Chapter 8: F is for Love which means Summer.

If you were to ask me what I thought of when you said the letter F... I wouldn't say Fili, I'd say love.

I'd say that because if you asked me what I thought of when you said the word Love I'd say summer, because summer means warmth and golden afternoons and safety in long days. Summer means sitting outside sipping lemonade with ice cubes through bright green straws with frozen raspberries floating in your drink. It means barbequed meat charred over coal fed flames and crisp, sweet lettuce and sharp, tart tomatoes with watery squishy cucumber slices. It means cool showers in the evening and sitting outside in tents around a fire pit roasting marshmallows and watching the fire flies.

But summer can also be dangerous.

You can get heat stroke if you stay in the sun too long. You can dehydrate from not drinking enough liquids. You can sunburn from standing beneath the Ultraviolet rays for extended periods of time. There's mosquito bites, flies through open windows, getting stuck to leather chairs and peeling off two layers of skin getting up, flaring tempers, loud arguments, the buckle on seatbelt heating to flaming hot.

That's why I think of summer when asked about love when asked about Fili.

Because he can be the relief, the safety, the way to being comfortable under immense conditions. He can be the ice cubes in my lemonade, the fireflies in my camp out, navy blue, starlit sky. He can be the barbeque I burn on, or the cool shower to cool my temper when it flares under pressure.

Or.

Or he can be the thing I can't bare to be near when I know the end goal. He can be the thing I need most, what I crave or thirst for. The itch I feel when his beard burns my skin, he is the reason I lose two layers of skin getting away from him, the lemon juice poured over the raw skin.

See, that to me is what a relationship should be.

Not poncy, heartfelt words and gestures.

But fiery passion and heated gazes, soft touches and rough... Well you know.

Say what you like but to me?

F is for Love is for Summer.