[There's that lilt in his voice again, which she has heard often enough now that she recognizes as being something he slips into whenever something is bothering him (or flustering him though she can't imagine that anything she's doing could potentially fluster anyone). She's not aware that what she's doing could constitute as flirting (does this mean nearly everyone she's been interacting with and has complimented before thought that she was flirting too?). At the moment, he was her friend. He was someone who had cute hair that flipped all over thanks to his hat, who took her on a ride on his horse, who had tried to protect her more than once.

Even with the gesture at the magazines, she doesn't immediately respond. It's an out she could have taken but she's never been one to run away when there was what she thought of as a bigger issue right in front of her.]

...Then I will get a manicure.

[She's still holding his hands as she thinks, trying to work out why wanting to make him smile made what she said flirting and why that troubled him, her eyes trained firmly on his nails, fingertips tracing over the shape of his fingers before she abruptly looks back at him. There was only one way to figure it out, a way that she's always used since being a small, curious child: asking.]

And...I am not...flirting. I am not entirely certain how one flirts. [The only kind of flirting she had been made aware of was Angelo's unsubtle brand of putting his arms around her proprietorially and kissing her whenever he wanted which she had not appreciated very much.]

I like you. I wish for you to know what I am thinking and to make you smile. But if you do not like it, I will stop. I do not wish to make you uncomfortable. [With that said, she lets go and starts walking to get a magazine, aiming to come back as soon as she had one.]