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He’s nearly a pint of vodka in, lazily swiping through the latest batch of profiles when one finally catches his eye. Nigel wouldn’t say that he’s picky, per se -- in fact, if one were to inquire as to his type he’d be happy to narrow down the pool to breathing and willing . But the ghost of love lost still haunts the edges of his mind nearly a year later, and even putting half a globe between them doesn’t stop Nigel’s thoughts from drifting back to his darling Gabi and the snivelling cunt that swiped her from him.
He should have ended Charlie Countryman when he’d had the chance. Gabi would have hated him for it, for a time, but she’d have gotten over it. She always got over it -- whatever it happened to be -- but in the end he had allowed her to decide for herself, and she hadn’t chosen him. With all the shit kicked up, it had been almost too easy to coax Darko into a new venture, his oldest friend just as willing to pick up and go, leaving his club in Bucharest in the trustworthy hands of his cousin.
He threw himself into their work for a time, focused on setting up shop and making connections in DC, where Darko had assured him they would find plenty of corrupt politicians to blackmail. But with their new club up and running and the line for drug trade secured, Nigel finds himself with less work to do and more time to mope. There are plenty of pretty young things at the club, but even those conquests feel hollow. The pounding music, writhing bodies and smoke-laced air only reminds him of time spent with Gabi, and he can’t help but compare every woman that drapes herself on his arm to the wife he never thought he’d lose.
What Nigel needs is someone new, someone different. Someone so whole-heartedly not Gabi-like that she’ll stay off his mind and on the other side of the fucking world where she belongs.
Enter ForensicFox. Nigel stares at the profile picture for a solid minute before jerking his thumb across the screen. Smug satisfaction warms his belly at the immediate pop-up message: It’s a match! and he doesn’t hesitate to click on the chat icon. He does mull over what to type out once the blank screen is presented to him. It must be something enough to stand apart from the flood of messages this particular fox no doubt receives; enough to warrant a response back.
How does one end up with a screen name like ForensicFox?
He’s pleased that only minutes go by before his phone dings with the notification of a reply. Nigel is anything but a patient man.
I work in forensics. I should hope the second piece is self-explanatory.
Without a doubt. What needs explanation is that curly-haired beauty with you in your profile pic.
…
Did you seriously swipe right on me to ask about my friend?
What’s his story? Single?
I’d have hoped with a name like “RomanianRomeo” you’d be a bit more suave, but you’re pretty heavy handed, aren’t you?
Some say it’s my best quality.
Charming.
He’s single. Not looking.
Think he’d make an exception for a burly Romanian that’d like to get his legs in the air?
I honestly can’t tell if I’m being trolled right now. This is too surreal.
Look, your fixation with a complete stranger you’ve seen one picture of is cute and all, but I didn’t exactly get on this app to play matchmaker.
I’ve got a friend. Single. Also Romanian. Less heavy handed.
I’m captivated already.
How about a double date?
It’s so tempting I just...don’t know how I could possibly refuse.
No.
Nigel frowns at the response. Still, his match has yet to block him, and Nigel isn’t one to give up easily. He taps the attachment icon and scrolls through his gallery until he finds what he’s looking for; a photo of him and Darko before shit had gone so south with Gabi, hands clasped and cigarettes hanging from their shit-eating grins. It’s obvious the two of them are three sheets to the fucking wind, but there’s no denying the pair of them still look damn good. He doesn’t remember much of anything about the night, thanks to a shitload of țuică, but he remembers joking with his brolis and turning at the flash of a light, the two of them reaching for each other and beaming at Gabi as she snapped another photo.
He studies the picture as he waits for a response, fondness warming the cold pit that had hollowed out his chest for the last year. He’s eternally grateful for the friendship forged with Darko, and equally certain he’d be fucking lost without him. Of the two of them, he’s the businessman, after all. Nigel was always better suited to the role of muscle, too hot-headed and quick to scrap over any perceived slight. And no one else could have pulled Nigel from the talespin that had threatened to swallow him when he lost his Gabi for good. He was liable to do something rash in response, a knee-jerk reaction that could never be undone, and Darko was the one beside him, talking more sense than a murderous, drug-peddling thug had any right to possess.
Nigel smiles when the bottom of the chat flickers with the notification ForensicFox is typing…, pulled from his morose contemplation and back to the present. His grin only widens when the response blinks into existence before his eyes.
Fine. But there’s no way in hell I’m risking the wrath of Graham by dragging him along to some blind date. You two want in so bad, you can come find us. We’ll be going to a Halloween party on Saturday. I’m going as sexy Scarface, he’ll be the one in as little costume as possible.
The chat updates again, this time an address with a date and time.
Your window is gonna be small. He’s not exactly a party person. But I’ll try to keep him around for a few hours.
Thanks, gorgeous. See you both Saturday.
Yeah, yeah. Just make sure your friend shows up.
---
Will regrets being such a good best friend. Bev doesn’t deserve it, he decides, somewhere between his fifth and ninth shot of whatever sticky-sweet concoction they’re passing off as liquor passes his lips.
He fiddles with the sheet he cut a hole in the middle of, the tag tied to his finger with the words John Doe written in his messy scrawl flicking anxiously as he fidgets. He shouldn’t even be here and he considers leaving.
Just as he stands and looks up to check his surroundings, he sees Bev looking at him from across the room, shaking her head and frowning.
He sits back down.
“Anyone sitting here?” Will looks up, a scowl and grunt prepared for whoever is traipsing all over his attempts to sulk alone, when he’s met with a playful smirk and mischievous bourbon gaze. The man the features are attached to is gorgeous, or, as Bev would call him, daddy as fuck.
Will’s brain short circuits for a few seconds, leaving him looking up at the man awkwardly before nodding silently with a wide flourish at the seat.
“I’m not interrupting anything too riveting, am I gorgeous?” The man taps his fingers against the tabletop and it’s then Will realizes he’s not dressed in anything resembling a Halloween costume.
“How’d you get past Price? He was pretty intense about costumes being required for entry?” Will asks without thinking, looking the man up and down.
“Got me a spy on the inside, don’t I?” The man winks, and Will rolls his eyes but his lips still quirk up at the end.
“Seriously though?”
The man moves his jacket aside, showcasing a hastily written name across a name tag. Doctor Nigel.
“Hope I wasn’t your patient, Doctor,” Will jests, his own fingers finding a similar rhythm to Nigel’s against his thigh.
Nigel — if that’s his real name — makes a show of turning his head to the side to read Will’s tag. “Well… John… I think I’d remember a patient as pretty as you.” He grins, exposing a mouth full of bright white, endearingly crooked teeth.
“Wow you have no shame, huh? Zero to sixty in less than a minute.”
“Maybe I like to live fast.” Nigel quips back immediately, that lopsided grin spreading his lips wider. He really does have a pretty mouth.
Will scoffs anyway, no matter how charming the man is. “Or maybe you’re just desperate.”
“I just know what I like when I see it.” Nigel drags his eyes up Will’s body and even through the frumpy, too large sheet, Will feels his gaze like a brand against his skin. He shivers even though he’s the opposite of cold, and moves his other hand to his knee as well, putting more distance between them.
“Yeah? What do you like? Men who get dragged to places they don’t wanna be?”
Nigel doesn’t waste a second, smirk still firmly in place. “I like you.”
He pulls out a pack of cigarettes from a pocket somewhere, settling one against his plush bottom lip. “Wanna step outside with me, sweetheart? See if we can find a few things you like about me?” It’s playful but with an edge of need, and it makes something in Will’s stomach go molten and fluttering.
Nigel is a man unaccustomed to being told no, but Will can also sense he needs more than just a generic yes. If Will goes outside with him it might start them both down a path they won’t be able to stop, and he can’t say he minds that so much as he minds the verbal lashing he’s sure to get from Bev for abandoning her.
He glances over to the corner of the room he’d last spotted her in and finds her similarly occupied, leaning casually against the wall with a playful grin spread across her face as a well-cut, rugged looking man shifts proprietarily into her space, one thick forearm resting against the wall above her. Perhaps his presence might not be so missed after all.
He decides to risk it all the same, snatching the cigarette from Nigel’s mouth and placing it in his own as he stands and leads him outside, with a terse jerk of his head.
---
The night is blessedly cool against his liquor-warmed cheeks, and it’s not until he pauses to allow Nigel to light the cigarette dangling from his lips and takes his first drag of nicotine-laced air in close to a decade that Will realizes how close to drunk he is. His head expands pleasantly, the world tilting in a hazy whirl, blotted out by his eyelids flickering closed and righting itself as he pushes out a cloud of smoke and steam, pauses in his steps to take a second, deep breath as the cigarette twitches between his fingers.
“So. You planning to tell me how you and your buddy found your way in?” Will asks at last as he stretches his hand out in offering. The rasp of Nigel’s calloused fingers against his own as he reclaims the cigarette sends a shiver through Will, unrelated to the cold. He quirks an eyebrow at Nigel’s own furrowed brow, mouth twitching with a frown even as he places the cigarette between his lips and takes a drag. Will’s eyes linger on the way his cheeks hollow with the pull, how the sharp line of his cheekbones and jaw look all the more striking for it; swallows the saliva that floods his mouth.
“Already showed you. We had costume enough to gain entry past your doorman.”
“I’m not talking about the costumes,” Will huffs as he plucks the smoke back from Nigel’s lips in the midst of his second drag. Takes one of his own. “I’m talking about how two such obvious thugs found their way into an FBI-hosted party.”
Nigel blinks his amber eyes at that, and Will can almost see the warmth in them harden slightly as he takes in and recalibrates with this new information. Will’s interest is piqued even farther -- the man clearly had no idea what he was walking into tonight.
“And what makes it so obvious I’m a thug, hm?” Warmth sweeps over Will as Nigel shifts closer, body angled towards him, broad chest nearly pressed to Will’s shoulder.
“The prison ink stamped across your jugular was the first clue,” Will snorts, giving in and twisting his own body to face the man beside him. He seems even taller, even broader when they stand chest to chest. Will wants to lean closer, wants to shy away. “Although apart from that, your general stature screams outsider. Rough edges, menacing vibe. You do have all the swaggering, arrogant confidence of an FBI agent,” Will admits, “But you’re not nearly uptight enough to be one.”
“Well. You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you, Agent Graham?”
Nigel reaches for the smoldering butt in Will’s fingers, but he twitches it away and brings it to his own mouth instead. “It’s Professor Graham,” he corrects, inhaling the last viable puff around a cheeky grin. “You’ve got one thing going for you, at least.”
His acquaintance shifts closer, nearly towering over Will. His chest rumbles with his murmured response, and Will aches to lean in closer. “And what’s that?”
Will lifts his knee and snubs the smoke out on the bottom of his shoe before flicking the wasted butt into the darkness of the yard before them. “I have no interest in an uptight FBI agent.”
In the dim halo of the orange and purple porch lights, Nigel’s eyes twinkle.
---
“When do I get to hear the story of how two burly Romanians ended up in Baltimore?”
A thin eyebrow quirks over hazel eyes, dimples forming as lips pull into an easy, humored grin; Bev can’t help but mirror the expression. The man is obviously trouble, but trouble has arrived in such a delicious package this time around. “Burly?”
Bev’s smirk widens over another sip of her beer. “Nigel’s descriptor.”
Darko huffs out an amused sound, mutters something distinctly foreign under his breath. “We’re based in DC, actually. But the lengths Nigel will go to for tail knows no bounds.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that,” Bev agrees blithely, still hardly believing the absolute gall of the man messaging her on a dating app to ask about the friend in her profile pic; believing even less that the tactic actually worked. “It was pretty bold, in a vaguely charming, incredibly irritating way.”
“That’s Nigel all day. Life would be less complicated without him, but the idiot’s like a brother to me.”
“You’ve managed to expertly side-step the original question, but I’ll let that slide for now.”
A sheepish grin then, Darko leaning closer, edging in. “Hardly side-stepped if you get called out for it.”
“What do you two do in DC-not-Baltimore?”
“We run a club. It’s a nice change of pace from Bucharest. Not so seedy.”
That’s not all they run, Bev is sure. But Darko is cute and it’s been too long since she’s had some decent fun, so unless he ruins it by opening his mouth and saying something stupid she’s willing to overlook it for the evening.
“Nigel said you work in forensics.”
“I’m willing to bet Nigel says a lot of things, but that one is accurate.”
“Fancy word, over-dramatised by television, I’m sure. What do you actually do?”
He’s not wrong, but Bev’s smile falters at the question. Her shoulder rises is a lazy shrug. “What you see is what you get. I analyze the samples collected, run what I find through the database to see if there’s any hits.”
“Samples of what?”
She outright frowns at that. He can’t possibly not know… “What do you mean?”
Darko’s turn to frown, his eyebrows tugging low over his eyes. “The samples you analyze, what are they from?”
“...From crime scenes,” Bev replies pointedly. “I process evidence we find at crime scenes for the FBI.” A blank stare then, and fond amusement flickers warm in her chest.
“You’re FBI?” Feigned disinterest in his voice, even as gaze slips over her skimpy mob boss costume and then around them surreptitiously.
“We’re all FBI. It’s our party.” She can’t hold back her laugh then. The poor man looks as though he’s seen a ghost. “By the look on your face I’m guessing this is news to you and not exactly ideal, so here’s what’s gonna happen.” Bev drains the last of her beer and pushes the empty bottle into Darko’s chest until he accepts it from her. “I’m gonna do us both a favor and stop asking questions before I find out something incriminating and have to work on my night off. You’re going to toss this for me, I’m going to hit the restroom, and then the two of us are gonna go find something to do that doesn’t involve talking. Sound good?”
Darko blinks at her abruptness, clearly interested in the offer but part of his brain is still trying to catch up and process what just happened. “I brought Nigel.”
“You really just have no awareness of your surroundings at all, do you? Nigel and Will slunk off fifteen minutes ago. He’ll be fine.”
---
“Fuck!” Will shouts, his nails scraping down the wood paneling on the wall. The music is loud enough he can barely hear himself think, but he honestly isn’t sure he’d care even if other people could hear him.
Nigel is relentless against his prostate, driving into him with a single minded focus. Will’s had his fair share of trysts in his life but none of them had fucked him quite like this.
“That good, baby?” Nigel breathes against his neck, pressing sweaty, nicotine laced kisses to his nape. The term of endearment from anyone else would make his skin crawl, but he’s finding he rather likes Nigel’s flirtations.
And it is good. It’s so fundamentally good to feel wanted by someone, connected to them. It’s all the better for this impromptu tryst to be taking place in the bedroom of one despised Brian Zeller, and with a man that has no doubt landed himself the attention of the FBI in one way or another in the past.
Will can only moan agreement as one of Nigel’s thick arms wraps around him, cradling his chest and pulling him even more flush to the body behind him. His other wide, calloused hand finds Will’s throat and settles around the base of it, gentle but immovable. Will thinks he might come on the spot with a single tightening of those fingers.
It’s not threatening, not nearly as much as it should be coming from the kind of man Will knows Nigel to be. It doesn’t take an excess of mirror neurons or creepily high levels of empathy to see Nigel is a bad man. Or, at the very least, a neutral man with a bad job. Nigel won’t hurt Will, that much he’s sure of.
“Nigel —“ Will tries, but he’s interrupted by the tightening of long, oddly elegant fingers. Several of them have clearly been broken but Nigel’s broken parts — his nose, fingers, the way his left shoulder is slightly higher than the right due to a past dislocation — they all only work together to make him even more beautiful in the low light coming from a single table lamp. Will doesn’t normally consider men beautiful, honestly doesn’t usually consider men at all, but Nigel breaks all his exceptions.
“Love how my name sounds on that filthy tongue of yours, gorgeous. So pretty.” Will wants to scoff, to roll his eyes and elbow Nigel in his pretty ribs, but he feels something inside him preen a little instead; validation coursing through him like a flame.
“If you’d actually fuck me maybe you’d hear even more than just your name.” He knows it’s dangerous to goad a man like Nigel, but he’s terribly curious and horribly aroused. His brain is a litany of more more more and harder, and he wants every vulgar, depraved thing he never usually lets himself have. He wants Nigel to fucking ruin him.
“That can be arranged, baby,” Nigel’s smirk against his nape and the harsh grip against his throat bring Will back to himself enough to realize he’d spoken that last bit aloud. He doesn’t even have the decency to be mortified. He just wants more.
Nigel’s teeth are at the edge of his shoulder and he’s sinking them in before Will can even protest, at the same time he’s pulling Will away from the wall and throwing him onto the floor with a total disregard for how Will falls.
He’s back on him immediately, covering Will’s body with his own and pressing him into the scratchy carpeting of Brian’s bedroom. The bed is only a few feet away but Will can’t say he disagrees with Nigel’s decision to ignore it. He hisses in surprise when Nigel is inside him again, his cock pistoning inside him like he wants to bruise Will, to mark him up inside and out.
It’s so animal, so possessive, for someone who’s known Will for an hour that it takes his breath away. He may have underestimated the quickness of Nigel’s imprinting, though he knows he didn’t misunderstand the obsessive predisposition he can nearly feel coming off the other man in waves. Nigel is dangerous, yes, but his regard is deadly.
Will tries to grapple up onto his elbows but Nigel growls, pinning Will to the ground. “Stay.” He snarls into Will’s ear, his breath warm and thick as honey.
Will feels his body go lax immediately, his legs spreading just enough to give Nigel more room to use him however he likes. Nigel nearly purrs his pleasure into the fine baby hairs at the nape of Will’s neck, nuzzling like an overgrown cat as he continues fucking Will into the floor.
“Nigel, Nigel, Nigel,” Will is moaning like a whore and can’t be bothered to be ashamed as he lifts his hips as much as the larger man allows him to meet Nigel’s thrusts.
“Look so fucking good all spread out for me like some cheap slut. But we both know it’s all for me, don’t we baby? You don’t open these sweet little thighs for just anyone, do you?” Nigel has had an uncanny insight into Will since the moment they first met, and it’s throwing him off. It’s usually him making all the — correct — assumptions about other people, not the other way around. He thinks he’d hate it from anyone else, but with Nigel it’s just another layer to whatever it is about him that attracts Will to him.
If Will’s honest with himself it’s Nigel’s darkness that draws him; his thirst for violence. His propensity to kill first and ask questions never. The easy, suave flirtations and the hint of desperation and insecurity Will can see etched into the corners of his eyes like shadows of a past Will surprisingly wants to know more about.
He shakes himself clear of his wandering thoughts when Nigel grabs his arms and brings them to his back, pinning his wrists at his lower spine. He holds Will like that while he fucks into him, careless and rough and so so good. Will clenches up around him, feeling every inch of his cock flex against his slick inner walls.
“Come inside me, please fuck me,” Will isnt usually one to beg but Nigel seems to bring it out of him, a clawing, aching need to be filled. He’s only been fucked a few times since his more exploratory college days, once by an ex girlfriend who liked to peg him and a few times by random flings he’s picked up in bars when he had a certain itch that needed scratching; when work was particularly stressful or his mind was too loud.
His brain is a perfect storm of all of the above at the moment. Time feels like a living, breathing thing as it drags by, one second Nigel fucking him so hard his lungs ache and his nipples feel rubbed raw against the carpeting and the next minute he’s grinding into him with slow, purposeful movements. His cock is pressed tightly to Will’s prostate, and Will takes it, loving the full feeling.
“You take cock so well, gorgeous. How could I not fill you up? Gonna make you remember me, mark you up so everyone knows.” Nigel sounds like a man possessed, and Will loves every intentional drag of his cock and the warmth of his breath against his shoulders and neck. He feels captured, and he never realized how fucking wonderful that would feel.
“Show me,” Will pleads, his lips slick with spit and his body covered in a sheen of sweat. His fingers dig into his palms and he nearly screams when a perfectly placed jab to his prostate has him coming all over his lower abdomen, breath catching in his throat on a surprised gasp. He hadn’t realized how close to the edge he was until Nigel had him careening over it.
“That’s it, good boy,” Nigel praises him, Will’s clenching body sending him right over along with Will seconds later. He doesn’t even stop to think about the lack of a condom because Nigel’s pulling out and Will feels the trickle of his come staining his inner thighs and he moans again, wanton and hungry. Apparently that’s a thing he likes also. He really should explore more in his dry spells.
Nigel doesn’t stay gone long, his softening cock rutting against Will’s ass. He curls his muscled arms around Will and holds him tight to his chest, murmuring against the shell of his ear.
Something tightens in Will’s chest at the intimacy, and he finds himself wanting to buck Nigel off. It feels too delicate, the connection between them so fragile and new. Even though Will pegged Nigel for obsessive from the first moment he chatted Will up, he feels insecure suddenly, like this is all just temporary.
“I hope it was good for you, you oaf, my dick is gonna be rugburned for days.” Will grumbles, trying to squirm out from under Nigel.
Nigel grunts and holds him tighter, huffing a laugh into his curls as he snakes one of his massive palms around to drag through the come all over Will’s cock and stomach. “Seems it must have been pretty enjoyable for you too, princess.”
Will rolls his eyes and finally uses his own strength to toss Nigel off his back. He smirks smugly at Nigel’s surprise, people always underestimate him because he’s not obviously muscled. He might not look as dangerous as Nigel but that’s what makes him even more deadly; an underestimated opponent never spells a good end for anyone.
Before he can make fun of Nigel or call him out for his manhandling, the door swings open and a rush of sound comes pouring in, someone downstairs singing — poorly — karaoke.
He goes for the gun usually strapped to his side and sees Nigel do the same before they both realize two things: one, they’re both nude and weaponless. Two, it’s Bev and Nigel’s friend standing in the doorway looking just as shocked — and alarmingly rumpled. Bev is like a sister to Will so he doesn’t linger too long on her kiss-swollen lips or how her eyes have gone inky with arousal.
“Will!” She screams at the same time her accomplice is shouting “You fuck!” to Nigel.
Nigel, being a child and not an adult man, rolls his eyes and finds a cigarette from his discarded jeans. “Yeah, I fucked.” He winks at Beverly and Will’s never seen her blush before but she actually has the decency to do so now and avert her gaze from Nigel’s nude form.
“We were worried,” Bev tries to sound chastising, but the humored glance her companion shoots her ruins the effect. Will only laughs and gestures at her even though she’s not looking. He stands to find his clothes, somehow strewn all across the room even though they’d barely made it into the door before he’d been pressed to the wall.
“Yeah, you look super concerned.”
“Put your fucking dick away, nenorocitule,” Nigel’s friend growls with a glare in the other Romanian’s direction. “There’s a woman present.”
Nigel gives a huff and snatches his jeans off the ground with an annoyed roll of his eyes. “No doubt your dick was planning to be present shortly, but yeah, sure, I guess mine is a problem,” the words are laced with a sarcastic edge, only softened by the slight drawl of having them spilling through lips clinging to a cigarette as Nigel occupies his hands with his pants. They have the effect of drawing a muttered foreign expletive from his friend’s clenched jaw.
Fuck. Will might actually like this one. He shifts in place and shivers when he feels the wetness in his boxers, both in the back from Nigel’s release slipping out of him and his own mess in front. He risks a brief glance to the carpet he’d been pressed into mere minutes before and sees no outstanding evidence of what happened, thinks about how hard his cock spasmed with his release, so pent up after being touch-starved for so long. Nothing to be done about it now, in any case, and there doesn’t appear to be any obvious evidence. As long as Zeller doesn’t hold a 60’s love for blacklights he should be none the wiser.
“We were just leaving, in any case, so...room’s open,” Will offers, and then cringes internally as he wonders if that was one more stupidly Creepy Graham thing to say.
He’s slightly reassured by Bev’s immediate snort. “I don’t have any interest in having sex in Brian’s bed,” she informs him curtly.
Will gives a twitch of his head toward the door, pleased when Nigel takes the silent command and follows him out. “Why not? Someone ought to.”
Bev and her new playmate part like the Red Sea to allow them passage, and Bev cackles at the retort as the two Romanians exchange a few gruff, grunted words with each other. The couple slip into the room almost as soon as it’s empty, and Will and Nigel are only steps down the hall before the door closes behind them, the sound of the lock sliding home unmistakable even with the ruckus of the party downstairs.
It never occured to Will that he might have to actually face the stranger he just let fuck him blind, and the realization brings about no small amount of awkward shuffling on Will’s part, even as Nigel merely leans against the hallway wall and enjoys another drag of his cigarette.
“Looks like you might have just gotten ditched for some tail.”
Nigel gives a careless shrug and melts back into the wall behind him. Never in his life has Will felt so comfortable, and yet Nigel makes it look like child’s play. “No looks like about it. Pulă just told me in no uncertain terms to fuck off for the night. So, gorgeous, what’s next on your docket?”
Will wants to tell Nigel that he’s just going to call it a night. That the man should call a cab and head to a motel, or back to DC. He wants to be clear that what just happened between them was not a common occurrence, and certainly not any kind of invitation to pursue him in the long term. He wants so badly to protect himself, to rebuild the walls Nigel had managed to plow through in under an hour and fortify himself against the sting of rejection that would -- always did -- eventually come.
“Do you like dogs?”