Warmth bloomed from her chest, where her acorn hung. His back rose and fell slowly with his breaths. That same crease was between his eyebrows, the one that never quite seemed to leave, a mark of the weight he balanced on his shoulders. She lifted her hand, but hesitated and bit her bottom lip. She wanted to feel the softness of his hair, to touch the warmth of his skin. Peter looked how summer felt.

“You have no idea how amazing this feels,” Peter mumbled into his shoulder. His eyes opened and the sudden closeness of those astonishing eyes made her spring back.

Tripping over her own feet, Wendy struggled for a moment before popping back upright. “What?” she breathed, her hand hurriedly running through her damp hair.

Peter pushed himself onto his elbow. For a moment, he lay there, looking up at her with a curious tilt of his head. “Your bed,” he finally clarified, a small shadow of a smile on his lips.

“Oh, yeah, it’s the mattress pad.” Wendy’s rushed words tumbled out of her mouth. She cleared her throat and took a step back. “You can sleep on the bed, if you want,” she offered suddenly. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

Waving her off, Peter slid to the edge of the mattress. Wendy took two more steps away.

“No way, you sleep in your own bed,” he told her. He went to the floor and sprawled out on the sleeping bag. “That wouldn’t be very gallant of me,” he pointed out, arching his back and gripping at air as he stretched.

Wendy plucked a pillow from her bed and tossed it at him. “Since when are you gallant?” Wendy asked.

Peter caught it easily. “Your words wound me, Wendy Darling,” he said with a smirk before tucking the pillow behind his head and flopping onto his back.

Wendy laughed—a nervous, shaky thing. Gathering up the remaining food, she moved it onto the bedside table.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Peter asked, peeking at her from the other side of the bed.

“I already scarfed down half the chow mein,” she told him. But she did reach out for the orange and peeled it as he devoured the Chinese food. She split it in two and tossed Peter one half, which he easily caught out of the air. Wendy ate the slices and reveled in the sweet, cool juices of the orange.

When she was finished, Wendy crawled into her bed and curled up in a ball on her side, close enough to the edge that she could still see Peter. Her bed smelled like him: grass, honeysuckle, and earth woven into the soft threads of her pillow. She breathed it in. She breathed it out.

Peter tucked his hands behind his head, the motion pulling up the hem of his ill-fitting shirt. He heaved a deep sigh as he closed his eyes.

“Peter?” Wendy said quietly.