Hug - Maaka Valentine's AU Scenario (Patreon)

“These are my favourite kinds of days,” Maaka states through the brightest smile.

Laying on the grass beside him, we both lay with our hands behind our heads, staring up at the turquoise sky splattered with marshmallow clouds.

“The ones where we totally should be working, but we’re cloud watching instead?” I ask through a light laugh.

“I mean, yeah, those too,” he replies, rolling his head around to look at me. “But these days where the sun is so happy it wants to hug you with its warmth and keep you from doing anything more than relaxing.”

I gaze at him for the longest moment. “You’re constantly full of surprises.”

He barks out a loud laugh. “That’s not what my brother says.”

“Are you more inclined to listen to me or your brother?”

“Oh, I don’t listen to Tane about anything,” he jokes. He does, in fact, listen to his brother on almost everything. They may not always agree, but they always listen to each other.

I stare back up at the sky. “How did you convince me to do this again? I have a million tasks I have to get done.”

“I said I would be lonely on my lunch break. You said you have a million tasks to get done, then you eventually said yes because you’re an amazingly generous person,” he explains.

I roll onto my side to face him, balancing with my hand on the grass in front of me. “As I remember it, you said you’d be lonely, I said I couldn’t, and then you gave me those irresistible puppy-dog eyes and that’s when I relented.”

His mouth falls open. “Did I?”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Don’t give me that. You know exactly the effect you have on me.”

He turns onto his side now as well. There’s a gap between us, but it already heats hotter than the summer sun above.

“That’s not true,” he replies. “I hope I know I have the effect on you. But I never know for sure.”

I smile. “How can it not be obvious?”

“I’m clueless at the flirty stuff,” he admits. “You’ve got to know that by now.”

“Considering we’ve been in this weird flirtatious circle that’s been going nowhere for months…I’m starting to get that, yeah,” I reply, managing to keep my voice much calmer than I feel.

It’s true we’ve been flirting for the longest time, but I was never sure if he wanted to take it further. But something about the perfect day with the perfect werewolf is too much to resist taking the leap.

“I figured you were just flirting. I didn’t ever know if you wanted more,” he says, voicing the exact same thoughts I’d just had.

“Do you?” I eek out. “Want more, I mean?”

“Uh, yeah! Would be nice to get past the stage where you make me so nervous my palms always get sweaty,” he mumbles, staring down at his hand.

I shake my head. “I make you nervous?”

He holds out his hand. I stare at it.

“It’s not sweaty right now,” he says, making me laugh before sliding my fingers into his waiting ones. He draws my hand closer until it rests against his chest. Even through the fabric of his shirt, I can feel the hard thudding thumps of his heart. “This is what you do to me.”

My gaze tracks up from his broad chest to his hopeful gaze. “Multiply that by a hundred, and you know what you do to me.”

He smiles again, skyrocketing my temperature along with my pulse. “I imagined this moment a million times…But not once did I ever expected it to be so easy.”

“Let’s hope that bodes well for our future,” I say, shuffling closer as he does the same to close the gap between us.

“’Our future’,” he repeats, as though testing out the taste of the words. “I like that. I like that a lot.”

As he wraps me in an embrace I’ve been waiting months to feel, it’s far more warm and comforting than anything the summer sun could offer.