semperama:

Puzzled

“Uhh, Zach?”

Zach snatches for the phone, but Chris is too fast, jerking away from him and skittering backward out of reach.

“Dude,” Zach gasps, prematurely mortified. “When someone hands you their phone to look at a picture, you do not swipe left or right. That’s common fucking courtesy!”

Chris ignores him. And his thumb is still moving, Zach’s phone held way too close to his wide eyes. There is an attractive little furrow between his brows, and his mouth is turned down at the corners. “Oh, Jesus. You still have…you still have—”

This time, when Zach grabs for the phone, he’s successful. But Chris doesn’t even drop his hand, just stands there staring at thin air like he’s trying to do intricate math problems in his head. Zach is afraid to even ask. He just chews on his lip and waits for whatever Chris is going to say next.

“You still have the pictures I sent you. From when we were…”

Zach doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t trust himself to. Chris is still wearing his long-division face, so he is probably going to get there himself eventually.

“You were so pissed when we…when I said we should stop…” Chris’s hand falls back to his side with a slap. “I would have thought you’d delete…”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t.” Zach juts his chin defiantly, even though he isn’t feeling that defiant. He feels like his insides have turned into hummingbirds.

He can actually see the moment Chris figures it out, the way the bewilderment melts off his face and his expression becomes terrifyingly unreadable. “You’re not over me.”

It isn’t a question, but Zach can’t help but answer, like Chris is reaching down his throat and dragging the words out himself.

“Of course I’m not,” he says.

“Of course you’re—” Chris eyes widen again. He shakes his head. “Of course you’re not?”

Zach makes a vague gesture in Chris’s direction—an all-encompassing gesture that does absolutely nothing to explain how impossible it would be to even think about getting over him. When Chris broke things off, Zach hadn’t even bothered attempting to move on. He moved, sure. He lived his life. But he didn’t move on.

Chris breaks through his pit party with a dramatic sigh. “Well. I’m glad I’m a much better photographer now.”

It’s Zach’s turn to be puzzled. He searches Chris’s face, notes the slight crinkle at the corners of his eyes, the way his lips are pursed like he’s fighting a smile. The hummingbirds turn into albatrosses. “Why’s that?”

“Because those pictures were horrible,” Chris says as he steps in close. “The lighting, the framing. All wrong. So wrong.”

“And this time around you’ll do a better job?” Zach asks breathlessly, his hands settling automatically on Chris’s waist.

When Chris speaks, their lips brush. “You betcha.”