Love Is Ǝvil

21 I'm Just a Fuckin' Romantic!

At night the small house seemed almost invisible. Marshall couldn't make out the entrance and there was no light in any of the windows. He turned his attention to Nicolas, who was gathering his stuff. A short touch on the other's shoulder, so he would look at him. "Thanks for the weekend. It was really nice to get out of the daily grind, you know."

Nicolas nodded. Still, Marshall found that frustrating. Texting had given them the opportunity for some conversations, some lighthearted and some much less so, which generally he was grateful for. He couldn't be with someone and not talk. He just couldn't. Although, the darker conversations he could've done without. Since he used writing as a tool to clear his head, it had been easy to write too much. He had been embarrassingly open the last three days and even though a relationship needed that eventually, this felt too much too early.

"It was a good way to spend my birthday", he added, "I usually don't do anything special, so this was really nice." A little time for only himself. Nothing to do with his daughters or his work, on both he spent about almost every waking hour. This had been only for himself, because he wanted to be with Nicolas, nothing else. Maybe this hadn't been the worst idea after all.

"Birthday?", Nicolas asked surprised.

Marshall nodded: "Yeah, today's my birthday."

Nicolas leaned forward and their lips met into a long, intense kiss. Then the dark voice said: "Happy birthday."

Marshall couldn't help the smile. "Thanks", he whispered back.

Then, Nicolas got out of the car and went to his house. Marshall waited until he couldn't see him in the dark anymore, and waited some more until he saw light in one of the windows.

Their weekend was officially over.

Marshall was surprised to see the foyer in, well, in orderly condition. Just as he had left it. He had expected some chaos, maybe a minor disaster of cups and scraps of food, some tumble of furniture. Even all the pictures were still hanging on the wall along the stairs as they were supposed to. His steps led him into the living room. Low snoring came from one of the couches, Ryan slept there. Everything else looked as always, no stains on the carpet as far as he saw right now.

His daughters could clean up really well, when they wanted to. He was impressed.

Since he didn't have the heart to wake Ryan up, he just draped a blanket over him and let him be. He'd been a really good friend. There weren't even beer bottles to clean up after him. Did he really stick to the no-alcohol rule Marshall had set up for the girls? That was sweet of him.

He left the living room and went upstairs. After checking up on his girls, who all slept soundly in their beds, he went to bed himself.

The morning rose early and Marshall with it. After a round on his treadmill and a good shower, he stood in the kitchen and made some sandwiches. There were a lot of mouths to feed today. He wondered, if he needed to wake Whitney up himself or if she would listen to her alarm clock. Usually he could say that from the way she went to bed the night before, but that wasn't available information right now.

Hailie was the first to walk in. "You're in a good mood", she said and snagged one of the sandwiches. "I take it, your weekend went well?"

"It was nice", he tried to sound nonchalant. "What about yours?"

She grinned briefly. "It was nice." As she came closer, he ruffled her hair in response. But instead of pushing his hand away or fixing her hair up, she just hugged him. "Happy birthday, Dad."

"Thanks, Hai-Hai", of course he hugged her back and gave a kiss to her temple. What else was there?

She sat down at the table. "So, you gonna give me some details now? Or are you still insisting that you don't have a girlfriend and don't really date?"