I like shiny things, but I'd marry you with paper rings
For just a second, Flora nearly forgets to throw the snowball. It isn’t fair, really, that Kaisel comes sliding into the kitchen looking like that, all loose shorts and bare legs and a dark violet tank top that has given up on modesty in several important places. He looks ridiculous, yes, especially with the towel slung around his shoulders and his socks carrying him too fast over the tile, but he also looks so warm and alive and hers that Flora’s grin catches somewhere softer before it sharpens again.
Then the snowball leaves her hand, and it smacks him full in the face with a wet, icy splat, and whatever tender little thought had begun to bloom in her chest is instantly drowned beneath her delighted cackle. Flora claps a hand over her mouth, but it does nothing to stop the sound of her laughter as slush slides down his face and disappears beneath the collar of his shirt, leaving him sputtering and folding forward while Spice trills triumphantly from the counter.
"Gotcha," Flora gasps and then squeals in response to this threat, already scrambling backward around the counter with her bare feet skidding against the tile and her curls bouncing wildly beneath her hat before pointing toward the floor as she continues to back away, her grin still bright enough to count as a hazard all on its own. "Careful!"
Spice, entirely unburdened by guilt, trills from the counter like a tiny accomplice accepting applause as she exhales another stream of frost, having covered the kitchen floor in a wide sheet of ice across the tiles. Flora steps onto it with the confidence of someone who has decided that momentum is the same thing as control. Her bare feet slide immediately, longjohns and tight waffle-knit shirt twisting with her as she throws her arms out for balance, but instead of stopping she lets herself go, laughing hard enough that the sound echoes off the cabinets while she skims across the ice in a reckless, triumphant glide.
Then the snowball leaves her hand, and it smacks him full in the face with a wet, icy splat, and whatever tender little thought had begun to bloom in her chest is instantly drowned beneath her delighted cackle. Flora claps a hand over her mouth, but it does nothing to stop the sound of her laughter as slush slides down his face and disappears beneath the collar of his shirt, leaving him sputtering and folding forward while Spice trills triumphantly from the counter.
"Gotcha," Flora gasps and then squeals in response to this threat, already scrambling backward around the counter with her bare feet skidding against the tile and her curls bouncing wildly beneath her hat before pointing toward the floor as she continues to back away, her grin still bright enough to count as a hazard all on its own. "Careful!"
Spice, entirely unburdened by guilt, trills from the counter like a tiny accomplice accepting applause as she exhales another stream of frost, having covered the kitchen floor in a wide sheet of ice across the tiles. Flora steps onto it with the confidence of someone who has decided that momentum is the same thing as control. Her bare feet slide immediately, longjohns and tight waffle-knit shirt twisting with her as she throws her arms out for balance, but instead of stopping she lets herself go, laughing hard enough that the sound echoes off the cabinets while she skims across the ice in a reckless, triumphant glide.
and I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this
