iv.

HOLLIS NEVER WENT to the Mecklenburg when it wasn't Thursday, and even then, he only came out for open mic. He tried to get there around the beginning to watch all the other musicians, but he wasn't good at paying attention to time passing, truthfully. If it weren't for reminders he'd set on his phone, he would routinely forget to go to work.

He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He didn't have anything that marked time necessarily.

Oftentimes, he'd just miss it. He'd look at the clock around 5:00 and think, Oh, time for open mic soon . The next time he looked, it'd be midnight, and it would be too late. That was what had happened yesterday, actually.

Now, it was after work on Friday night, and he was at the Mecklenburg. He was used to the Thursday night bartenders. He usually got there during Melissa's shift, and then Jeff took over.

Lucy was behind the bar. He knew that Lucy bartended, but he was used to seeing her in her capacity of running the open mic.

"Hollis," she greeted warmly. "What can I get you?"

"Guinness," he ordered out of habit. He didn't really experience alcohol as an intoxicant, so he drank for taste, and he liked the depth of dark, dark beers.

She got him a can from the cooler and frosty glass.

He paid her.

She ran his card and then gave it back.

He wondered if he should have started a tab. "Look, I actually just came here because…"

Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Ooh, you have a reason for coming to this fine establishment beyond just drinking and hanging out?"

"You know Fifer Ione?"

"Yes," said Lucy. "Most people do, or at least they've heard her play. She actually goes on tour, did you know this? I was thinking about asking her if she wanted to run open mic night every other week for me, because I could stand a break now and again, but then I figured she'd be going on tour all the time, and probably not."

"She says she hates touring, actually," said Hollis.

"Oh, really?" Lucy shrugged. "Weird."

"Does she…?" Hollis rubbed his chin. "I guess I can't ask you to tell me where she lives."

Lucy let out a little laugh. "Are you into Fifer?"

"Do you know where she lives?"

Lucy came over with a wet rag and started wiping down the bar. "Hey, I hate to burst your bubble, but she's asexual. I can't believe you had any kind of conversation with her, and she didn't share that with you. It's usually, like, the third thing out of her mouth."

He lifted his glass so that she could wipe under it. "No, we covered that. I should probably just text her. I do have her phone number, and if I'd texted her before, none of this would have happened. It's just, you know, texting is so awkward."

"I do know where she lives," said Lucy, grinning at him.

"Okay," he said. "So, that means…?"

"If I'm going to tell you," she said, laughing, "first you have to show me your phone, so that I can confirm you actually have her number in there."

"Oh, sure," he said, digging his phone out. He unlocked it and opened his contacts and showed Lucy the screen with Fifer's number.

Lucy nodded. "Okay. Well, it's on Church Street. She lives in the bottom apartment about… hmm, I think it's three doors down from German Street?"

"You don't know the address?"

"You should text her," said Lucy. "So, if she's asexual, then how does that work?" She scooted back, looking at him, taking his fingers, his face. "Do you have, like, organs?"

"Nope," he said.

She nodded slowly. "Okay, well, maybe this is none of my business."

He laughed.

She laughed. "Just, you be nice to her, do you hear me? She's a sweetheart, and if you act like some kind of jackass, I will not be pleased."

"Okay," he said. "I'll keep that in mind." There weren't really a lot of beings who could actually pose a credible threat to him, true. But he realized he didn't want to be a jackass to Fifer.

Well, tangles and briars. That was probably why she'd gotten so freaked out in the first place, wasn't it?

"SOMEONE TOLD YOU where I live." Fifer stood in the doorway, glaring at Hollis.

"Uh, not really. I knocked on a bunch of the wrong doors first." Hollis had his hands shoved into his pockets, his head down, peering out from under his hoodie. "I was going to text. It's only… texting is so awkward."

"I was going to text you," said Fifer. "This is precisely what I told you, if you remember, when I saw you earlier today? That I would text you. When I was ready."

He drew in a noisy breath and nodded, antlers bobbing. "Okay, right, then. So, I should go."

"No," she said, stepping away from the door, a split second decision. "Come in."

He hesitated.

She shrugged. "I have a ton of questions, anyway."

He nodded. "Yeah, figured that." He stepped inside, looking around. "Oh, this is nice. I like it."

"Thanks," she said. "I'm swinging it without a roommate for now, but I don't know how long that's going to last. I could make the tour money last longer if I got a roommate." She shut the door behind him.

"Right," he said. "Well, having a roommate can be nice. Not so lonely. Sometimes, I have roommates."

"Sometimes," she said, feeling her heart start to speed up again. "In the past thousand years or so."

He glanced at her over his shoulder, and he seemed sheepish. "Sorry I dropped that on you. But you asked, and I wasn't going to lie to you. Maybe I should have found a different way—"

"Why me?"

He took his hands out of his pockets. "I never met anyone like you before."

"And he gives me a cliché line!" She pushed past him and into the apartment. "You want to sit outside? There's a little patio behind the kitchen. I have beer."

"Sounds great," he said, following her. "Is that a cliché?"

She just laughed.

"It's true. You should be aware of your relative uniqueness. How do you even…? Like, do you take a lot of baths?"

She was in the kitchen now. She opened the fridge up and peered inside. "I have Blue Moon and White Claw."

"Uh, I've never tasted those seltzer things."

"You want to?"

"I…" He hesitated. "I'll have whatever you're having."

"If you don't want—"

"It's fine."

What was this about? She shrugged, deciding not to push. She grabbed him a White Claw and shut the fridge. "My older sister has a pool."

"So, the chlorine—"

"A salt water pool," she said. "She lives just across the bridge in Maryland. I take my sealskin and swim when I need to."

"You like to swim, then."

She shrugged. "Swimming is fine. I don't really want the selkie thing to define me, I guess?"

"Sure," he said.

She led him out onto the patio. Then she handed the hard seltzer to the ancient, ageless fae exile who was over a thousand years old and who might have developed a crush on her. She sat down and looked up at him, feeling entirely out of sorts.

He sat down, opening the can of White Claw. He took a drink.

"So, do you hate it?"

He ducked down his skull head, showing her his antlers, and she got the impression he was embarrassed. "The, um, the truth is, I don't actually have taste buds. I don't taste things, really."

She was stunned. "Seriously? No taste at all, like—"

"Well, no, I can experience memories of taste, but I sort of have to steal it from someone. I can sort of get inside people, if they let me? Taste what they taste, feel what they feel. Then, when I eat or drink or touch, it's like my brain uses those memories to make me experience sensations. I guess maybe it's not that different from anything mortal. All your taste and touch is really electrical messages in the brain, right? But mine are just sort of delayed."

She was astonished.

He groaned. "I didn't want to get into that right off."

"So, could I taste it for you?" she said.

"It's… invasive. We shouldn't… yet…"

Yet? She felt something tighten in her at this vague sort of promise of something invasive to come between them. That was strange and a little frightening. Her breath caught in her throat.

It was silent for just a bit too long.

She let out a laugh. "So, how old are you?"

"That's your first question?"

"You probably don't know," she muttered. "Before you were here, you were in some other realm where time moved differently and you were some sort of spirit and then… now… you're…"

"I mean, you're not wrong," he said with a little sigh. "I got caught up in the novelty is the thing. I didn't think how it would make you feel. I'm sorry."

"The novelty." She let out a laugh, her stomach turning over. "Because you haven't dated because you haven't been interested in anyone since, like 1830 or something."

"Kind of," he said. "I mean, wow, you're a good guesser."

"So, again, why me?"

"I just want to know everything about you," he said. "If, um, if you don't want it to be… we could just be friends."

She took several long chugs of the hard seltzer, gaping at him. Then she set the can down. "Everything about me."

"I never met anyone like you. You're interesting. I haven't found someone interesting in a while."

"And me? I'm interesting."

"Extremely."

"Why?"

"You're just unique. Everything I find out about you makes me want to know more. I don't know."

"The thing in the 1830s, how'd that end? She aged and you stayed young and bony and then she died?"

He looked down into the can of seltzer.

"You don't want to tell me, and it's rude of me to ask—"

"No, it was a long time ago," he said. "Uh, it wasn't like that. I've never committed to a mortal before. Doesn't seem fair."

"So, if we dated, it'd be a temporary thing."

"I guess. I didn't think it through, really."

"Right, of course not. Because you're a man. And even ancient, exiled fae men are all the same."

He let out a little laugh. "Should we just be friends?"

"How long is temporary for you? I bet fifty years just flies by." She was sarcastic.

"You know how time is," he said. "Both fast and slow at the same time. Sometimes ten minutes seems interminable. Sometimes, you can't understand how you could have been living someplace for ten years. But this thing—and it was the 1840s, by the way—what happened was that she got married to someone else. I was sad, but I got why she did it. I was never going to be able to be what she wanted, or to give her anything she wanted. I…" He drank more hard seltzer. "You know, this is bringing a lot of things back up. I really didn't think I'd do something like this again. Let's be friends."

"We're not going to be friends," she muttered.

"No?"

"Maybe you can do that," she said, her heart in her throat. "Maybe you can just switch that off—or over—or something. Turn a feeling to friendship, like that." She snapped. Because this, it was like the Henry thing in reverse. She couldn't summon romantic feelings for Henry no matter how hard she tried. And when she was around Hollis, it was just… whatever it was. It was too soon to say romantic, really, because she barely knew Hollis. But she had a crush on him. She felt… she wanted…

I'm going to get very, very hurt when he steamrolls over me, she thought. He's going to be a big deal to me, and I'm going to be nothing to him.

He eyed her. "Some people would say that romance is simply friendship with sex added in. But I guess you wouldn't. I guess… what is the difference? To you?"

"Is that what you think? That romance is just friendship plus sex?"

He blew out a huff of air. "I wouldn't be the person you'd come to for a definition of romance, I don't think. I don't know much about that at all. So, you tell me."

She drank more of her White Claw, trying to gather her thoughts. "It's more exclusive, for one thing. Romance is. You can have a lot of friends, but a romantic partner? Usually just one. It depends, you know, if you're poly or something."

"Which you're not?"

"I don't think so," she said. "I think I'd want monogamy. But I guess—the thing is—since I already have so many dealbreaker requirements that are difficult for people to meet, beggars can't be choosers. Like, I know I probably can't give on the sex thing. So, that's a huge ask. If I found someone who wanted to be with me, but they wanted to have sex with other people, I would allow it. I feel like I'd have to. It doesn't seem fair otherwise."

"Sure," he said. "I guess I understand that. But, I mean, I can't have sex anyway."

"Right," she said. "So, then if you can't even have sex—if you don't want sex—"

"I didn't say I didn't want it."

"Then, I'm really, really confused."

"You haven't explained to me how romance and friendship differ if there's no sex involved."

"Well, in my case, anyway, there could be closeness. Cuddling and maybe some kissing, but I don't know about kissing—I'm not a big fan of tongues, to be honest. But definitely hugs and holding hands and sleeping close and things like that. Which you don't do with a friend."

"Could your romantic partner watch you masturbate?"

"I… don't know," she said, blinking at him. "Are we getting ahead of ourselves?"

"Probably," he said. He became very interested in his White Claw.

"Which goes back to you wanting something you can't have."

He laughed softly. "That's the best kind of wanting, isn't it?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "It's definitely not."

"It's the purest," he said. "It's impossible to satisfy, so it's nothing but want, endless want, neverending desire."

She licked her lips. Okay, then, what was that feeling? She didn't think she'd ever felt it around a person before, and it was sort of different than when she felt it from a story or her own mind. That was arousal, tight-tingly in her pelvis, things waking up. His pure desire, that made her hot? Okay, then.

Tell him to leave.

No fucking way.

No, she wanted it. She was curious, even as it all terrified her. She wasn't so afraid that she would deny it. She thought the fear might actually be entwining with it in strange and interesting and exciting ways. Her breath caught in her throat.

"It's, um, it can be predatory," he said. "You've heard the stories about the ancient ones of our kind, I'm sure. And there's an element to it within your own legacy—the selkie legacy, right? Because the ancient stories of selkies are seductive and sometimes vindictive. We… my kind… we want to devour things. Because we don't… nothing's as bright or sharp as it is for things who are mortal."

"For things who die," she said, understanding it in an awful, awful way that somehow wasn't dimming her arousal. "Things matter more when it's all going to be over, but when it goes on and on, nothing matters."

"Not nothing," he said. "Things matter. Things are still wrong. I'm not like that, I swear. I wouldn't…" He set down the White Claw, leaning forward. "I mean, maybe I can't. Because to really get what I would want from you, I'd need to be present when you, uh, climax, and if you don't want anyone there—"

"So, this is… you want me for sex."

"No." He shook his head. "No, I want to know you. I want to be around you. If it's not sex, if you don't want me to watch you or be there—I'm fine with that."

"Why do you want to know me, though?'

"Why does anyone want to know anyone?"

"Is that predatory, too?"

He sighed. "I should go."

"Don't," she said. "I don't know if it's, um, a bad thing if it is predatory."

He regarded her from under the hoodie, and she couldn't breathe. His voice was low and it seemed to settle inside her somewhere. "Because it awakens something within you. That awful desire, the pure kind, the one I talked about. And being wanted like that…"

"Yeah," she said, no bottom in her voice. She set down her can of hard seltzer, confused, bothered, eager… "You want to see my room?"

"Are you…?"

"Yeah," she said. "Is that okay?"

" Yes. " His voice was a growl.

It made every part of her clench and her nipples harden. She let out a shaky breath.

"But," he said, his voice still deep and dark, "I want you to be sure that you understand that you can stop it at any moment, all right? I need consent, or I can't get what I want from you."

"I get that," she said.

"So, as long as you wish it, I want you." It was like a vow, she thought, and it twined inside her, and it made her heart pound wildly against her rib cage, her body all sparks and heat.

What was she getting herself into?