"I think I should go," Annie blurted after a moment.

"Sure," Auggie nodded, clouds of disappointment and understanding colliding in a thunderstorm on his brow.

"I don't want to go by myself."

Annie bit her lip, her stomach loaded with steel butterflies. She watched Auggie's face with hungry eyes, desperate for a reaction. His brow lifted ever so slightly, his face regaining light.

"Come on." She took his hand and led him haphazardly out of the bar and into the clear night. Once on the sidewalk, their hands separated once more. Auggie unfurled his cane as Annie ran her hands through her hair.

"You love me," she said.

"Uh, yeah," he said back.

"I'm sorry, I'm just... still processing this."

"For all your field experience I expected you to be smoother," he grinned.

She grinned back. "I'm off the clock."

"You've been off the clock for weeks, Walker. What you are is rusty."

"In an alternate universe, this would be the moment I grab you by the collar and say something like 'how's this for rusty.'"

Auggie suppressed a chuckle. "But?"

"Our first kiss shouldn't be rehearsed."

"Our first kiss," he grinned like a schoolboy, both hands resting atop his cane. "I'm still waiting for you to bolt for the exit."

"I'm not going anywhere," she whispered.

Annie turned to him, her whole body shaking from the inside out. Their shoulders were already practically touching. She put her hands first on his arms, then his cheeks, and pulled him ever so slightly towards her. She feared the worst, the tense reaction of a man caught off guard, but he offered no such response. One hand still on his cane, the other migrated to the back of her head and deepened the kiss. Unrehearsed. Unpretentious. Two people standing outside a bar, exchanging beer breath and nerves and things they should've said years ago.