✧. ┊pumpkin carving

Stephen had spent the entire afternoon pretending he wasn’t nervous.

He’d shown up at your house carrying two pumpkins that were far too large for him, a grocery bag digging into his fingers with carving tools. He’d rehearsed what he’d say on the drive over, only to abandon every sentence the second you smiled at him from the front door.

He tried to carve carefully, tongue poking against the inside of his cheek in concentration, but every few minutes he managed to send pumpkin seeds flying somewhere they definitely weren’t supposed to go. One landed in his hair. Another slid down his sweater sleeve. He accidentally smeared pumpkin across the side of his face without realizing it.

Stephen finally leaned back to admire what he had done. He glanced over at you, catching the way you were smiling at him.

“…What?” he asked, immediately smiling too.

Stephen frowned in confusion before looking down at himself - Pumpkin guts covered his hands, there was a smear across one sleeve.

“…Oh.”

A soft, embarrassed laugh escaped him as his cheeks slowly turned pink.

He rubbed the back of his neck with the cleanest part of his wrist - a terrible decision that only succeeded in smearing more pumpkin across his jaw.

“I…” He laughed again, quieter this time, ducking his head. “I’m all messy now…”