This isn't weird.

The Actual Swamp

"Ben!" Millie greeted him the second he stepped in the door, poking her head out of the kitchen with a smile. She looked so happy to see him that he nearly forgot about his dread for the situation, but as she started toward him, he held his hands up.

"No, no, don't come any closer," he warned her. "I'm an absolute swamp beast right now. No—I'm the actual swamp."

"He had a tough time." Tess's sympathetic tone sounded remarkably convincing as she followed him inside. She strode past him without stopping, straight into the hallway. "I'm going to hit the shower," she said, and disappeared into the bathroom, taking with her any chance he might have had to look in the mirror or clean himself up. He could only pray that he didn't look as disgusting as he felt.

"You look like you fell in the river," said Millie, biting her lip to keep back a giggle.

"Yeah? Well, you look like you—" Ben started the sentence knowing full well that he didn't have a second half prepared, but it gave him an innocent excuse to look her up and down as conspicuously as he pleased. She looked to be fresh out of bed, still wearing a set of cotton candy-colored pajamas. The top had cuffed sleeves and heart-shaped buttons running down its center, innocent to the point of caricature, but its modesty was juxtaposed against a set of matching shorts barely long enough to peek out from underneath. With tremendous force of will, he forced his eyes to skirt over that beckoning expanse of thigh for only the splittest of seconds. And her hair—oh, no.

It was braided into pigtails.

Was she trying to torture him?

He had the most excruciatingly love-hate relationship with the days she wore pigtails, and seeing them mussed from being slept in added a whole new layer of mystique.

"...got a really good night's sleep," he finished wanly, and was rewarded with the final escape of her repressed laughter.

"Sick burn," she replied, then gestured him toward the kitchen. "I bet you're hungry. I'm making some eggs and pancakes."

Breakfast! She had made him breakfast. His baser thoughts were momentarily tempered by a surge of raw sentimentality. Holding back the urge to grab her up into a hug right that very second felt like even worse torture than the four grueling miles that had brought him to her. "Millie, you are too pure for this world," he sighed.

"Come sit down. I promise to maintain a six foot distance," she said with a grin.

A glass of ice water and a steaming mug of coffee were already waiting for him on the table when he sat down. He reached at once for the water and took several long, grateful gulps. The physical relief washing over his body was enough to take most of the sting out of the unattainability of that hug. He was off his feet, the scorching cold throb in his lungs had dulled to a tolerable ache, and the crisp draft of air conditioning on his sweat soaked t-shirt was cooling him off rapidly. Now that he was resting, the post-run endorphins felt good. 

And a beautiful woman he was madly in love with was doting on him as if they were newlyweds.

I am so fucking happy to be alive right now, Ben thought as he reached for the mug and took a sip. He still didn't especially like coffee, but he associated the taste so closely with being near Millie that he had come to enjoy the bitterness in a way that was getting very close to liking it. Especially when she was the one who had ever so thoughtfully poured it for him. Watching her flip a pancake, he was almost dizzy with gratitude. "Why are you so nice to me, Millie?" he asked absently. He hadn't meant to say it outloud.

"What are you talking about, Ben? Why wouldn't I be nice to you? You're my friend, and I love you." She shot him a quizzical look, shook her head, then turned back to the stove. "It was really sweet of you to go running with Tess this morning. I have a feeling you don't enjoy it much more than I do, and... well, you literally went the extra mile to get to know her. The least I can do is make you some breakfast."