"Do you like Sam?"

"What? Tony, no."

"Because, if you like him, I can put in a good word--"

Cleo slaps his shoulder in that delicate way she does everything else, "you play way too much."

Tony smirked at her, "I'm so serious though."

They looked at each other for a while, brown eyes covering each other’s like the familiar pavement on the sidewalk they treaded. He kept smiling. And she couldn't look away from him.

"What," she asked, face fanning into a smile, "why you lookin at me?"

He took the leap, "because you're beautiful."

She tried not to trip, halting in her once comfortable, languid pace, "what?"

He turned to face her, in that confident, cool way he did everything. She watched him, and wanted to ask if he rehearsed this. He wouldn't admit it, but he had, "you are beautiful. It took me forever to see it, but now I do", he tucked her braid behind her ear, "and now you're all I see".

She bowed her head, and he picked her chin right back up, moving in closer to her. "You are beautiful." She couldn't look away now; his eyes held her right in place. "I think I love you, Cleo. And it's scary, because I don't really know how to love anything. But you are too...I don't know", the breath from his laugh fanned her face and she welcomed the warmth, "I woke up one morning, and realized how beautiful you are…how wonderful you are. It was all I thought about. Now I can’t stop thinkin’ about it. I don't know when shit changed, but it did", they laughed; it’s funny when he swears. "And now I can't keep being around you--and just being your friend."

"Tee, I--", now what was she supposed to say? Had she considered them? Why wouldn't she? He's beautiful and has always been a good guy to her. Everything in her head is giving her an excuse for why she should put a stop to this, why the laundry list of consequences is far longer than the one of benefits. But her heart is still, confident, and sure; like him.

So, she'll tell him the truth,

"Tony…I love you too--"

Every muscle in his body relaxes. He’s so real in this moment; his happiness is pure, his smile is genuine, and his trained to be controlled hands fall from her face to her waist, closing the gap between them.

“You love me?” His voice is husky, and his eyes are tying themselves around hers.

“Are you enjoying this?” Her smile is coy; she tries to not fall apart in front of him. She doesn’t really understand why.

From the look of it, neither does he, “not as much as this.”

The kiss is anticipated, even then, she still felt unprepared. Her knees shake and her body immediately reacts in a way she hadn’t understood it could. She braces her hands against his biceps and lets herself smile into his mouth as they kiss. A flush washes over her and they are both eager to explore this new territory of knowing one another. It makes it better that he trusts her, and she him.

She can feel it; his arms hold her together, from falling apart, and kisses her so thoroughly, as if to attach some physicality his declaration. He doesn’t control himself, but he puts in 50% and allows her to fill the other half. He’s showing her how different he’s willing to be with her versus the others, how, this is different. He’s not living this moment like he’s lived it before, but experiencing this anew like she is. They’re a blank canvas, free of all the dirt and debris of his past. They just are.

He can feel it. She’s always so tense, so he knows that this is real by the way she relaxes, and carelessly wraps her arms around his shoulders, giving herself over completely to their first kiss. She trusts him, which tells him a lot about where this will go. This kiss is only Cleo; her softness, her gentle nature, even her promise of keeping him in the way that her body greedily takes up any space left between. This is everything he needs, and more importantly, more uniquely, everything she needs, too.

They break, for a moment, to breath. Both of their hearts a skittish and their chests heave, but they don’t let go of each other. Neither do their eyes, brown still covering brown, overlapping like spent lovers.

He hopes they’ll get there. All he wants is to get closer to her.

She thinks the same.

Neither say a word.

They don't have to.

“I enjoyed that”, she intertwined their fingers, body closing into his. He grinned, leading them to continue down the street, “I had no doubt you would, I mean”, he gestures to himself.

She laughs, slapping his arm, and kissing him again.

And here they go; down familiar pavement, taking new steps forward. This is a journey and a battle that they enter willingly. Because he’s in love with her. And she’s never going to stop loving him.

So is the essence of love in its prime.

Like Cleo and Tony.

He hated the cold. His skin was paper thin and so susceptible to frostbite; normal people got numb when the weather was freezing. “His lack of pigment” as she’d so softly explained, made his already rattled state red and blotchy; he could never hide it.

He sometimes hated that she’d call him out on it, but then again, she could. Her blackness was deep, like night. And more prominent when she didn’t wear makeup, which he found himself liking a lot more than the bright undertones of glitter above her dark brown eyes.

He used to feel awkward; because their surface differences were so apparent that it would sometimes distract them from all that they had in common. Because no one was as impressed with the zombie phenomena as he was, except maybe her. And he really enjoyed Silence of the Lambs; being a pre-law student, he could only dream of being apart of an experience as insane as that. But she was a criminal justice and psychology major, so she understood better than he did what that felt like. That’s how they’d met after all; he had to take a theory class that she was excelling in. He never knew what number two felt like, so he silently loathed her. It all came to a head during a final group project when they got into an all out screaming match about a theory they both ended up being wrong about. They’d embarrassed themselves, and, oddly enough, found themselves in the same place for solace.She asked if they could start over. He thought she was beautiful, and that it wouldn’t hurt.

That was almost two years ago. Now, he can’t stop arguing with her; because he never wants to stop hearing her voice. He always has something to say, because it impresses him that this bubbly woman always has something to say, too. And they both love Maxwell. And they both can’t stand beaches but go anyways. And they pretend to hate compromise, because that’s more fun for the both of them. And he’s found ways to come first even when she’s on top. He’d definitely learned the art of push and pull with Mona Watson.

“I really want to see the aquatic animals, D”, she clasped her gloved hands together. He stopped the incessant rubbing of his to hold hers, and grimaced.

“I really want to go home.”

She wanted to celebrate their first official Christmas “together” with Zoo Lights. She really loved animals, but he was a cynic, and didn’t appreciate the cages. He told her he’d take her on a safari after they graduated. But she still wanted to go to the zoo; even if she hated the cages, because she still loved the animals. They made this thing official after a lot of long nights and early mornings and small smiles over coffee cups and long glances from across the room. They’d been playing; he knew it, and so did she. Because it hadn’t been casual, but they weren’t labeling it, either. His friends had been calling him out on it since the first time he came home at 10am from a movie date, but what lit fire under him was Andre’s observation that if he didn’t make it official, someone else may. But Dimitri didn’t want to stake claim over her, like she as a thing and not a person. However, he found himself at war about this lack of clarity regarding their exclusivity, because really, in retrospect, he didn’t want her to be with anybody else, but he also didn’t want her to feel like she wasn’t free. Oddly enough, he was realizing that he wouldn’t mind being completely hers.

She’d surprised him, after, when she came to his house telling him all that he’d already thought. But she was more of a realist than he was, which was evident in her giving him a choice; what she didn’t understand was that he didn’t want it. He’d already made his decision.

“You are such a party-pooper”, she turned a displeased scowl on him, and he sighed.

“No, woman, I am cold”, he complained, getting closer to her. She didn’t move away. She wasn’t mad; yet. He was pushing it.

“If you would have just worn the gloves my niece bought you--”

“You’re never letting that go, are you--”

“No”. she turned on him again. A sick part of him loved getting her riled up, “because now you’re spoiling my fun acting like a child.”

He feigned indignance, because she was right, but he wouldn’t take the L, “Me? I’m acting like a child? We’re at zoo, B”.

Her jaw fell slightly; he’d aggravated the shit out of her. Her glossed lip protruded a little, and she was about to say something to really get this party started when suddenly, her face began to change. Her round cheeks rose, and her lips pressed together and widened into a smile. And then she was laughing.

He went from grimace to confuse in an instant, a change that was far less graceful than hers. “What are you laughing at?” He turned to his side, and jumped a little. He’d been pressed against the glass of the aquatic section, and, standing and looking out at the gathering crowd was a large, grumpy, grimacing penguin.

She was out right cackling now, “you look just like that penguin.”

He was sure he was turning red again, but this time, not from the cold. A few others were laughing too. And then he noticed the flashes.

He deflated, sighing and looking down. “Okay”, he put his hands up in defeat, reaching into his pea-coat pocket and pulling out the aforementioned gloves, sheathing his hands as she regained composure. “I deserved that”, he closed back in on her, because space was obsolete when she was in a good mood.

“Yeah you did”, she hits his chest before placing both hands in the folds of his scarf and coat. For a moment that was uncharacteristic to them, they were silent. They just looked at eachother.

For a minute, he was sure she heard his “I’m sorry”. And he was almost certain that he heard her say “It’s okay”.

“I love you”.

The words are out of his mouth before he can say otherwise.

They’d promise each other that those words were off limits unless they absolutely, no holds bars, meant it. Because they both had trust issues, and people were always seeming to say that and not really mean that, evident in them often being left behind.

But he couldn’t help but think, even as her eyes ballooned and her shoulders fell a little in her hold, that he meant it. He loved her. Everything about her. He loved her, from her hair follicle to her toe nails, she reflected of him in every sense that he could think of, even if it wasn’t physical. And he loved her; all of her passion and weakness and blackness and ferveur. He loved her, because her laugh made his heart beat irregular. He loved her, and he knew it, because every plan he made considered her even before he was aware of it. He loved her, and there was nothing anyone could do, not even her, to change that.

“Dimitri”, her voice warned, and her eyes filled, “what?”

“I love you”, he said with conviction. “I love you”. He closed the gap between them, holding her close despite the layers of clothing and anxiety and fear. “I love you”, he kissed her nose; his eyes closed and he was sure her’s did not. She was watching him; for sincerity.

He smiled, because he couldn’t help it, “I love you.”

One tear escaped. He caught it. But this, he almost didn’t.

“I love you too.”