“love” being a part of ghost’s vernacular, meaning no matter who he’s talking to, there’s always a chance that he’ll address them as love at some point. there’s no meaning to it, no intent at all—it’s just how he talks.
soap feels like the exception, and he hates it. he hates that ghost seems to refer to everyone as love save for him, and he hates that he can’t say anything about it without sounding weird. jealous.
what he doesn’t know is that ghost doesn’t use it for soap because of how meaningless the form of address has become for him. he doesn’t feel it’d be right to refer to soap with something devoid of significance, so he avoids it altogether. soap deserves something with feeling, with sincerity behind it.
he just doesn’t know what yet.
(though maybe it should be obvious, with the way soap looks at him when ghost calls him johnny where no one else can.)
(and maybe it should be obvious to soap that he doesn’t need terms like love with the way his heart skips a beat every time ghost says that nickname.)
(they’ll figure it out one day.)