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There was a knock on Alex’s door.
“Alex?” her brother said from behind it. “Would you still love me if I were a frog?”
Alex rolled her eyes. Justin was painfully unhip.
“It’s ‘worm’,” she said. “The meme—which is long outdated—goes: ‘Would you still love me if I was a worm.’”
“No,” Justin replied. He opened the door and stepped into the light. “It’s definitely ‘frog’.”
Alex muffled a scream with her hand.
Justin’s skin was a garish green and coated in slime. Huge, yellow eyes bulged unnaturally from the sides of his head, and he walked unsteadily on webbed feet. He still had his hair, though.
“What happened to you?”
“I was on the job,” Justin said, struggling to form words around his giant frog tongue, “catching a monster frog, and it bit me. The wizard doctors said this could last anywhere from a week to a month.” He looked at her hopefully. “A month is a long time to go without our… usual activities. Any chance we might continue them?”
Alex’s mouth dropped open. “No! I am obviously not having sex with your slimy, warty ass until you get cured. Are you kidding me?”
Justin slumped in disappointment. “I don’t have warts, that’s only toads,” he muttered absently.
“Nerd,” she replied on reflex.
“I was kind of hoping you’d reassure me. You know, tell me it’s what’s underneath the skin that matters?”
“When it comes to knockin' boots, I’d say the skin’s pretty important. Specifically, it’s important that the skin isn’t covered in mucus.”
Now that she’s had a moment to process, she found the situation kind of funny. Justin, clearly, did not. He sat on her bed and stared at the floor in sullen silence.
Alex sat next to him and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry, a month’ll fly by. There’s plenty of other stuff you can do.”
“It’s not that”, he replied. “I just… I feel like you were nicer to your old boyfriends than you are to me.”
“What? What makes you think that?”
“If this had happened to Mason, would you have called him a ‘slimy, warty ass’?”
Alex thought about it.
“No, I guess not,” she said, “I would’ve phrased it more gently.”
“See?”
She shrugged. “Well, that’s normal, isn’t it? When you’re just getting to know someone, you have to be careful with your words. What you think of as lighthearted teasing might be construed by someone else as a genuine insult. It’s hard to tell until you’ve known them a while. So you play it safe, and say nice things that are sort-of, but not exactly, what you mean.”
She put her arm around his waist, and drew them closer. “You’ve known me forever. You always know what I mean. I don’t have to filter myself around you. I can just say whatever I’m thinking.” She looked him in the eye, and did her best to ignore that it was the giant eye of a frog. “And I hope you’re just as comfortable around me.”
Justin smiled. “I am. Mostly. Anxiety’s a pain.” He moved to put his arm around her, then thought twice about getting mucus on her. “Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better.”
Alex laughed. “Oh, what the heck, you can hug me. This shirt’s due for a wash, anyway.”
They hugged. It was a long, warm, and comfortable hug. During it, Alex had got an idea.
“Actually, I’m willing to make one exception.” She grinned impishly. “I wonder what you can do with that huge tongue.”