"Sorry. It's just they ... you're..."
"Bigger. I know."
He reached out and caught a handful of her hair. "And your hair is longer."
"I'm taller, too," she said.
He took a visual measure of her and his eyes widened. "What happened?"
"I wish I knew." She attempted to keep the frustration from her voice. It wasn't his fault. "I woke up growing out of everything."
He grinned and his gaze lowered for a nanosecond before glancing up. "It looks nice."
"And why am I not surprised you feel that way?" She frowned.
His smile faded and he just stood there staring at her face. She wondered if it really took that much effort not to gawk at her breasts or if he had something else on his mind.
"Look, if I haven't done anything, then why have you been running away from me for the last two days?"
She shuffled her feet, painfully aware that her shoes were pinching her toes at this moment. "I told you. I'm embarrassed."
"Embarrassed ... about getting bigger?"
"No. Well, yeah, that's embarrassing, too. But that's not why ... why..."
"Why you've been avoiding me. Just say it. Because that's what you've been doing." He now sounded half mad, or at least half annoyed. But what she really heard in the tenor of his voice was insecurity. And honestly, she couldn't blame him. She'd feel all those things if he'd been dodging her the way she'd been doing him.
She bit down on her lip. "I'm sorry. It's not what you think."
"So what is it? Because I'm lost here. I mean, your emotions mostly seem okay when I'm around you, they actually seem really great at times, but then you run off."
"And ... that's sort of why I'm running off," she said. His brow creased. "And ... I still don't understand."
Okay, she was going to spell it out for him. Her face flushed just thinking about it. "When I'm around you all I can think about is kissing and making out." And going further than I've ever gone with anyone. His brow creased deeper, but at least some of the chip he seemed to carry appeared to fall off his shoulders with his new posture. "Okay."
He tucked a hand into his jeans pocket. "Now can you explain to me why that's a bad thing?"
"It's not so much a bad thing, but it's ... a private thing. I don't even want you to know what's going on inside my head. Much less all the vampires and other fairies wandering around the camp."
His shoulders tightened as if the chip had returned. "So you're embarrassed because other people know you like me."
"No. I mean ... liking you is one thing. Wanting to ... make out is another."
"You want to make out with me?" He almost grinned, and then ran a hand through his hair. "You know, I didn't think it was possible to feel complimented and insulted at the same time. But you've managed to make me feel both."
"I didn't insult you," she said.
"You did if you mean that you're embarrassed for people to know that you like me."
"I told you it's not about liking you."
"Okay, you just don't want people to know you're attracted to me." She opened her mouth to speak, but wasn't sure what to say. "Yeah. Sort of. I mean, it's just private."
"Private?" He hesitated as if trying to figure out what she meant. "It's never all that private."
"It is for humans," she said. "And I may not be a hundred percent human, but ... I mean, let's face it. I've had sixteen years of living as a human, and less than two months of trying to cope with being ... Oh wait, I don't even know what I am yet." She shook her head, feeling her frustration level rise. "But yeah, I kind of like how humans do this."
"How they do what?" he asked, as if he wasn't following her.