It starts with you.

You close the distance because she won't, she never does, she'll wait forever with those steady dark eyes and let you come to her and you always do. You always will. You've stopped pretending that bothers you.

So you kiss her.

And she kisses back immediately, warmly, her hand finding your face the way it always does, and for a moment it's just that. Just you and the soft certainty of her.

Then she shifts.

Her hand moves from your face to the back of your neck and suddenly she's the one leading it, slow and deliberate, and you feel the swap happen like a change in weather. One moment you were holding something and the next it was holding you.

You let her.

You always let her, eventually. That's the thing nobody sees. Everyone thinks she's the quiet one, the careful one, the one who waits. And she is. Right up until she isn't.

Her thumb traces slow along your jaw and you forget entirely what you were doing before this.

Then you pull back just enough.

Just a breath. Just to look at her.

She looks back. Eyes dark and soft and completely certain. That expression she saves for you, the unguarded one, the one that means she's not performing anything.

"Hi," you say.

"Hi," she says back.

And then you're kissing her again and this time neither of you is leading it's just both of you, equally, which is the best version, which is always the version you end up at.