fifty sokeefe kisses

(30) casual

"What happened to you?" Sophie asked as Linh slid into the seat across from her.

"Oh, you know," Linh replied nonchalantly, wringing out her wet hair. Her silver ends were dark gray and dripped water all over the lunch table. "Ability training."

Next to Sophie, Keefe snorted through a mouthful of food. "I'll say. You look like you went for a swim in a washing machine."

"Yeah, well, not all of us can practice our abilities from the comfort of a cushy chair in a classroom," Linh retorted.

"It can be just as exhausting though," Fitz chimed in, scooping up another spoonful of his lunch—some kind of bright orange curry. "You'll never believe what it takes to keep up with this one." He nodded at Sophie with a playful smile.

"Tiergan totally went overboard today," she groaned, rubbing at her temples to soothe her pounding headache. She still couldn't muster the appetite to finish her lunch because of the overwhelming nausea. "Cognate training is hard."

Fitz laughed. "You're telling me."

Sophie slid her gaze sideways to glance at Keefe. Nowadays, she wasn't as worried about his reaction to her close friendship with Fitz or Dex, but she was sure it couldn't be comfortable for Keefe knowing she had an hour of one-on-one time with her Cognate-slash-ex-crush every few days. She liked to think their relationship was as secure as ever—and Keefe always reassured her it was, since their given abilities made it difficult to keep secrets from each other anyway—but it never hurt to make sure.

If her boyfriend felt any jealousy, he sure didn't show it. Keefe's arm was still slung around the back of her chair as usual while he slurped down the rest of his smoothie, content as ever.

"At least you get to stay dry," Linh continued. She was waving her hands in odd motions, trying to coax the excess water out of her hair and clothes.

Keefe tapped a finger on his chin. "Have you ever tried... not getting wet?" he asked with a raise of his eyebrows.

Linh gave him an unamused look. With a flick of her hands, the water she had collected splashed directly onto Keefe's face, drenching his clothes.

"Have you?" she asked mockingly while Keefe sputtered. Sophie laughed in surprise while Fitz smothered his grin in the palm of his hand.

Keefe pushed his wet hair out of his face. "Okay. Maybe I deserved that one."

"You've had it coming for a while now, dude," Fitz said. He exchanged a not-so-subtle high-five with Linh.

"Yeah, yeah," Keefe said, wiping at his clothes as he stood. "I'm going to get a towel. Do you need anything?" he asked, the question directed at Sophie as he rested a hand on her shoulder. "Something for your head, maybe? Like hot tea?"

"Tea would be great, actually. Thanks." Her head still throbbed with a dull ache, but a hot drink seemed manageable.

Keefe leaned down to press a quick kiss to her cheek. "No prob. I'll be back soon."

Sophie smiled dumbly at the affection. It took her a moment to realize it was a little too quiet. Linh and Fitz stared at her with odd expressions from across the table.

"What?" Sophie said defensively, a blush beginning to creep onto her face.

"Nothing!" Linh answered, holding her hands up. "It's just... nice to finally see you two being coupley together."

Sophie raised an eyebrow. "'Finally'?"

"Oh, you know," Linh said with a sly smile. "It was just a huge relief for all of us to find out you and Keefe were dating after dancing around each other for ages."

Sophie scoffed. "Please. We were not dancing around each other—"

"You kind of were," Fitz spoke up. "It wasn't exactly subtle."

She couldn't tell if he sounded disappointed, or offended, or otherwise neutral. He didn't seem as enthusiastic as Linh seemed to be (although that would be hard to compete against right now), but that was fine with Sophie. She and Keefe hadn't felt a need to make any kind of 'official' announcement about their relationship to their friends—aside from Dex and Biana, who had somehow figured it out a long time ago—but Sophie's grounding during the past month had pretty much blown everything out of the water once Keefe had to explain where she'd been.

Her and Keefe's relationship had already become so normalized among their friend group to the point where no one even batted an eye if they walked into a room holding hands. And, now that Sophie thought of it, it had been like that long before they were dating, too. She just hadn't noticed.

Maybe she had been avoiding the whole spectacle because this was what she had been worried about—Fitz. It wasn't that she still had feelings for him—those were long gone, chalked up to a puppy crush from her early days in the Lost Cities—but the thought that their friendship might change inexplicably, irreversibly, was almost too much to handle. It had mostly been smoothed over by their intense Cognate training lately, but the elephant in the room was still there sometimes, and she knew he could feel it too.

"I guess I... never thought of it that way," Sophie said quietly.

"Oh, please," Linh said with a groan. "You guys are soo cute." She reached across the table to take Sophie's hands in hers, beaming. "We're all super happy for you."

"Thanks, Linh," Sophie replied with a giggle, although her face was still warm from the attention. She couldn't help but glance at Fitz, unsure what she was looking for—jealousy? Disinterest?

Instead, Fitz just gave her a sheepish grin, his teal eyes warm. "You guys make a good couple," he told her.

It was all Sophie needed to hear as she smiled back at Fitz. They didn't have to be Telepaths for her to say thank you, or for him to know she meant it.