Illegal

“You should be put in jail,” she said casually, interrupting the silence of their tree-branch-sitting, leg-swinging moment. He laughed deep in his chest; pondered shifting his arm to look down into her face, but tossed aside the notion and leaned his head against hers instead, hair mingling in the breeze, tightening his grip on her and the branch as he did. She let out a sigh and extricated herself from the embrace. “I’m serious.”
He cocked an eyebrow and chuckled a little. “And who would arrest me?”
“The Love Police.”
“And who would try me?”
“A jury of your peers, obviously. We have to follow procedure.”
“And who would defend me?”
“Who WOULD defend you?”
“Ouch. Who would prosecute me?”
“I would.”
Still amused, taking his cue from the half-smile on her face and the teasing tone in her voice, he made as elegant a bow he could while sitting on a tree branch, and gestured with a theatrical wave. “Proceed with your prosecution, and we’ll see if I can make my defence.”
“Well. I’ve never made a formal prosecuting statement before. And there’s no jury...” she trailed off, laughing and making origami cranes from the maple leaves.
“Excuses,” he shook his head, “You brought it up. You have to finish it. It’s a little cold; come back over here.”
She threw down a half-finished crane and swivelled her head to glare at him, a half smile still dancing on her lips. “CASE IN POINT. You can’t keep doing that cuddling thing every time we’re alone or we’re on stage or...or...you just can’t. It’s unfair to the extreme – I think I’d classify it as cruel and unusual punishment, torture of some kind, and that, my friend, is illegal.” He pulled back the hand that had been reaching for her shoulder and furrowed his brow, sensing the shift and wondering what exactly had just happened.
“I...I’m not sure I understand, Madame Prosecutor,” he managed, flashing her a half-hearted grin and pulling off maple keys to send spinning to the ground.
“Forget it,” she sighed, “it’s not a big deal. Forget I ever said it, okay? It was stupid of me.” She pulled her hat off of the branch where she’d put it and jammed it on her head, began to struggle with her sweater. He reached over and held it for her as she pushed her arms through the sleeves, lifted her hair out from under the collar as she adjusted the shoulders, feeling the familiar tension in her muscles. Let his hands trail to the base of her neck, smiled a little as she let out an exasperated sigh but didn’t pull away.
“You’re not helping your case,” she grumbled. “A little to the left.”
When he didn’t say anything, she sighed again. “It’s just...you do this thing where you have no idea what you’re doing to me, and I don’t know how or why you’ve decided that it’s okay for you to play with my emotions like this, but your actions are speaking loudly and your words were ambiguous and...and...and I just don’t want to get hurt. Because every time you hold me instead of just hugging me, every time you make some pretence to pull me into you, every time you smile at me as if we have an inside joke, every time you talk to me as you’re passing by and then go back the way you came, every time you touch my arm or my back instead of just saying “hi”, you steal a little piece of my heart. And I don’t want you to have enough of it that I start caring too much, because I’ve been there, done that, bought the freaking t-shirt and I refuse to do it again. PLUS,” and here she spun out of his grasp to face him, eyes flashing into his with a sudden return to something resembling good humour, “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to steal anything, much less someone’s heart.”