The hand-holding thing wasn't completely new. It had started out ages ago when Connor would grab her hand to drag her to safety during a creature attack, and that made sense. It was okay for Abby to hold his hand for a brief moment in situations like that. They barely even noticed the contact then, except that somehow their clasped palms made them both feel safer as they ran.
And when Connor started to drag her around by the hand to show her something across the street or to get her to walk faster to the nearest shopping centre to buy a new video game, Abby figured it was just due to his sudden excitement. He'd quickly let go again, usually. If he forgot to release her sometimes it was because he was so excited about something that he didn't even realise he was holding her hand still. Then he'd blush and look embarrassed and apologize when he finally realised it, and Abby thought it was rather cute.
What was new was the fact that Connor had finally noticed, much to Abby's amusement, that she never protested or pulled away. It'd definitely taken him long enough. She knew he'd finally noticed because he'd dragged her into a pet store to look at the puppies one afternoon and then she'd felt his grip loosen a bit and then stop. He'd suddenly looked over at her curiously and his gaze had dropped to their joined hands. Abby pretended to be enthralled by the baby dogs and not notice and his grip had suddenly tightened a little bit again. She'd also pretended not to notice the way his gaze of disbelief kept falling back on their hands over the next two hours while they walked around the stores and then back to their flat.
Since that day he'd made every excuse to take her hand that he could think of, and Abby found herself being dragged here and there to look at the dumbest things. He wanted to pull her across the street to look at a slightly off-colour dandelion, or he'd think he spotted a strange looking rock on the beach from fifty yards away… anything to take her hand in the first place without it being to conspicuous. Then he'd always "forget" to let go.
And so Abby waited for the inevitable to happen and made bets with herself as to how long it would take. It was six weeks since the day he'd first noticed that he finally summoned up the courage to simply take her hand without any silly excuses while they were walking to work together. Abby bit her lip to hide her amusement as he carried on talking about a project he was working on and pretending nothing had happened, but his voice had gotten a bit higher and his words were rushed and clipped and she knew he was nervous. She let her fingers curl gently around his in response, but besides that, she didn't let on that she'd really noticed as she told him the project sounded brilliant. In actuality, she hadn't understood a word he'd been saying.
A small part of Abby thought that maybe she should protest: that the right thing to do, the safe thing to do, would be to pull away. But the truth was was that Abby liked it when he touched her. She liked him if she was going to be totally honest. Relationships had always scared her but, maybe because the handholding had started out as a way to protect her from the creatures, she'd come to associate the gesture with a feeling of safeness and it relaxed her. When he held her hand she thought that it would be okay for her to trust him even with her heart.
Connor had stopped talking, she realised suddenly, and when she looked at him she saw that he was staring at their hands with a dreamy smile on his face. She wondered if he'd noticed that she'd stopped listening or not. It didn't matter. She squeezed his hand slightly and when he looked at her she exchanged a smile with him before pulling away only because she needed her hand free to get out her ID and open the ARC's door.
Connor reacted quickly, realising suddenly that they'd arrived and he quickly masked his emotions and nearly sprinted away from her to the ADD. Abby chuckled softly to herself, knowing that that'd not be the last time he held her hand. In fact, she was sure it'd be a much more common occurrence from now on. She smiled as she walked down the hallways and pondered to herself as to when he'd test her further, when he'd make the next move to see how far she'd let him go, what else she'd let him get away with. It'd be coming soon, she concluded. She made a bet with herself that he'd try sneaking his arm around her when they had their next movie night. One thing was for certain, whatever his move was, whenever it came, she'd was eagerly looking forward to letting him make it.