"Will you save my contact as wifey?"
The look she got would have flayed the flesh from a lesser mortal.
Chuckling, she took a bite of the chicken sandwich, the cheese melting in her mouth, and groaned before stopping herself, finding him looking at her. The insecurity reared its ugly head, especially when eating with people. Used to people nagging her about what she ate, she half-expected him to do the same, half expected him to go 'that's a lot of cheese' or 'you should eat only two'.
He looked at her mouth, simply picked up his own sandwich, took a bite, and nodded. “Hmm.”
And that was that.
Zephyr sat for a second, looking down at the bread, processing what just happened.
Nothing had really happened, but something had happened.
Born in a family of tall women with perfect figures who didn’t gain an inch no matter what they put in their bodies, Zephyr had always been well-intentionally teased about being short and full-figured by her mom, her aunts, her cousins, everyone. Zen, though adopted, fit in more with their family’s genetics than she did.
When she’d been nineteen, a hormonal imbalance had made her rapidly gain weight. She’d spent the next few years on medication, bringing the hormones and the weight down, and ended up being curvy as hell, only amplified by her short height. She did Pilates diligently, her body was flexible and strong, and now even though she was the healthiest that she’d ever been, people around her somehow always ended up telling her, in the most well-meaning way possible, to lose a few more pounds. She’d look ‘so much prettier.' She was already fucking pretty. She had her own sense of style, she took her medication, and took care of her body. But it was the first time someone, aside from Zen, had eaten with her and not pointed it out.
Maybe it was because his own body was imperfect by other people’s standards. Maybe it was because he was a man who didn’t even notice or think about it.
Whatever it was, he just did it.
And then, he expected her not to have any romantic notions. She was already a goner.
She took another bite of the delicious sandwich, enjoying the companionable silence as they both ate, silently falling a little more in love with the new him, enough for the both of them until he could catch up.