I did eventually get back to my online shopping and finally found a pastel purple shirt I liked.  I’d been looking for pink specifically since Fitz had mentioned liking that, but the purple one was really beautiful and had transparent sleeves with light designs all over them and I really loved it.  I’d still have to figure out the rest of the outfit, but at least I’d found a pretty new shirt to wear.

The day of the date, which was Friday, I laid out the new shirt – which had thankfully arrived on time – then had to go to work and pretend like I wasn’t nervous.  It wasn’t my first date ever, but the first one that was with someone I really hoped might end up working out long-term.

Elanius noticed how antsy I was all day and decided to help by distracting me with random facts.  They started by telling me that it’s a myth that hot water freezes faster and unknown fabrics are tested for fiber content by burning them, sometimes burning the warp and weft separately.

I wrinkled my nose in confusion.  “I don’t even know what those are.”

“Warp is vertical, and weft is horizontal,” they explained brightly.  “It’s kind of like when geologists lick rocks to figure out their content or archaeologists do so to figure out if something is a bone.”

Now I was more confused.  “People lick rocks?”

“Also,” they continued enthusiastically, too much on a roll to notice my response, “white tigers pretty only come about from extreme inbreeding and are all cross-eyed.  They only occur in like one of 50,000 in the wild, and if you see one in a zoo, it’s people deliberately inbreeding tigers – and quite possibly ‘discarding’ orange ones or even white ones born with extreme birth defects – all in an effort to get a white tiger because white tigers bring in money.  And koalas aren’t bears, but there’s a hybrid between wolves and coyotes called a coy wolf.  Foxes smell somewhat like skunks because they’re in the same mustelid family, like badgers and mink and ferrets and things like that, but they can’t be descented like skunks can.  Foxes are also usually monogamous but sometimes choose multiple partners, including same-sex partners!  And did you know that only men used to act in many plays, like in Shakespeare plays, and meanwhile high heels were originally masculine, used for fashion, with low heels for men used for better control on horseback?  So heels have definitely been a male thing at times, not just for women.  Oh, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, kohlrabi, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower are all cultivars of the same species of plant, just bred for different factors.  And – ”

Honestly, as much as I loved Elanius’s wealth of random information, I was having trouble keeping up this time because I wasn’t seeing the connecting piece between the random types of information.  I blinked and tried to follow along, but mostly got lost and had to pretend.

“You know how when you look at the horizon at sunset, sometimes you see a dark blue stripe at the horizon, below all the sunset colors?  It’s the earth casting a shadow in its own atmosphere!  It’s called the Belt of Venus but has nothing to do with the planet Venus.”  Elanius opened their mouth to continue, likely to spout information about the planet Venus this time, or maybe another planet, but got interrupted by the arrival of some last-minute customers trying to get some filings in before the day ended.

I glanced at my clock as we finished up with the customers, a burst of nerves hitting me as I realized it was closing time – aka time to go home, get ready, and meet Fitz for our date.

I clocked out and waited for Elanius, walking out the door with them.  “Thanks for distracting me,” I told them.  “And sometime you’ll have to tell me all that again, just slower, okay?”

They laughed and nodded, waving goodbye as they stopped at their bus stop and I kept going to our house.

I’d come home over lunch to walk the dogs, so they wouldn’t be wound up and needing exercise in the evening, so when I got home I could mostly focus on getting ready.  I put on the purple shirt and paired it with light gray pants with a floral design on their cuffs, pocket liner, and belt loops that I thought went well with the light purple shirt’s sleeves, and then had to decide on shoes.

Go with the silver boots, Kat interjected.  They’d look good with the outfit.

I brightened up a bit and pulled out the pair she mentioned.  They were ankle boots and had been a gift from Elanius last Christmas.  Kat had tried stealing them once and had to stuff the toes since my feet were bigger than hers, but we both really liked how sparkly they were.  I knew I’d mostly be wearing the roller skates – which we’d already bought and I’d tried on to make sure they fit – but it would be nice to have pretty boots for when we weren’t skating.

Kat also insisted I put on eyeliner and some mascara, but I decided against her lip gloss suggestion.  I felt like that could be asking for attention on my mouth – and a kiss – when that was way too early for that let alone I still needed to figure out how to be okay with just touching Fitz.  I didn’t want to send him confusing messages.  Even if he wouldn’t necessarily get them most of the time since he was graysexual.

How do I get used to touching someone?  I asked Kat as I carefully wrapped the stems of the date gift I’d bought – a bouquet of beautiful orange tulips fading into red – and placed it on top of my box with the skates in it.  How do I convince myself that Fitz doesn’t have germs I need to worry about?

That’s tough, she said slowly.  Maybe you can ask your therapist, but I think there isn’t a direct answer to that.  He’ll probably say it depends on a variety of factors and we can try to desensitize you and whatever, but, her tone turned more thoughtful, your concern with germs is mostly about feeling like you have to be perfect in order to be accepted, and germs threaten that perfection, right?  Well, he’s already made it clear he accepts us without perfect.  Both of us.  He’s cool with us, even with the chimera thing, and you being a germaphobe, and me being bossy and ordering him to date you, and, you know, all that.  He likes us, just for us.  So…don’t worry so much.  I think maybe as it sinks in that he’s cool with us as we are, that you’ll be okay with him.  The same way you’re okay with me, really, because you know I’ll love you no matter what.  I don’t think you being okay with my germs is fully about you and me being the same person – I suspect it’s also because you know I’ll love you no matter what you do and say.  And I suspect – if I’m right – that if Lachlan is the same way, then your brain will accept him and know that his germs don’t threaten your, uh, perfection?  Or whatever it’s doing that makes it freak out over germs.  You know what I mean.

I did, and I had to think over what she said again.  I knew mental illness wasn’t something that could be easily overcome, and even though I knew the source of my struggles – those months with Phil and Jolene – that didn’t make it easy to just get rid of it.  My therapist had helped a lot with addressing some of my thoughts from that time, but there were some that were still a struggle to deal with every day, no matter how much I knew better.  Sure, I knew that germs wouldn’t make people hate me, but sometimes explaining that to my brain was a lot harder than it looked.

I spent so much time thinking over what Kat said and petting the dogs – because naturally one must pet dogs when they ask for pets – that I jumped a bit when the doorbell rang.  However, as reality returned, so did the butterflies, and I gulped a bit before straightening up and going to let Fitz in.

“Hello,” I told him shyly when I opened the door.  “Um, want to come in for a bit?”

He did so, and I got a chance to appreciate what he was wearing.  He wasn’t in his usual suits and was in casual clothes for a change, meaning black jeans with a dark green button-up – maybe a bit formal for other people but he looked super nice in it, with the open buttons at the top drawing my attention to his neck – and the scarf he was proudly wearing – before I remembered my manners.

“Here,” I told him, blushing a bit as I handed over the tulips, “these are for you.”

He looked at them in surprise for a second before laughing lightly and pulling out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.  “And these are for you!  Looks like we had a similar idea.”

I accepted the flowers, delighted, and also a bit amused to find he’d also chosen tulips, but in soft white, pink, and yellow.

“They’re beautiful,” I told him with a bit of laughter in my voice.  “And yes, I guess we both like tulips?”

“We probably do.  To be fair, I’m a fairy, so I pretty much like any flowers, but tulips are beautiful.”  He tilted his head a bit he watched me place my tulips in a vase.  “So, I realized I have a question about protocol.  This is supposed to be a you-and-me date, but I’m assuming Kat is basically observing, and the same with you when she and I go out.  So, uh, what do you two prefer?  Should I talk to both of you or just whoever’s in front?”

I set the tulips on the dining table and turned back to face him.  “Most of the time, addressing stuff to both of us is fine, but when it is supposed to be specific time with one of us, yeah, you can mostly focus on whoever’s in front.  So me for tonight.  It’s not like you can’t talk to Kat or ask questions if you want to, and I know it’s a bit weird to know she’s kind of watching our date, but she tries to keep quiet during stuff like this, just like I do for her.  So I can focus on you, and she can do the same when you two are out on a date.  We try to make it as much as just a date with the individual you’re out with as possible.”

He considered this, then nodded.  “Okay, makes sense.  But can we have some dates that are intentionally for all three of us?  Switching some between you if you want, but also just finding something all of us would have fun with and everyone can participate in?  Obviously I realize that’s a bit complicated for you two, but we could find a way to make it work.  Like, if you wanted to go bowling, I just rent the whole place, make sure no cameras are up, and then you could switch out for your turns.”  He looked kind of triumphant with the idea, while I was contemplating the different thought process for rich people versus us normal people.

“Yes,” I told him firmly, “we can definitely do a three-person date with us sometime.  We haven’t done it before, not really,” beyond us being present but not participating – certainly not a date that intentionally included both of us at the same time.  I was excited about the idea, though, and even though Kat was trying to keep quiet because it was my time with Fitz, I could feel her excitement, too.  “I don’t know about renting a bowling place – we can probably do something simpler like, uh, go on a picnic in a remote area or, um, movie night at home, even?  Oh!”  I remembered as I got my coat and let Fitz take my box of skates for me, “we do movie nights often with Elanius and started adding Arthur and Croc, and sometime you should come, too.”

“Okay,” he agreed, but his brow was furrowed.  “Um…a croc?”

“No, no, Croc,” I corrected.  “I, uh, don’t remember her actual name,” I admitted, kind of embarrassed, “but she won’t answer to it and gets annoyed if you call her by her real name.  Kat did once right after they started working together and immediately learned never to do it again.  Croc is Kat’s head bouncer at the club and a friend of ours!  She’s, um, also the sister of the serial killer,” I added with a bit of a wince.  “She’s part of the reason Kat didn’t want to kill Ludovica, because even though Croc and Ludovica aren’t friends, they’re still sisters, so Kat didn’t want to kill her.”

Enlightenment dawned on Fitz’s face.  “Is she how Kat knows so much about the Gallo family?  I was puzzling over that all night after we caught the Ludovica woman – Kat seemed awfully well informed about an organized crime family, yet from what she told me about the two of you, you were never involved in one.”

I followed him out of the house, locking the door behind us and then getting into his car before answering.  “Croc left the family,” I explained.  “She’s human and decided she wanted a career where her humanity wouldn’t be a barrier – she realized they’d never fully appreciate her, even if she was super loyal, just because she was human.  She’s a lot happier now, and still uses some of the training she had from the family, just as a bouncer instead.  She said she likes it that her life isn’t on the line as much and she can, um, get involved in hobbies.”  I had to giggle a little at a memory.  “She loves crocodiles, that’s where her name comes from.  Loves is an understatement – she’s obsessed with them.  Her locker at the club is covered with pictures of them and she has these little ones on her keychain and stuff.  She looks tough and kind of scary, but she’s a total dork when it comes to crocodiles.  And alligators, but she likes crocs better.  She had this whole spiel she insisted on telling Kat one time because she saw some documentary on saltwater crocodiles and had to try to repeat the entire three-hour show to Kat while they were working, in between dealing with guests and stuff.  Kat basically just got these fragments about how big they got and what fights are like with them and whatever.  Croc was on fire that night.  I’m not always awake during Kat’s shifts – just like she’s not always awake when I’m at work – but that night I couldn’t sleep because I was so curious about what Croc was going to tell us every time she got a chance to come over.”

Fitz was being careful and keeping his eyes on the road, but he threw an amused glance in my direction.  “Sounds like fun.  I’m glad you both have friends you can trust.”

“We do.  We have some great friends.”  I was actually super happy about that.  Growing up, I’d just had Mandy, who was more interested in Kat’s sense of humor than my own.  Then Petra and Susan hadn’t really liked me, but had hung out with me because we were all outcasts at school.  Having real friends – friends that liked me and also liked Kat – was a huge blessing to me.