The fact that he wasn't used to people flirting with him honestly just made her want to do it even more. Play a sort of game: Does Steve realize he's being flirted with? Not maliciously, of course, but because there was the potential for some actual purpose behind her flirting.
Hearing him dance around his secrets and try to spin a coherent story honestly made her heart ache for him. He seemed to be trying so hard to share things with her, but none of it was easy when he didn't know that she knew. If they weren't surrounded by a room full of people, she might have confessed it to him right then and there, but now just wasn't the right time.
She could share something of herself with him, though. Her own danced around secret. "When I was younger, fresh out of high school, I was in a place, emotionally and physically, where I didn't believe when someone expressed any sort of romantic interest in me," she confided quietly, watching Steve with something akin to cautious hesitation in her expression. "I was so worn down by guys flirting with me and then finding out more about me and running away so fast it was like their heels were on fire. Or they'd stay interested for a little while, but eventually decide I was more trouble than I was worth. It took my husband years to convince me that he was really serious."
She forced a smile then, but her laugh was genuine, even if the humor behind it was a little self-deprecating. "So you don't notice when there's flirting and I end up thinking people aren't sincere or are just gonna run scared. Aren't we a pair?"
[I'm definitely not done processing it yet, and it's been two weeks. Very glad that Steve didn't die, I was so worried about it, and I just want to see what happens next. Not a year or two later, right after. Because poor Steve.]
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Hearing him dance around his secrets and try to spin a coherent story honestly made her heart ache for him. He seemed to be trying so hard to share things with her, but none of it was easy when he didn't know that she knew. If they weren't surrounded by a room full of people, she might have confessed it to him right then and there, but now just wasn't the right time.
She could share something of herself with him, though. Her own danced around secret. "When I was younger, fresh out of high school, I was in a place, emotionally and physically, where I didn't believe when someone expressed any sort of romantic interest in me," she confided quietly, watching Steve with something akin to cautious hesitation in her expression. "I was so worn down by guys flirting with me and then finding out more about me and running away so fast it was like their heels were on fire. Or they'd stay interested for a little while, but eventually decide I was more trouble than I was worth. It took my husband years to convince me that he was really serious."
She forced a smile then, but her laugh was genuine, even if the humor behind it was a little self-deprecating. "So you don't notice when there's flirting and I end up thinking people aren't sincere or are just gonna run scared. Aren't we a pair?"
[I'm definitely not done processing it yet, and it's been two weeks. Very glad that Steve didn't die, I was so worried about it, and I just want to see what happens next. Not a year or two later, right after. Because poor Steve.]