“So what did you do for four days?” Grace asked from where she was under the shower.

She was loving it, and had actually giggled with delight when she saw it. The bathroom was actually becoming really pretty now with the perpetual waterfall of the shower and all the flowers lighting the place. I couldn’t see Grace under the shower though, I was sitting with my back to the wall next to the doorway into the bathroom. Yet another room that needed a real door.

Thinking for a moment on her question, I went over everything I’d done and found that I couldn’t honestly remember much with how damn tired I was right then. “I made a door,” I blurted, trying to buy myself time to think. “A really big one.”

“A big door,” she laughed. “Is that for the front?”

“Yes!” I nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. I was honestly a little addled right now, exhausted both from too little sleep and too much activity. “I also, um… I made some, uh… some things. Some thing things. Fuck, words… uhhhh. The things with the magic and the plants and stuff!” I said, my brain shorting out as I forgot the word spells.

“Spells?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes!” I exclaimed again. “That thing. I made lots of little ones for everyday stuff.”

“Riiiight,” she giggled, then I heard her give a gasp. “Damn! My legs are hot!”

“I want to seeeee,” I whined, too quietly for her to hear.

“Wow, my body has changed quite a bit!” she said with a disbelieving laugh. “This is great, my thighs are so meaty now!”

My breath caught as my imagination ran wild, briefly wondering what it would be like to get my hands on said thighs. Then the idea of getting my face between them shorted my mind out entirely. I swear there must have been sparks flying.

“Uh huh?” I asked, because that was all I could manage to get out.

“Yeah, I think I’ve gained like almost an inch in diameter on these things,” she told me, oblivious to my plight. “I’ve always wanted thicker thighs.”

“I like… uh, I mean, that’s great!” I called, desperately thankful that she couldn’t see my overheating cheeks.

The splashing stopped for a few seconds, leaving me wondering what was going on. Then Grace’s head poked around the corner, looking down at me with concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked, eyes searching mine. “Did the flower not do its job properly? You look flushed and stuff.”

I wasn’t sure that my blush could get any worse, but apparently I was very wrong. I sat there without words for several seconds as Grace stared down at me with growing worry. She also appeared to be naked apart from the towel she had wrapped loosely around herself, and that wasn’t helping either.

“I’m okay,” I finally managed to squeak, breaking our awkward eye contact.

“You sure don’t look okay,” she said, her voice carrying a great big helping of disbelief.

“You’re just hot, okay?” I blurted desperately. “No magic involved! You were talking about your thighs and then my imagination kind of took that and ran with it! I’m just… I’m just… I’m just regular horny, alright?”

I hid my face in my hands as the weight of raw, heavy embarrassment crashed down on top of me. Holy moly this was something else, I had never felt so embarrassed before in my life. Not even after that time in my senior year of high school when I’d come to school with a mud stain on my butt. Everyone had thought it was something else and the teasing lasted for weeks.

“My thighs?” she asked, words to fill the silence as she processed what I’d said. “Oh! Right! That’s… I’m sorry. I’ll just go finish up real quick then…” she said, stumbling over her words and then disappearing back into the bathroom.

We didn’t speak as she finished off her shower, but I could hear every sound coming out of that room. What was wrong with me all of a sudden? It was like all the previous progress we’d made towards… something, had been wiped clean. I felt so awkward around her all of a sudden. Was it the fact that there was nothing between us now? No more excuses, no more reasons to stay apart. Just us.

“Hey, I’m finished,” Grace murmured, coming out of the bathroom in her sleeping clothes. Sleeping clothes that consisted of underwear and a T-shirt, leaving the aforementioned thighs on full display. Oh my goodness they were wonderful. I wanted to cuddle them, I wanted to rub my cheek on them, and… I kinda wanted to nibble them a little too.

Slowly, my eyes travelled up the length of her as she stood over me, and I savoured every glorious, wonderful inch. Golly gosh darn damn wow.

“Well, that wasn’t subtle at all,” she laughed, although her face had gone bright red. Good, she could be embarrassed too, take some of the heat off me as it were.

Taking a deep breath, I stood up, finding that she still had a few inches on me. She’d gotten taller in the flower, if only by a little. Time to be brave Ryn. I looked her directly in those beautiful, expressive green eyes of hers and said, “It wasn’t really meant to be subtle.”

“Oh,” she breathed, her mouth hanging open just slightly.

We held that charged, electrified eye contact for several long seconds before she finally looked away. Her eyes travelled down to the floor, then out to the stairs, then back to me for a second, all while biting her lip. She was being downright bashful, which was a little out of character for her. I’d always thought that she had at least more confidence in this area than me, but maybe my inexperience was a boon here? Either that or I was just way too tired to have a filter anymore.

“Bed?” she finally asked, giving me a hopeful smile.

“Yes please,” I nodded, and promptly swayed where I stood. Oh yup, it was definitely the exhaustion.

“Come on,” she smiled, more confidently this time even if her cheeks were still very rosy. “You’ve been great, it’s time you were able to rest. I’ll look after you now.”

I gratefully let her take me up to bed, although she initially made for the wrong room, and we had to figure out which one the buns had moved everything to. It turned out to be the one next door, but before we went in, we saw all the buns dutifully cleaning up the previous room… by eating all the foliage. That was one way to do it I guess.

Grace grabbed our blankets from where they had been plopped on the floor and then gently helped me into bed. I was growing rapidly more and more exhausted as the minutes went by, leading to my leaning on her for support. I don’t think either of us minded the extra physical contact there.

I hadn’t actually been wearing pants since I was woken up, so I didn’t really have to do anything except lay down. Grace fussed around with her pack for a bit though, then looked up with a frown. “Some of my stuff is gone.”

I gave a tired lying down nod, “The storm sucked some of it out the window. We’ll have to go outside and find whatever we can once it’s over.”

“Ah shit, right,” she said, placing everything back in her pack.

Once she’d stowed everything away again, she walked over to the couch-bed and looked down at me where I’d already burrowed under my blanket. She raised an amused eyebrow at me and placed a hand on her perfect hip.

“What?” I grumbled. “It’s cold.”

Her amusement was transferred to her whole expression as she moved to the bed. “It’s just cute, that’s all,” she smiled, clambering over the outside edge to get in with me.

I blinked. “Cute?”

“Uh huh,” she smiled, laying down next to me with a languid stretch, before pulling her own blanket over herself. Gosh, what a stretch. Was I dehydrated? Smile turning to a frown, she looked down at it the blanket, the one that I’d been using this past four days. “This smells like you.”

“I missed you,” I mumbled defensively, hiding all but my eyes behind the blanket.

“Awh,” she cooed, her expression going soft and thoughtful before she quietly exclaimed, “Fuck it. Come here.”

She opened her blanket and her arms, and I’ve never wriggled across a bed fast enough. Not that I’ve ever like, recorded by bed wiggling, but yeah, it was fast. I cuddled close into her arms as they closed around me, head coming to rest on her bicep. The sense of comfort was almost instantaneous and I all but melted right there and then. This was where I belonged. Safe in Grace’s arms.

I was well on my way to sleep in a matter of moments, but Grace had one final thing to say before I was out.

“I’m falling for you too, by the way. I didn’t reply when you told me back before I went in the flower,” she murmured gently, her arms squeezing a little tighter around me.

My heart gave a stutter step for a second and I froze in place, sleep receding for the moment. She really was? I mean, it had been kind of implied, but now she'd explicitly stated it! She was falling in love with me! Grace was… oh my goodness. I was crying again, my exhausted brain once again failing to contain the upwelling of emotions within me.

I made a sort of bubbly little noise and shifted to kiss the soft skin of her collarbone. I had no words, no thoughts, just an overwhelming happiness exploding out from my heart in every direction. I wasn't falling for her anymore, I had fallen for her. I loved her, I loved her so much.

I didn't have the guts to tell her that yet though, so I just snuggled in against her and cried. It felt nice to cry, the tears of joy trailing down my cheeks were the physical manifestation of my affection for her after all.

She returned my kisses to the top of my head with a breathless giggle, her nose burrowing into my magenta hair. "I'm guessing this is a good reaction?"

"Yes!" I blurted, pushing back to beam at her, before I lunged forward.

My lips landed a little off to the side, messy and insistent before she corrected for me. Then we were kissing, soft and wild and happy, each gentle brush of our lips sending fresh waves of love and joy twirling and dancing through me. Unfortunately, with each spike of happiness, it became harder and harder to kiss her because I was grinning so damned much.

I parted from her with a giddy laugh. "I'm sorry! I can't stop smiling!"

"I don't want you to stop," she said with a grin of her own, coming in to try and kiss me again, only for our teeth to bump together because of our goofy expressions. Now my teeth ached, but I couldn’t care less, I was in love!

"Ow!" I giggled, placing my cheek to hers instead. It was like a kiss, but with cheeks! Soft, warm cheeks. Goodness, the way our skin felt pressed together like that was heavenly.

"Sorry," she laughed, hugging me tight again. "I'm actually not super amazing at the whole kissing thing.”

Yeah, that was total bullshit. I still remembered the first kiss we’d had, fuelled by raw passion and affection. This time had just been a little funny because both of us were so silly giddy delighted.

"I liked it," I sighed happily, burrowing into her shoulder with my face. "I want to smile kiss you all night."

“In the morning,” she said warmly. “We really need to sleep now.”

As if to punctuate her words, a yawn burst free from me, getting a chuckle from… my lover? My girlfriend?

“Okay,” I agreed, because evidently I was really fucking tired, even if I was also stupidly happy. Questions of relationship status labels, other than kissing and cuddle buddies who had feelings for each other, could wait.

Making a wordless hum of contentment, Grace shifted us both around until she was comfortable, then waited as I did the same. Comfortable for both of us appeared to be her laying on her back while I cuddled up to her side, our legs intertwined and my head on her arm. It felt perfect, and without so much as a goodnight our breathing slowed and settled down into sleep.