Gia's mouth found the incomplete sentence and stopped it. She pressed her face into his shoulder the way Celia had pressed hers into his neck — the hiding-not-hiding gesture of a woman managing something she can't manage with her face visible.
'Don't say it,' she told herself.
The throb in her chest said something else.
"Ounghh~!! — I love — 'this' — I love 'this' — that's what I was going to say—"
She'd decided on the substitute word at the last possible moment.
She wasn't entirely sure it was the substitute.
PAH! PAAAH!
"HIEKK~!! AANGHH~~!!! — I'm 'crying' too—"
The tears arrived the same way they'd arrived for Celia — no drama, just suddenly present, tracking warm lines from the outer corners of her eyes toward her temples because she was on her back.
"Hnghh~!! — don't stop — I don't — the crying doesn't mean—"
"I know," he said.
He knew.
That was the specific problem.
