4. Ciel

4

CIEL

“ W ell, this is me.” Ryan looked up at the bold number 6 on the door in front of him.

“Is it?” I asked, feigning interest.

He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I should let you go now. You’ve taken enough time out of your evening to help me, and I’m sure you’re eager to get home.”

I leaned against the wall and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be so sure of everything. One of these days, you’re going to find yourself sorely mistaken.”

He took a small ring of keys out of his pocket, fumbling with it in his hands, which seemed unusually clumsy tonight. “Actually, why don’t you come in for a few minutes? I could make coffee, or, um, I think I’ve got some sodas in the fridge…” his voice trailed off, the silence punctuated only by the lock turning in the doorknob as he unlocked it.

He opened the door and I followed him inside, taking the invitation that he had barely offered me.

“Charming,” I said, glancing around once he turned on the light.

“Well, I just moved in a few weeks ago and I’m still unpacking, and I — well, I, uh, I don’t have much furniture yet,” he stammered.

The room was painfully bare, with only an ugly brown couch the exact shade of mud after a downpour, two cardboard moving boxes pushed together to fashion a makeshift coffee table, and a small lamp perched precariously on the windowsill, the cord still wrapped up with a rubber band.

“You still have time to decorate before I return,” I told him. “You are planning on staying in town, are you not?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ryan replied, missing my hint of seeing him again. “I’m still looking for a job, but I’ve got enough saved up to survive a few months in this place. I’d like to buy a house a little farther out of town eventually, but that’s the long-term plan. For now, I’m happy staying here.”

He turned to face me, his eyes sparkling for the first time this entire night. They were beautiful even in the dim yellow wash over the overhead light, and every time his fringe fell in front of his face, he pushed it back as a force of habit, his fingertips brushing his skin with a touch as light as a feather.

“So, do you want something to drink?” he asked, breaking eye contact with me to glance back at the kitchen where more boxes were piled on top of each other.

“No, I’m all right. Truth be told, I’m not partial to many Earthly drinks. I don’t need them and the taste doesn’t appeal to me as much as it must to other monsters and humans, seeing as they continue to drink them regularly.”

“Ah, I see.” Ryan nodded interestedly, walking back over to the couch to sit down. “Well, at least sit and relax for a few minutes. I don’t know if you’re as shaken as I am over the events this evening, but I’m sure you have some time to rest your…wings? I don’t know.”

I couldn’t help but smile a little. “Why not? I mean, I have feet too, but I think that wings is a more apt term.”

I sat down next to him, folding my wings neatly behind me. The feathers were crushed between my back and the worn leather of the couch anyway, meaning I would have a devil of a time trying to smooth them out in the morning, but that was a problem for tomorrow. Right now, my wings were the last thing on my mind.

“I hope you don’t think I’m upset with you,” I said as Ryan leaned back, placing his feet on the coffee table that wasn’t really a table.

“I am a little surprised to hear you say that.” He chuckled. “I reacted pretty badly when I walked into the library earlier, and I regret that. It’s not your fault, and I don’t even think it’s the Librarian’s fault, really. I think I chose the wrong service to find a girlfriend. Maybe I’ll try my luck with one of those dating apps. There are plenty of people still using those around here, right?”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t know; I’ve never used one. I only signed up for the library’s matchmaking service to test a hypothesis.”

“What hypothesis is that?”

He leaned in a little closer, his hand almost touching the side of my thigh. It was difficult to focus on anything else, yet I forced myself to pry my eyes away from his fingers and look back up at his face.

“That my disgrace was fated to happen. If you must know, I was expelled from Heaven for having sex with a demon.”

Ryan’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I was sent down to Earth for a special assignment and while I was here, I took advantage of being away from celestial rules. It was a silly little fling, but I had no regrets and I thought I got away with it. In the thrill of it all, I forgot that the all-seeing eye of God was witness to everything and when I returned, the gates were closed, so to speak. I descended back to Earth, this time permanently, and I’ve been living here since.”

“So, you want to know if there’s a soulmate here on Earth for you and that you were meant to leave Heaven. Am I right?”

“That’s exactly it. I told the Librarian as much when I signed up, and they seemed just as eager to put my idea to the test as I was. I waited for months, and I was beginning to think that perhaps I’d defied fate after all — until I got a letter from you.”

Ryan flinched at the end of my sentence. “I’m really sorry about that. You know by now that I asked to be paired with a woman, and I thought, well, I thought that you were a woman.” He smirked, studying me carefully. “You know, if I squint, you do look more feminine than masculine. I could almost believe that you’re a woman — a very pretty woman, but then I remember, well, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“And I could never be with another man, if you get what I’m saying. I can’t even imagine it.”

I nodded. “And I cannot force you to be someone you’re not. I simply don’t want you to do the same to yourself.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m not pretending to be something I’m not. I just…I’m just lonely, that’s all, and I got a little too excited about finding someone to spend some time with, so when I realized that wasn’t what I got at all, I was pissed off.”

“I understand that.” I smiled. “But we can still be friends.”

“Even after everything I said to you?”

“Why not? You’re lonely, I’m lonely, and we both got paired together for a certain reason. Perhaps it was for friendship and not romance.”

“Does the Librarian get their wires crossed like that sometimes?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps we’re the first and we’ll have something exciting to report back to them after all.”

Ryan’s hand crept closer to my thigh. I almost said something, but I held my tongue, waiting to see what would happen.

“If you want,” he said softly after a long bout of silence, “I can prove to you that I’m not gay or bi or anything like that.”

“Prove?” I raised my eyebrows. “How does one go about ‘proving’ something like that?”

“Kiss me. Friends can kiss each other, right?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Naturally.”

Before he could change his mind and come to his senses, I leaned in, one hand cupping the side of his face, the other grabbing his hand that was finally resting gently across my thigh. I pressed my lips against his, closing my eyes as I let the sensation sink in. He didn’t pull away, he didn’t tense up, instead leaning into it, reveling in how well we fit together. It was perfection, and for the first time on Earth, I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.