"Heart" (in the anthology FOOL FOR LOVE). by 'Nathan Burgoine

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Happy Valentine's Day!

Love, to me, is all about the day-to-day, not the special occasions. I think there's more love in the way my husband will lean into the room where I'm writing or reading and say, "Cup of tea?" than there is in a fist full of valentines. Every night before we fall asleep I kiss his eyelids, forehead, and lips before I close my eyes. Little things.

"The View," by Brandon M. Long

In my re-visit through Fool for Love on audiobook, I've found a lot of those "little" things adding up to change the experience. For example, my first read through of this tale, I said this: Next up is 'A View,' by Brandon M. Long, which has this fantastic sense of collision to it; the main character has a tendency to keep a distance, and watching these defenses break down is sweet. He makes mistakes you can picture yourself making, and instead of making you flinch, you empathize. It's sweet without being saccharine, and the quirks of the main fellow made him all the more adorable.

What I hadn't recalled - and what came through so much when the reader was performing the story - was how the conclusion of the story had played out balancing on one of those seemingly "little things." I won't ruin it, but it made me smile. Again, the voice the reader chose for the character felt genuine, and the end result was a kind of "everyman" that I did get on my initial read of the story.

It's fascinating to have these two different reading experiences.