I want it to count.
My logical brain says no. Love does not work like that.
My logical brain also has a counterargument and receipts. I thought it took two years for Josh to really love me. We started to use the “L-word’ like six or seven months in.
But two years of growing in love was reversed in ten minutes—and I don’t think real love can be erased like that. I don’t think people who love each other can hurt each other like that.
Two days of caring for someone should not equal love, but when Nigel talks, well... He doesn’t waste words. He only says things he means, or he doesn’t bother to say them.
Still, I spend the rest of Christmas Eve musing about it, even while we cook together. We listen to old Christmas hits, and we sing together. Well, he hums, and I sing. He does the bass “bum-bums” on songs while I sing the falsetto parts. He smiles so much, and we spend time cuddled by the fireplace in the living room.
When the pork roast and potatoes are done, Nigel offers to “do the washing up” so I can do a video call with my family back in Ohio, now that I can use the wi-fi in the lodge.
“Sure. Um. Do you want to stay with me? Say hi?” I ask.
I wonder if he had the same instant regret and feeling of dread when he blurted out that he loved me. Waiting to be rejected.
Nigel freezes. “Meet the family?”
“Uh-huh. It’s okay if you—”
“I consider that serious. Siobbhan stood with me in the family photos last year. Then left. To me, that’s the worst sort of behavior.”
“I get it, I’m sorry that I—”
“So make sure you keep the phone pointed up, at this half,” Nigel gestures to his human frame, and sits on the floor again.
I squeal and take my new favorite place, nestled against his side, his equine body like a warm, living couch. Nigel wraps his arms around my shoulders.
As I dial, he whispers in my ear. “You won’t be able to get rid of me now. I have manners. If you include me in the family gathering, I’m stuck in.”
I pause before hitting the final button. “I like you getting stuck in.”
“Don’t tease me like that.”
I put down the phone and lean to the side, hand connecting with the swollen pouch where the bulge of his cock rests. “Like this?”
“Briana!”
“It occurs to me that you could be on camera, and no one would ever know what I was doing to the lower half of you.”
“My God, woman.”
“But that’s for later. After I melt that chocolate.” I retrieve my phone with a smirk.
Nigel mutters, “Thought that tosser Josh said you were a bit of a prude.”
Sadness sticks in me like stepping barefoot on broken glass, sharp and sudden. “Yeah.”
“He was an utter idiot, wasn’t he?”
“Yep. I love you, too.”
IT’S AFTER MIDNIGHTwhen Briana and I curl up on my air mattress, spread on the spacious living room floor, furniture pushed back, blankets brought from the bed. We talked to her family ‘til the phone went dead. They even included us in charades and the ABC game they were playing.
I liked them.
They liked me.
