In the Language of the Flowers

| 26 |

✾ Cattelya Orchid ✾

We lingered outside the door. Ren spun his keychain around his pointer finger in silence, his other hand tucked deep into his pocket. He gave me a sideways glance, but didn't say anything.

"Why are we standing here?" I asked him, staring at the entrance to our apartment.

He shrugged, still spinning his keys.

I frowned, briefly turning to him expecting words to come out of my mouth and then realizing I had nothing to say. I turned back towards to the door, defeated.

"You can unlock it, too," he pointed out quietly. "Just saying."

I took a deep breath. "Yeah," I said, nodding. I held my own wrist, rubbing my thumb against my skin until it felt a little raw.

"I..." Ren started.

I looked over at him. He suddenly stopped the spinning. He bit his lip and looked at me, squinting like he was trying to figure out the square root of a banana. "I have no idea why, but I can't open the door."

I snorted a little. "Me, neither. I didn't even get to the pulling-my-keys-out stage."

Ren stared at the keys in his palm, nodding. "Yeah, I got that far, at least."

"Why is this weird?" I asked, taking a step closer to the door.

"I don't know?" Ren said, clearly still confused. "But I'm thinking about what's on the other side of the door and I just..." He looked frustrated. Shook his head.

"I think I'm scared we'll revert," I said suddenly. I blew air into my cheeks so that I looked like an embarrassed pufferfish.

Ren laughed. I held the pufferfish as my cheeks heated up. "Revert?" he asked, raising one eyebrow. His eyes did that little squinty thing they did when he smiled.

I nodded, still contentedly a pufferfish.

Ren smiled a beautiful, slightly sideways smirk of a smile. He reached up and poked my cheek, deflating my self-defense mechanism. "You're adorable," he said.

My cheeks got hotter. He'd never called me adorable before. "No, I'm-"

"Adorable," he said, nodding. Ah. Again. If he kept it up, I'd dissolve into a puddle of happiness. He sucked in a determined breath. "Ok." He reached for the door, key in hand.

My eyes went wide and I launched my body in front of him. "Wait. Wait," I said.

He looked amused. "You're stopping me from entering my own apartment now, Copper?"

My heart tripped over itself a little when he said my nickname, but it sorted itself out soon after. I shook my head. "I'm scared."

Ren's expression softened. I felt his kindness wrap around me like an embrace. He understood. "Yeah," he said, reaching up and holding my face. I leaned into his touch. "Me, too. You know that."

"Let's go get food or something," I said.

He shook his head. "We've gotta go in sometime. We live here."

"Can't we just stay where we are now?" I asked.

Ren reached up and tugged on one of my curls, grinning as it bounced. "You really think things could ever go back to what they were?"

I hesitated. "Yeah. Maybe."

Ren shook his head. "I'm crazy about you."

"You are?" I asked.