"I'm going down to the galley, you want anything while I'm there?"
"Uhhh...a Sparky, if you don't mind milady o'purple."
Trance grinned at her best friend. He was such a cutie with his tousled blond hair and stunning hazel eyes. Sometimes she played with his hair, waiting on the cocky grin and playful sparkle that he always flashed. Yes, Trance decided, if I was a creature with a sex drive, I'd have a...what's the word? A "crunch"? Yes. I would have a "crunch" on Harper.
"Hey, Trance?"
"Wha? Oh!! Your cola. Right. Sorry. I was just...thinking."
"Thinking about what?"
"Oh, just...thinking."
"Come on," he goaded her, "I bet it's something deep and mysterious. That's the thing about you, Trance--you want people to think you're really dumb, but you're not. You're really, really smart. You just...hide it well. And sometimes I think you're pretending to be dumber than you are usually. Pretending to be. Dumb."
She walked back towards him from the doorway, where she'd paused in thought. "Boy, Harper, I can sure see why all the girls want you. You're just full of compliments!" Her brown eyes twinkled. She was teasing, he knew, but he pretended hurt anyway.
"Aw, Trance, just go on and twist the knife, why don'tcha?"
Leaning over to kiss his cheek, Trance chuckled. At the last moment, however, Harper turned his face and kissed her full on the lips.
Whether it was intentional or just a poorly-timed turn of the head will likely be lost to history. The kiss didn't end right away, and Harper and Trance remained like that for what felt like hours inside only a few seconds. As their faces drew apart, the air seemed as tense as they were.
"Trance?"
"...Y...yeah Harper?"
"Trance, I don't know if I feel weird about what just happened."
"It felt...good."
He sighed. It did feel good, he admitted to himself, and as his eyes raked over her, taking in every tiny detail that he'd noticed a million times before but never saw, he realized something. Trance wasn't just cute. Trance was beautiful.
The purple girl leaned in for another kiss, startling him out of his reverie, but this one was much briefer and less intense than the first.
"I'll be right back with your Sparky," she commented as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, and walked--a little more slowly than usual, but Harper was hardly in a state to notice--out of Engineering.