Belle and I had always been close -- of that, there was no doubt. But in plain simple fact: Naimh was my official girlfriend, not Belle. That part was quite clear. Alice was my best friend. My buddy. And yet if you asked anybody who I shared my intimacy with... my secrets, my hopes, my dreams...

+++ my emotional love...

Well...

Let's just say things weren't quite so clear.

And then came Valentine's Day.

“Cool it, guys. We've still got a Long day ahead. Don’t wear him out,”

Sam drawled from somewhere off to my left.

It was Lunchtime on February 14th and my horny girlfriend had crawled into my lap to start making out with me. At Sam's comment, she pulled back and sighed regretfully.

I took one look at her expression and knew I needed to do damage control. "Hey, are you sure about this? It's not too late to switch back to our original plans."

I could see the hesitation in Naimh's eyes. She was my girlfriend, and

I'd promised her a romantic afternoon to celebrate Valentine's Day. But then Last Friday the group got talking about the upcoming “holiday”, and Sam suggested that since none of them were dating and that I was the BTC's “boyfriend”, it made sense for them all to have a special group hookup with me.

I'd immediately thought of my promise to my actual girlfriend, and since I'd already told Belle my plans, she was quick to volunteer her opinion that Neevie deserved to have me all to herself. But Naimh had contradicted Belle and reminded everyone that she was more than happy to share with her best friends. By the end of the night, plans had been made even though Valentine's fell on a school day. But now that the day in question was here, I could see the look of regret on Naimh's face.

She covered her disappointment quickly and gave me a quick peck on the nose. "It's fine. We talked about this. We'll do your plan next week."

She put on a brave smile, but I could still see the tension in her eyes.

I kissed her quickly, hugged her close, and murmured into her ear, “I love you, Neevie."

She visibly relaxed and squeezed me closer.

“I love you too, Matty."

There were only a few more minutes left in lunchtime, so we collectively packed up our things and started splitting off to get to our next classes. I was still facing the table when a male voice said from somewhere behind me, "Hey Mari! I Like the new shoes."

I blinked in surprise and glanced back behind me. Mari was standing with Belle, blushing cutely as she nervously brushed her hair back behind her left ear. "Hi, Gerald. Thanks for noticing," she replied demurely.

Glancing down, I saw that Mari indeed was wearing new white walking shoes with pink stripes. I hadn't noticed before.

"See you at class," Gerald said warmly as he continued on down the hallway. He hooked his thumbs into his backpack straps and walked with an extra spring in his step.

I'd known Gerald for years. He was a nice guy, someone I'd even played

Magic: The Gathering with back in the day, and a pretty good student.

He could stand to lose a few pounds, but he wasn't really overweight or anything like that. Still, while the guy didn't set off any “dirtbag” alarms in the back of my head, my first impulse was to feel rather territorial. Mari was BTC, which meant she belonged to ME, didn't she?

So standing up, I came alongside my angel and asked, “What was THAT about?" I gestured with my head toward the departing young man.