The smile that blooms on Hannah’s face is small but mesmerizing.

“Okay,” she repeats again.

***

The most insane thing to Caroline is that their lives really don’t change all that much in the following couple of weeks, even though Caroline feels like everything is different.

Hannah Dalton wants her. Hannah is attracted to her, yes, but also… wants her. Hannah has felt the moments that Caroline has been feeling for months and she hasn’t been alone in this. The entire world is different with that knowledge.

And yet, it’s not.

She goes to work every day and she picks up Abbie from school several times a week. Hannah works at the café and continues her classes. There’s a routine they’ve built that Hannah is terrified of changing and Caroline doesn’t really want it to change, either, necessarily.

She likes this life.

The changes she does experience are these:

The desire she has to kiss Hannah every damn time she sees her is sharper and stronger. Especially now that Hannah gives her a look every time she sees Caroline.

She notices the way Hannah watches her mouth when she speaks. She catches gray eyes lingering on her when she’s leaving a room, Hannah looking hastily away because she’d been checking her out.

The craziest thing for Caroline to realize one night, is that maybe Hannah has always looked at her like that and Caroline just hasn’t seen it for what it is. Abbie is laying on her pillow nest on the floor, her attention held rapt by the Masterchef episode they’re watching, while she and Hannah are on the couch.

Caroline’s body is on high alert, as it always is when they’re so close. Hannah’s warmth just barely touching her, because Hannah – who has always been very free with her touch – is very mindful about it now.

She nearly jumps when she feels Hannah’s hand land on her thigh. It’s a tentative touch and Caroline sucks in a breath as her heart pounds. She turns to look at Hannah, who is watching her rather than the show.

Her fingers stroke over Caroline’s leggings and don’t stop moving when Caroline can’t control the way her breathing hitches. It’s nothing inappropriate, not really, but with the way heat settles between Caroline’s thighs, Hannah might as well be kissing and sucking at the sensitive spots on Caroline’s neck.

God, she wishes.

Mostly, though, she sees the look in Hannah’s eyes, a stormy gray, before she gives Caroline a small smile and turns to keep watching the TV.

Caroline spends the entire rest of the episode growing progressively more turned on while thinking back on all of the times Hannah has done this in the last few months. How long has it been something more for her than a friendly touch?

Her hand doesn’t stop moving.

***