Pet names.

As I drove the van out of the gas station after everyone had finished their business, Mila and Noelle were both mercilessly attacking Alice with relentless tickling. The poor blonde was practically crying from laughter.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Ahahaha!”

“You sneaky little minx!” Mila told her, smirking as she tickled Alice’s stomach under her t-shirt. “And this isn’t the first time you do something like this, too!”

“Admit it! How much of those ‘driving lessons’ with him were actually driving lessons, huh!?” Noelle asked, her hands under Alice’s armpits.

Alice squirmed in her seat as she laughed, but she was gracefully accepting her punishment. She didn’t try to push Mila or Noelle away or anything.

“P-Please…! Ahaha! I just… Ahahaha…! I can’t breathe…!”

“Alright, that’s enough ****,” Diana told them. “Besides, it takes two to tango.”

“I am a victim here, alright?” I said casually. “I was lured like a fly to honey. There was nothing I could do.”

Mila and Noelle finally let Alice go, and the blonde took the opportunity to finally take deep breaths. “Oh, God… I thought I was gonna pee myself,” she said, still with a smile on her face.

“Alice, you bitch…” Sarah said. “You stole the van’s first time from under us.”

“Don’t listen to them. It’s fair since you’re the one who worked on it,” Grace said. “And besides, I respect it.”

“Of course you do,” Mila told her. “You’ve done the same more than once.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Alice’s chuckle said she wasn’t actually that sorry about it. “I just saw the opportunity and took it. I didn’t plan it.”

“Oh? You saw an opportunity and took it?” Diana asked. “I see. Very well, then. If that’s the game you want to play.”

I caught her smirking from the corner of my eyes and blinked. What did she mean by that? And why did it make my heart start to beat faster?

“Ooooh!” Noelle exclaimed and giggled. “I see, I see.”

“W-What? What do you see?” Mila asked.

“Oh-uh. Mila’s gonna lag behind if she doesn’t figure this one out soon,” Sarah teased.

“Alright, then. It’s begun,” Grace said. “Good luck, everyone. I don’t plan on holding anything back.”

“Okay, seriously! What did I miss?” Mila asked again.

“You’ll figure it out,” Alice told her before stretching her arms up and arching her back. “Oh, man, That was good. I don’t regret a thing. Ah, actually… Um… I really am sorry about one thing.”

“Hm? What about?” Noelle asked, now frowning with worry.

Alice turned to Grace and spoke with a genuinely apologetic tone. “Hey, I… While we were doing it, I couldn’t stop myself and ended up calling Oliver ‘love.’ I sorry…”

I caught Grace’s expression through the rearview mirror. She was frowning and her jaw hung. “W-What? Why would you apologize for that? And to me especially?”

Alice let out a soft groan and awkwardly rubbed her hands together. “Well… It’s kind of you thing, isn’t it? You always call him ‘love’ just like Sarah calls him ‘baby’ and Diana calls him ‘dear.’ It felt right in the moment, but… I later thought I was stepping somewhere I shouldn’t.”

Ah. She did call me that. Honestly, I was feeling a little too… excited at that moment to think it through, but it did seem a bit odd. Not in a bad way, but Alice always called me by name, no nicknames or pet names. Actually, Mila and Noelle also did that.

“...And since when have I had a monopoly on that pet name?” Grace asked Alice, immediately shaking her head and sighing heavily. “I swear, you get hung up on the strangest things sometimes.”

“You mean… You don’t mind?” Alice asked with perplexed blinking.

“Of course I don’t! Why would I?”

“No, Grace, I… actually see her point,” Noelle said shyly. “I… I’ve always found it cute how you, Sarah and Diana call him something unique. I’ve been trying to look for something like that myself, but everything I come up with seems ****. We share a boyfriend, that’s true, but…” Noelle stopped, but it seemed like it was because she couldn’t find the words to express what she wanted to say.

“Like she said, there’s something unique to it,” Alice continued for her. “Something that felt unique to you and Oliver. Yes, we share a boyfriend, but that doesn’t mean our relationships are exactly the same.”

“Yeah, that’s it!” Noelle said.

Sarah crossed her arms and furrowed her brow in thought. “I want to say you’re overthinking it, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make sense to me.”

“...Alright, fine, I see your point,” Grace said after a moment of silence. She’s always been big on the romance of life, on the poetry of the little things. Something like this was right up her alley, so it was easy to understand. “Regardless,” she continued, “that uniqueness you talk about won’t go away just because we use the same pet name. It’s not so shallow as that, is it?”

“I… suppose that’s true,” Alice admitted. “So… you really don’t mind?”

Grace chuckled. “No, I don’t. It’s not even me you should be asking, is it?”

“None of you have ever asked me if I like the pet names you call me,” I told Grace.

“Oh, shut up. You love it,” Grace shot back.

I didn’t fight back.

“So… Can I call you ‘love’, Oliver?”

I felt butterflies in my stomach. The good kind. “If you find it comfortable, then I’d like it if you did.”

Alice giggled. “Thank you.”

“Okay, now I feel weird for never thinking to call him a pet name,” Mila said. She crossed her arms, threw her head back and closed her eyes. Before long, she opened them and clapped her hands. “Got it! I’m gonna call him lev!”

“Lev?” Noelle asked, tilting her head. “Why lev?”

Mila smirked. “It’s Russian for lion. Rawr!”

All the girls in the back burst out laughing. “Okay, now you’re trying too hard!” Grace told her.

At the same time, however, Diana leaned in a bit closer and whispered in a surprisingly hesitant tone. “H-Hey, I just realized… Um… W-What does your mother call you?”

I flinched. “Let’s not ask questions neither of us want answers to, alright?”

“Agreed. Forget I asked.”

Forgotten.

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