Page 45 of The Troll’s Summer Flame

By the stones, I have one. I have a beautiful, naked girlfriend. Trusting me with her health and her body.

Everything in me swells up with pride (and worry). One part swells up with excitement from being near her and knowing what it feels like to hold a wet, soapy Andrea against my chest, even as I try to keep my thoughts pure and professional.

“Thank you.” I belatedly remember speaking is expected.

With Andrea, it’s encouraged.

“Where are your pajamas?” I say the next thing that needs to be said. I’ll work on saying things for “fun” later.

“Top drawer with all my undies and socks.”

“Got it.” I rush out, taking one dry towel with me. “You get somewhat dry,” I instruct.

“Will do, Lieutenant Boyfriend,” she teases, voice soft and breaking with a yawn.

My family never laughed. Never joked. My brothers and I tried sometimes, but our senses of humor were too different. My older brothers had my mother’s cruel sense of humor. They laughed at violence and death, laughed at others’ expense. My younger brothers and I laughed at them—at the blunders they made, at their stubbornness and the pitfalls they incurred because of it.

That kind of laughter earned pummeling and brawling, or my mother’s swift, jagged wrath.

Andrea wants to have a relationship with me. I’m thrilled.

I’m also scared. I haven’t been scared in a long time. I have reports to write. Things to figure out. A mysterious fire to investigate. So what am I afraid of? A rogue arsonist? A hellhound breaking through the protective barriers of Pine Ridge?

No. I’m afraid of blowing this. I don’t know how to have a normal relationship—and Andrea doesn’t know how bad at this I’m going to be.

Gordon drapes me in a pink summer nightgown that falls to my knees, carries me to my room, and treats my burns. He wraps my feet and one hand loosely in gauze, and pats my hair dry as he can, smoothing it with his fingers in long, damp waves.

I know other guys would have made a move by now. Tried to get a peek. Tried to sneak a feel.

“I have to start the laundry. You sleep. I’ll be right back. I’ll put Chopin in here with you so he doesn’t sneak out the door.”

“It’s so late. You need to sleep.”

“If I don’t do laundry, I’ll be walking around in a towel tomorrow.” Gordon freezes, and he looks so uncomfortable. I couldn’t tell as much before, not with him holding me, usually behind me.

“Right. I’m sorry I don’t have anything bigger for you,” I apologize. “Oh! A sheet? Do you want one of my sheets? You’d make one fine Roman senator,” I grin.

Gordon’s face twitches, and a grin flits across and away. “I will find a sheet.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know... I don’t know if I’m not supposed to say things like that,” I whisper, twisting my fingers.

“You are. I know you are. You give so much kindness and sweetness. Right away, when I met you, I thought how lucky your students were. I even thought about how lucky your cat was. Then, later, how lucky I was when I got to spend time with you. When you wanted to see me again.” He stops, sighs, and gives me a rueful half-smile. “I’m going to be very bad at dating,” Gordon sighs. “It’s hard... It’s hard to understand nice people when you grew up without them. It’s always been easier not to talk, but now? It’s hard to keep quiet sometimes. When I’m near you, I keep thinking of things to say.” He rolls his eyes heavenward and grumbles under his breath. “I don’t like that. It’s confusing.” His dark eyes fix on me. “But I like you. And being with you.”

Oh. Oh, my poor Gordon! My heart aches for him, and for those tiny glimpses I get of his past. “I like being with you. I like talking with you, but being quiet with you is nice, too. Come back and curl up with me? We don’t have to talk at all while we’re asleep.”

Relief leaps to his tight jaw, and then vanishes just as fast. “If I roll over on you, you’ll suffocate.” Gordon eyes the bed with a frown. “The floor would be safer.”

“If I wake up without you next to me, I might think this was all a dream,” I pout, which is unfair, but I really don’t care right now. “Then my heart will break all over again.”

Gordon gulps. “Can’t have that. I’ll be right back.”

Right back is a relative definition, I guess, because it seems like forever until Gordon returns in a makeshift teal bedsheet toga-kilt combo, carrying a glass of water and some Tylenol from the medicine cabinet. “Do you want some? For the pain in your hands and feet?”

“Yes, please,” I yawn, taking the glass with my good hand, flexing my burnt one. It’s sore and tight, but much better than my feet. “I’m glad it wasn’t worse. I’d worry about playing the piano again.”

“So would I.” Gordon takes the glass back and puts it on my dresser, standing by my bed —which he is roughly the size of—with his whole body rigid.

“I promise I don’t snore. Much. I promise to behave myself. Scouts honor.” I hold up my hand in my best Girl Scout salute.