Sometimes it helps me feel better to imagine Bethany and Carver gathering herbs together in the slow liquid wash of the afternoon, Bethany peeking up at him through lowered eyes, mapping out the deep furrows and canyons dig between his brows.
She'd left him to go train with father and Garret again today. He tried not to make his disappointment obvious, but Bethany was too familiar with his moods. She'd read it on his face the second she'd walked through the front door to find him cooking with mother, or attempting to. He'd been beating the bread dough with a tad too much enthusiasm, the muscles standing out on his shoulders. She'd taken one look at him and announced that they had to go gather herbs while it was still light out enough to do so.
She looked up at him now and couldn't help reaching over to tap the spot between his eyes, or the smile that stole across her features when he blinked at her. "You're thinking again," she teased gently, then, more seriously, "You know you could come with us. You could help. Father said we should learn how to work together in a fight with people that can't cast magic, if we have to. I'd really like it if you came," she added quietly, ducking her head a little bit with a small smile that lingered in the corner of her mouth.
Carver's eyes flickered there, and away. "What about Garret?" His voice was raspy, and slow, as if pulled from him. "You're already practicing with him anyway." He looked down and away at that, and she knew at once that he'd seen them practice more than magic together.
Bethany was quiet for a moment, long enough that Carver looked back at her without moving his head. Moving slowly, with a care she took with those things most precious to her, Bethany cupped his cheek, thumb sliding down to trace the dimple she shared with him. "You haven't seen your smile," she said, kissing the spot warmed by her fingers and just beside it, feeling his lips curve against hers despite himself. "I've tried to learn it, but every time all I can see is stars."
He snorted at that, but relaxed nonetheless, lips softening beneath hers, parting with a soft sigh as he released the breath he'd been holding. "Stars? Really. If you talk about the sun next I'm leaving." He didn't pull away, though, in fact he leaned closer, turning his head into her touch. Bethany spread her fingers and ran them up the sharp line of his cheek and into his hair, giving a sharp tug to bare his throat.
"Maybe not the sun, but you don't need magic to burn," she said just before she pressed an open mouthed kiss to the pulse point in his throat, feeling the stuttering leap beneath the pass of her lips and teeth and to hue, the basket falling down, forgotten, from trembling hands that rose to tangle in the fall of her hair.