"Give me your hand."
Gansey looked up from the desk, the tip of his pen resting mid-word on a page. He had just been copying down an article about the distinction of ley lines and different disruption-prone paranormal activity onto his journal, but he was grateful for the distraction and it wasn't anything he didn't know anyway.
Previously flicking through magazines while lying on her stomach, Blue now sat criss-crossed on Gansey's bed. A barrage of empty chocolate pudding cups littered the side table.
"That's a nice dress," he said.
The outfit was a columbine sundress with simple spaghetti straps that stopped an inch above her knees. It made her look vaguely like a flower girl at a wedding. He had never seen her wear anything so tame and almost expected her to take out some safety scissors and begin to cut, cut, cut along the hem.
"It was Mom's." Blue adjusted a loose bobby pin on her head and a few strands dropped out of place. Gansey's fingers itched to tuck it back into place. "Give me your hand, Gansey."
Sighing as he did, Gansey rose and strode over to where his bed stood on the middle of the room. Blue had both hands out expectantly. That and her dress, she looked like she was receiving Holy Communion at church.
As he offered his right hand, she pulled his wrist so suddenly that he dropped on the bed alongside her, crinkling a magazine beneath him. They both frowned simultaneously at the sound of paper giving out.
"Have you heard of palmistry?" first asked Blue, tracing a hand over his open palm. He liked the feeling of her nails lightly grazing his skin, leaving faint goosebumps.
"It has to do with hands," Gansey guessed.
"No duh." She rolled her eyes, still nursing his hands gently. "It's fortune telling for your hands—though anybody can learn how if they wanted to."
Gansey hummed in acknowledgement and waited for her to continue, but she only kept poking along his palm lines.
"What's that one?" Gansey asked to start it up, touching the line from the middle of his thumb and index leading all the way down to his wrist.
Her head bobbed a little and they were close enough that tufts of her hair brushed his chin. She smelled like wildflowers and chocolate pudding.
"That's your life line," said Blue. "See how it swoops down like a half circle? That means you're strong and enthusiastic. Ha."
"Ha," he entertained.
"And this one," Blue said, dragging her finger on a line a little above the life line, "is your head line. Yours is curvy, which means you're creative." She adds, "This one is your fate line. You don't have to hear that one."
With his free hand, he pointed to the remaining line. "How about this, Jane?"
"That?" Blue's laugh sounded like bells. She really did belong at a wedding. "That's your heart line."
"What does it mean?"
As if it was the first time, Blue's eyes met his, and before he realized it, they were smiling.
"It means," she said, "you are exceptionally sensible in the matters of love."