himself.

“She doesn’t drink.”

The server nodded and moved on.

Mrs. Bellamy looked between you. “Nothing at all?”

“Not really,” you said.

“There’s a bar in the east room,” Tim added, his hand still resting at your back. “They’re doing mocktails.”

You glanced at him. “You checked?”

“The menu was included with the invitation.”

Of course it was.

Twenty minutes later, while you spoke with a Wayne Foundation donor you vaguely remembered meeting once before, Tim excused himself to speak with Bellamy. Their conversation lasted several minutes before Tim broke away and headed back toward you, stopping at the bar along the way. By the time he reached your side, he was carrying a glass that he placed into your hand without interrupting your conversation.

The drink was citrus and berry, sweet enough to be enjoyable but tart enough to keep it from becoming syrupy. You waited until the donor moved away before looking at Tim.

“You ordered for me.”

“You were busy.”

“You remembered.”

He glanced at the glass. “Of course I remembered.”

You took another sip, trying not to read too much into how easily he said it.

His attention lingered on your mouth for a moment too long.

The next hour passed in a collection of increasingly dangerous little moments. Tim guided you around a photographer without breaking conversation, noticed when you started shifting your weight because of your shoes and steered you toward a chair before you said anything, and moved a small dish containing kiwi garnish away from your place setting before you’d fully registered it was there.

When dessert arrived, Tim traded two of his strawberries for the raspberries on your plate without asking. You liked raspberries, but you hated spending the rest of the evening wondering whether there were seeds caught in your teeth, and apparently Tim had filed that away alongside everything else.

You looked at him.

He was already eating one of the raspberries as though the exchange required no explanation.

There was something deeply unfair about loving someone who could make quiet care look so automatic. You’d spent years telling yourself that Tim was simply observant. He remembered things because remembering was what his brain did. He tracked information other people let slip away, stored details, and built patterns from scraps.

Maybe none of this meant anything.

Then Mrs. Bellamy returned.

She glanced at your plate before looking toward Tim with an amused expression. “You know, I was wondering when this would happen.”

Tim paused. “What?”

“You two.”

You nearly choked on your drink.

Mrs. Bellamy seemed not to notice. “I met her at the museum benefit last year, remember? You spent half the evening making sure she wasn’t getting trapped by that dreadful man from the zoning board.”

Tim went very still beside you.

You remembered that benefit.

You hadn’t known he was watching.

Mrs. Bellamy smiled at you. “He looked ready to climb over the table every time the poor man tried to talk to you.”

“He was annoying,” Tim said.

“He was seventy.”

“That didn’t make him less annoying.”

Her laughter drew the attention of someone nearby, but you barely heard it. Mrs. Bellamy tilted her head, looking between the two of you with far too much interest.

“So what finally did it?”

Tim’s fingers tightened fractionally around his glass. “What finally did what?”

“Made you realize.”

The easy answer was sitting right there.

He could’ve referred to the fake timeline. Four months ago, dinner outside Gotham, friendship becoming something else. You’d rehearsed all of it.

Instead, Tim looked at you.

For a second, the room seemed to thin around the edges.

“There wasn’t really a moment,” he said quietly. “I think I was already there before I knew what to call it.”

Your breath caught.

Tim seemed to realize what he’d admitted at the same moment you did.

Mrs. Bellamy’s expression softened into something almost unbearably knowing, but someone called her name from the other side of the table before she could say anything else. She excused herself, leaving you and Tim sitting in a silence neither of you seemed prepared to touch.

He looked away first.

You didn’t mention it.

Neither did he.

Near the end of dinner, Tim excused himself to take what everyone else believed was a phone call. He was gone for seven minutes, long enough to clone Bellamy’s phone and just long enough for Bellamy’s security chief to start wondering where Timothy Drake had disappeared to.

You noticed the man watching shortly after Tim returned.

Tim noticed you noticing.

His posture didn’t change as he touched lightly at your elbow and guided you out of the dining room toward the quieter gallery overlooking the ballroom. You kept smiling as though this was nothing more than a boyfriend deciding he’d had enough of crowded tables.

“Problem?” you murmured.

“Maybe.”

Tim’s hand slid into yours.

Several couples stood along the gallery railing, far enough apart to provide the illusion of privacy. Bellamy’s security chief followed at enough of a distance to pretend he hadn’t.

“He doesn’t know where I went,” Tim said, leaning close enough that anyone watching would assume the conversation was private for entirely different reasons. “He saw me coming back from this wing. I need him to think I was checking whether the gallery was private enough before I brought you up here, not coming from Bellamy’s suite.”

You glanced toward the security chief without turning your head. “And how are we convincing him of that?”

Tim’s gaze dropped toward your mouth.

Understanding arrived in a rush.

“Oh.”

His expression changed immediately. “We don’t have to.”

You loved him a little more for that, which felt deeply inconvenient under the circumstances.

“You’re asking permission to kiss your fake girlfriend.”

“I’m asking permission to kiss you.”

The distinction landed somewhere beneath your ribs.

You nodded.

Tim gave you enough time to change your mind anyway before releasing your hand, cupping your jaw, and kissing you.

Everything about the first second was careful: the gentle pressure of his mouth, the way his fingers rested against your cheek without pulling you closer, the controlled angle that would look convincing from across the gallery without turning into something neither of you could take back. He clearly meant it to be brief.

Then you kissed him back.

Tim forgot the plan.

His hand shifted into your hair while the other moved around your waist, drawing you closer until your hand caught against the front of his jacket. His mouth parted against yours, and suddenly there was very little controlled about the way he kissed you except the obvious effort he was making not to lose control completely.

You’d imagined kissing Tim before.

Your imagination had been embarrassingly inadequate.

The kiss deepened for one dangerous moment before Tim seemed to remember where you were. He pulled back slowly, his forehead nearly touching yours, and neither of you was breathing quite steadily.

Footsteps moved away behind you.

Tim stared at you.

“Did it work?” you whispered.

His eyes remained fixed on your mouth. “What?”

You almost laughed. “The cover.”

“Right.”

He blinked and looked toward the entrance.

The security chief was gone.

“Yeah.”

Neither of you moved apart. Tim’s hand was still at your waist, and you were still holding his jacket when his thumb moved once against your side.

“We should go downstairs.”

“Probably.”

You stayed there another several seconds.

The rest of the mission went smoothly, which felt offensive considering the state of your nervous system.

Barbara confirmed that Tim had gotten what he needed from Bellamy’s phone, and he spent the final forty minutes of the gala behaving as though he hadn’t just kissed you hard enough to make you forget the name of the person you were supposedly helping him investigate.

Except he kept touching you.

His hand found yours more often than the cover required. When he leaned close to speak, his breath warmed your ear and sent heat down your spine. At one point, while Bellamy spoke to someone across the table, Tim rested his hand on your knee beneath the linen.

Nobody could see it.

That was the problem.

His palm was warm through your dress, fingers spread just above your knee. When your leg shifted instinctively toward him, Tim’s attention snapped to your face.

Neither of you said anything.

His hand remained there.

By the time you left, you were fairly certain pretending to date Tim Drake was actively shortening your lifespan.

When he asked if you wanted to come back to his apartment while Barbara finished processing the copied data, you agreed before good judgment could intervene. Your heels had already been abandoned for the flats waiting in his car, and by the time you followed Tim inside and dropped your shoes beside the door, the gala already felt much farther away than it actually was.

Tim loosened his tie as he followed you toward the kitchen. “Want something to eat?”

“Eventually.”

“I have pasta.”

“With cheese?”

“Obviously.”

“Do you have—”

“Second drawer.”

You opened it.

There was an unopened box of Lactaid.

Underneath it sat another.

You stared into the drawer before slowly looking back at him. “Why do you have two boxes?”

“You go through it faster than I expected.”

“So you bought more?”

“The next shipment isn’t until the end of the month.”

You stopped.

“The next what?”

Tim went suspiciously quiet.

“You have a Lactaid subscription.”

“It’s cheaper that way.”

You put the box down very carefully.

Something about tonight had finally pushed you beyond your ability to accept Tim’s explanations at face value.

There were oranges in the fruit bowl on his counter. You reached for one, and Tim held out his hand before you’d even started peeling it.

“Give it to me.”

You looked at his hand, then at him.

Slowly, you passed him the orange.

Tim started peeling it with the practiced ease of someone who’d done this for you too many times to consider it remarkable. Once the skin was gone, he began methodically stripping away the white pith.

You watched him until he finally looked up.

“What?”

“You peel oranges for me.”

“You hate doing it.”

“That isn’t an explanation.”

“It’s literally the explanation.”

“You remove all the pith.”

“You think it’s bitter.”

“You have a Lactaid subscription.”

“That’s unrelated.”

“You sent me a dress in the right size without asking for my measurements. You bought emergency flats in my size, know my tea order, moved kiwi away from me before I saw it, brought me exactly the kind of mocktail I like, and traded me your strawberries because you knew I’d want them more.”

Tim stopped peeling.

You took a breath.

“You wrote eleven pages about how to pretend to be my boyfriend, and most of your preparation was just knowing me.”

Silence settled over the kitchen.

Tim looked down at the orange in his hands, and for once, he didn’t have an immediate rebuttal.

Your heartbeat had climbed high enough that you could feel it in your throat, but you’d already started and couldn’t imagine surviving another year of pretending you didn’t see what was happening between you.

“You said you always notice me.”

His fingers tightened slightly around the peel.

“At the gala.”

“I know.”

“Was that part of the cover?”

Tim looked at you. “No.”

The answer was quiet.

You swallowed. “Was the kiss?”

His expression tightened. “It started that way.”

Something inside you tipped.

Tim set the orange down.

“I knew I liked you,” he said before you could ask another question. “That isn’t something I figured out tonight.”

You hadn’t expected honesty to knock the air out of you quite so efficiently.

“How long?”

He exhaled through his nose. “Does it matter?”

“Considering you have Lactaid delivered to your apartment because I refuse to stop eating pizza, I think I’m allowed to ask.”

A faint flush reached his face. “That started eight months ago.”

“The subscription or the feelings?”

“The subscription.”

Despite everything, you laughed.

Tim’s mouth curved briefly before the expression faded. “The feelings were before that.”

“How far before?”

He leaned back against the counter, looking suddenly more uncertain than he had while sneaking into Bellamy’s suite earlier.

“I don’t know exactly.”

That might’ve been the most convincing proof he could’ve offered. Tim knew dates and timelines; if he couldn’t identify when friendship had become love, it was because there hadn’t been a clean boundary to mark.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His eyes dropped. “Because you were already there.”

You frowned.

“In my life,” he clarified. “I already had you. Telling you meant I could lose that.”

The softness of it hurt more than anything dramatic could have.

You stepped closer, and Tim watched you carefully.

“I said yes to tonight too fast.”

“I noticed.”

“Of course you did.”

His mouth twitched.

You stopped in front of him, close enough to catch the faint trace of his cologne. “I said yes because I wanted to know what it would feel like.”

His gaze sharpened. “To what?”

“Date you.”

Tim went very still.

This time, you enjoyed being the reason.

“You could’ve told me,” he said eventually.

You stared at him. “You made an eleven-page document instead of telling me.”

“Technically, nine pages.”

“Tim.”

“The appendices were supporting material.”

You caught his loosened tie and pulled him toward you.

Tim stopped talking.

His eyes dropped to your mouth. “Can I kiss you?”

The question warmed you all over despite the fact that you were already holding him by his tie.

“There’s nobody watching.”

“I know.”

“So you don’t need to.”

“I know.”

You smiled.

Tim’s hand settled carefully at your waist.

“Then yes.”

The second kiss was nothing like the first because there was no audience to convince and no security chief to fool. Tim kissed you slowly at first, as though allowing both of you time to understand that this was real, before your fingers tightened around his tie and patience became significantly less important.

His mouth moved against yours with enough hunger to make your knees feel unreliable. You caught yourself against his shoulders, and Tim’s hands slid around your waist, drawing you against him until there wasn’t room left for the careful distance you’d maintained for years.

When you kissed him harder, a quiet sound escaped him.

That seemed to ruin what remained of his restraint.

Tim turned you until your back met the counter, one hand braced beside you while the other slipped beneath the loose fall of your hair to cup the back of your neck. His mouth moved from yours to your jaw, then lower, pressing warm kisses along your throat while you tried to remember why you’d ever thought pretending to date him for four hours was survivable.

Your fingers slid into his hair, and Tim’s breath caught against your skin.

“You’re wearing the dress I picked,” he murmured.

“You just noticed?”

“I definitely noticed.”

You laughed softly, but his mouth returned to yours before you could say anything else.

The edge of the counter pressed against your hips. When you shifted onto it, Tim stepped naturally between your knees, his hands settling at your waist as the fabric of the dress gathered slightly beneath his fingers.

The kiss became messier.

Your hands moved beneath his jacket, feeling the heat of him through his shirt, and Tim’s thigh pressed between yours when you pulled him closer. The friction sent a sharp rush through you that made your breath catch against his mouth.

Tim stilled.

You knew immediately it wasn’t because he wanted to stop; the way his forehead dropped against yours made that painfully obvious.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

His eyes closed for a moment. “You’re making it really difficult to remember I wanted to take you on an actual date before we got this far.”

A smile tugged at your mouth. “You were doing a pretty convincing impression for four months.”

“I know. I’d like one that isn’t in an eleven-page document.”

You kissed him again, softer this time. Tim followed when you drew back, stealing another brief kiss before resting his forehead against yours.

There was something unexpectedly tender about the quiet that followed. His tie hung loose between you, your lipstick was definitely ruined, and his hair had stopped resembling anything appropriate for a gala several kisses ago. The skin along your throat still tingled from his mouth.

Still, Tim looked happier than you’d seen him all night.

His phone buzzed on the counter.

Neither of you moved.

It buzzed again.

“Barbara?” you asked.

“Probably.”

“You should check.”

“I’m considering becoming irresponsible.”

You smiled. “Dangerous.”

“Very.”

Eventually, Tim reached for his phone without moving away from you.

Barbara had finished processing the data. Bellamy’s connection was confirmed, everything necessary had been forwarded to the appropriate people, and Tim was officially done working for the night.

He put the phone facedown.

You glanced toward the forgotten orange. “Are you going to finish peeling that?”

Tim looked at it, then at you. “Yes.”

He stepped back just far enough to retrieve it, finished peeling the orange, and separated it into segments before handing you one.

You took it. “You know this is boyfriend behavior.”

“I’m starting to understand that.”

“You have a subscription.”

“I’ll give you that one.”

“And the dress?”

His gaze traveled over you again.

This time, he didn’t pretend otherwise.

“I’m keeping my defense on the dress.”

“Which is?”

“I picked it because I knew you’d look beautiful in it.”

Heat crept into your face.

Tim looked pleased with himself for approximately three seconds before reaching for his phone again.

You narrowed your eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s your lying voice.”

“I don’t have a lying voice.”

“You absolutely have a lying voice.”

You leaned closer.

An Italian restaurant was open on his screen.

Of course it was.

“Tim.”

“What?”

“We’ve been dating for real for less than an hour.”

He glanced at the clock. “Forty-three minutes.”

You laughed hard enough that you nearly dropped your orange.

Tim smiled and reached for another segment, peeling away a final stubborn thread of pith before holding it out to you.

“So,” he said, “Tuesday?”

You ate the orange from his fingers. “Only if there’s pizza.”

“There can be pizza.”

“You’re supplying the Lactaid.”

“I think we’ve established that.”

You looked at the man who had spent years memorizing your preferences, stocking his apartment for you, peeling your oranges, keeping your favorite tea in his kitchen, and somehow convincing himself all of it belonged safely beneath the heading of friendship.

Then you caught his tie again.

“Fine.”

Tim leaned into you before you’d even finished pulling him closer.

“But the date doesn’t need a briefing document.”

Tim opened his mouth.

You kissed him until he stopped arguing.

credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider ❤️💛

taglist: @twentytomidnight, @ferbiederbie, @lackofsins, @rain-the-ramblr, @dutifullyshamelesstrash, @the-ancient-grimm, @fwrdsl4sh, @eighthwondrting, @sillygayfreak, @megumidefender89, @selina0226, @hotchhner