He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.
One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
Then you remember the dream,†Mencheres stated. “That bodes ill.† The fear of that made my reply snappy. “Hey, Walks Like An Egyptian, how about for once you drop the formal stuff and talk like you live in the twenty-first century?† The shit’s gonna splatter, start buggin’, yo,†Mencheres responded instantly.  I stared at him, then burst out laughing, which was highly inappropriate considering the very grave warning he’d just conveyed.