🌊 Testing the Waters 🌊

There’s always that one moment — quiet but electric — when you feel it shift. Two friends sitting close enough to share secrets, close enough for shoulders to brush, close enough to wonder what if.

He’s the type who overthinks before he speaks, always careful not to lose what’s already there. She’s the type who smiles with her eyes, sending signals she won’t put into words — not yet.

Tonight they’re talking about nothing and everything. A laugh about an old joke. A confession about how life’s been heavy. He says “It’s good to have someone I can count on.” She says “Count on me, but I don’t do much for you.”

He wants to say, You do more than you know. But instead, he lets it hang — so the silence fills with possibilities. He remembers how earlier he almost hugged her, how she turned and caught him watching. He didn’t move closer. He didn’t want to break the spell or the friendship.

Now he tests the waters: “You make me think a lot about us. Maybe we should figure out what we both want.”

She blinks like she didn’t expect him to say it. “We both want?”

So he tells her about the hug that didn’t happen. The almost. The turn. The waiting for a call that never came. She laughs, shy and warm, typing back that she just stared at him and smiled.

In that moment he sees it — the tiny open door, the maybe shimmering behind a grin. He knows better than to push too fast. So he sends back something soft, like dipping his fingers in the edge of the water: “I saw you smile too. Maybe next time I won’t hold back.”

The night doesn’t explode into confessions. There’s no grand love story yet. But the water’s warm, and for now, that’s enough. They drift a little closer — two friends daring to swim deeper, one heartbeat at a time.