"No."
"Vaughn." He steps closer. The kitchen is small and he's right there and I can count the freckles on his nose from here. "If I made you uncomfortable with the flirting—"
"You flirt with everyone." It comes out harder than I meant.
"Yeah." His voice goes careful, quiet. "I do."
"So it doesn't mean anything."
He holds my gaze. "Right," he says, and the word has a crack running through it that he almost hides. "It doesn't mean anything."
We stand there. Too close. The kitchen smells like dish soap and the remnants of dinner and him. My lion is pacing tight circles, pressing against my skin, and every instinct I have is screaming to close the distance.
"I should go," I say.
"You should stay." His hand lands on my forearm — light, barely there, his fingers warm and damp from the dishes. "Watch a movie with us."
"Robin—"
"Please?"
I cave. I always cave when he says please, when the performance drops away and there's just Robin underneath, asking for something simple.
We watch some action movie I don't track a single frame of, because Robin curls up between me and Silas on the couch and his head ends up on my shoulder twenty minutes in.
"This okay?" he asks quietly.
"Yeah."
His weight settles against me. Warm and solid and smelling like vanilla and caramel and the wine he had with dinner. His breathing slows and his body goes loose and relaxed in a way I've never seen him in public — always moving, always on, always performing — and he's still and quiet against my side like my shoulder is the safest place in the room.
It's not nothing. I know it's not nothing. Robin curls up with people, leans on people, touches people — but he doesn't go still like this. He doesn't stop performing.
When the movie ends, he hugs everyone goodbye. Ezra first, quick and warm. Silas, with a squeeze. Then me.
His arms wrap around my waist — not my neck, my waist, his face pressed to my chest. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt. Fast. Too fast for casual. My arms come up around his shoulders and I hold him, and the hug goes one beat longer than it should. Two beats. Three.
"Thanks for coming," he says against my chest.
"Thanks for dinner."
"Anytime." He pulls back, looks up at me, and his eyes are wide and unguarded in a way I've never seen aimed at me before. "I mean it. Anytime you want to come over. You can."
"Careful. I might take you up on that."
"I hope you do."
Then Silas says something about borrowing a cookbook and the moment dissolves.
I drive home gripping the wheel. The truck smells like Robin — vanilla and cinnamon, clinging to my henley where he pressed his face against my chest.
Robin flirts with everyone.
The dinner wasn't special.
The hug wasn't longer.
If I keep saying it, maybe I'll start believing it.