More than just a friend || Roger Taylor

32- just trust me

16th October 1980

"So... tomorrow night ? My place ?" Nathan smiled a little as I kissed his cheek, nodding as I opened the passenger side door. "I'll have the booze already sat on the table."

"Thanks for last night. Don't get too drunk at this lunch you're off to, last time you were too hungover to even move. I'll see you later." I gave him only a very small wave, one short enough for him to notice the conversation I never really enjoyed was coming to a slightly more abrupt end than he'd expected. I closed the car door behind me, turning on my heel to  avoid his smirk as I waited to hear the car engine sputter.

I didn't take too long making my way up to Mel's office, tapping only gently against her wooden door to reveal her red haired figure sat at the same desk, her glasses sat on the edge of her nose as she smiled.

She hadn't changed a bit, not even since I'd met her. Nor had her role in my life. We'd undeniably become closer over the years, but that was inevitable. She worked the same job, told me the same things, and never once asked me to take a small film role again.

"Hiya... how are things ?" She asked somewhat quietly, straightening up a stack of paper on her desk as u shrugged a little.

"Not too bad. Been a little busy. I've erm..." I paused as I realised what I wanted to suddenly confess to Mel. Almost without releasing what I was about to say I was going to tell her about Nathan, my secret now boyfriend who'd been the one to only partly willingly give me a lift here.

Since seeing Roger again I'd felt my feeling towards him become a little stirred, far too long after they'd settled to. It worried my ones about Nathan, and even caused me to question the majority of them, but I think that's why I was so desperate to spend as much time with him. In my mind, the more time I spent with Nathan the more I'd find myself falling, since I liked to tell myself that's how love worked. But I always remembered how I'd fallen for Roger in so little time, and how this romance didn't quite work the same way.

But despite the blonde and brunette my head seemed to battle over, I couldn't quite pin why the next sentence that wanted to pass from my lips was the confession to my relationship- but it was. And for some reason even though I'd stopped it only temporarily, I decided to let it keep moving forward.

"I've been dating this guy now for a couple weeks... his names Nathan. He's alright. I just, I thought I should tell you. I'm not gonna like tell the world or anything but-"

"Oh god finally ! You've not been with anyone since Tommy Evans for crying out loud." She exclaimed, her hands thrown out dramatically as she laughed. "I'm happy for you though... and you can tell the press whenever you're ready to. No rush."

"Yeah. No rush."

"This might not be my place or anything... but do you love him ?"

The word love wasn't one I thought of when it came to Nathan. I loved Connie, Julian and Summer and Leo and Charlie and my cat and my mum, and I knew that was all love that was true. Because just like my mum said, love was something you never let let go of it it's real. But I'd never thought I'd loved Nathan. His name never sprung to mind when hearing the word.

The man who did however wasn't supposed to. Not anymore. Which is why every time I did hear the word love and my mind replayed the conversation me and my mum once had about how true it is, I shut him away as quick as possible. I know now it's because I wanted to deny the feeling. If I closed it off and didn't think about it than how could it be true ? It was easier to pretend those feelings didn't exist, to put on a false act rather than admit the dreaded truth.

But one thing that was real, and not in fact a lie was how I never thought of Nathan as someone I loved. He was someone I liked, of course he was. And even though he was very different to how he was when I first met him, he was someone I could see sticking around. But not someone I could see myself loving as truthfully as I had done other people.