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“Oh, I was.” Willow swings her arm out for a remote that seems to all but materialize in her hand; she has to have gotten it off the coffee table. “But I had to feed it to the faeries, lest they make our house eat people.”
Zylus encloses her in a hug cocoon. “What was that about my needing a cure?”
They are so cute I’m going to throw up.
On some level, I understand that this isn’t PDA because we are not in public, but I would appreciate three feet of space between them. Being subjected to other people cuddling should be a punishable offense unless everyone has a cuddle buddy.
As though reading my thoughts, Oxford pops off the couch, trots up to me, and hops onto my lap, resting the side of his head against my stomach.
I feel better now.
For some reason.
“Cartoons,” Willow says, and it feels like I’ve missed half a conversation.
“You almost always pick cartoons,” Zylus notes.
Willow arches a brow. “Because you don’t like horror.”
“Brit.” Zylus’s voice draws me to the forefront of the conversation, and I whip my attention up off a handful of popcorn I don’t remember picking up.
I am completely out of my mind. It feels like I’m falling apart. I want to cry. I want to hug someone. I want… I don’t know. I want this floating, falling, too loud, too quiet, too lost feeling to go away. I smile. “Yes?”
“What do you want to watch?”
“The correct answer is an animated feature starring best friends and low high-stakes quests, where you know everything is okay, no dogs die, and the innuendos are subtle enough I do not notice them,” Willow provides. “Or a slasher.”
Zylus combs his fingers through her hair, bunches it in his fist, and gags her with it. “The correct answer is what you want to watch.” After I blink, he has the remote.
“I’m fine with an animated movie.”
“What do you want to watch?” Zylus echoes, voice deliciously smooth. It’s hypnotic and manages to ease my headache by a fraction.
Softly, I say, “The Princess Diaries?”
He frees Willow’s hair gag. “Is that acceptable, darling?”
She slouches against his chest. “I do not have a singular bad thing to say about The Princess Diaries.”
“How sad that must be for you.”
“I am, obviously, incredibly distressed.”
“Obviously?”
Willow juts her lip at him.
“Ah. There it is. The obviousness.”
Descending into a flutter of laughter, Willow curls up on Zylus’s lap, rests her head against his chest, and wraps him in her arms.
I don’t register when the movie starts because I’m too busy watching them. Something about them is too soft and pure for my exhausted brain to comprehend. I’ve never seen love like this before in my life.
I wish I knew how to find the peace that they seem to embody.
But my past experiences with people always end with me by myself.
So…I hug my little dog and let the movie play.
