I thought about whether we could ever date anyone the rest of the night as Kat finished at work, texted Elanius, and then headed home to Goose.  I was still thinking about it the following morning when I headed to work and stopped to get coffee, then paused when I recognized someone outside the coffee shop.

Leah paused when she spotted me, then gave me a tiny wave.  Not sure what else to do, I stopped closer.

“Good morning,” I told her, feeling a bit awkward about it.

“Hi, Ezra.”  She sighed a bit.  “Don’t feel so bad, I don’t blame you.  Me, somewhat.  For not seeing the truth sooner.  Kat, too, for knowing I was gay and hoping for something more.  I meant what I said, though – she really needs to consider only dating people who are poly and bi or pan or whatever.”

I hesitated, then slipped into an empty seat at her table.  “I’m sorry it worked out that way.  I wish we were more separate so she could date whomever without worrying about me.”

“But then you wouldn’t be the same people, would you?”  Her eyes were sad, but more understanding.  “I’ve been thinking a lot about it since we broke up.  I know it was the right choice, for both of us, but I was just trying to understand how to think of it.  Whether there could have been a way I’d consider it where I could still date Kat and be okay with you, and I just couldn’t come up with one.”  She waved one hand in the air.  “I’m a shifter.  I don’t think about my shifted form being a separate thing with its own mind, but I was imagining what would happen if it were.  What would it be like if my shifted form had its own mind and when it took over, I was just watching from the background?  I’m guessing that’s the closest I can picture to what goes on with you two, and it’s not perfect, but it’s the best way I could come up with.”  She surveyed me thoughtfully.  “You’ve never experienced yourself without her, and same for her with you.  For me, my shifted form is part of who I am, and if it were taken away, it would be like losing half of myself.  So I imagine that for you, if you two weren’t together the way you are, you’d be different people.  And it’s hard to know what or who you’d be if that were the case.”

I gripped my coffee cup tightly.  “I can’t imagine a world where we’re not the same person,” I admitted.  “I know it’s weird for everyone else, but for us it’s part of who we are.”

Leah nodded.  “And my shifted form is a part of who I am.  I can’t imagine being anything else and I’m proud of being a shifter.  I know I don’t really have the place to give you advice, but maybe you should embrace being a bi-gender being – or whatever you want to call it – more.  Just, um, don’t pretend you’re just one or the other.  I’m sure Kat wasn’t doing it to be mean, but, well…it hurts when you think you’re dating a girl you’re attracted to, as a gay person, and it turns out she’s not actually just a girl.  Not entirely.”

I looked down at my coffee.  “She always told people she dated, because she didn’t want to keep it a secret.”

“Which is good, I’ll agree.”  Leah paused to take a bite of her scone.  “But maybe you need to both admit that if one of you dates someone, you really both are.  Whether you like it or not.  You’re too intertwined to really pretend it’s just one of you dating.”

I sighed deeply.  “Yeah, I guess so,” I agreed unhappily.  “I guess…that’s the most realistic.”

She eyed me.  “You don’t seem happy about that idea.”

What was I supposed to say?  That it was hard enough to find someone to be friends with, let alone date?  People who knew Kat wouldn’t be interested in the bland male version.

“I feel like I’d be cramping Kat’s style a bit to do that.”  I picked my words carefully.  “I get it, it’s not fair to who either of us dates if we’re not upfront, but I guess I was hoping someone would want to just be friends with me while still dating her.”

She sipped some coffee.  “You just need to think differently.  I’m not going to pretend it’ll be easy to find someone who you’re both interested in and is interested in both of you, but I think you have a better shot at a relationship that’ll work if you aim for that – for dating both of you from the start.  Then there’s no confusion about what’s going on.”

She was probably right, but I still felt bad for Kat if she had to limit herself to someone interested in me, too.  Thankfully, Kat was sleeping after the long night, so she wasn’t hearing all this, or she’d probably lecture me about “thinking stupid stuff.”

I glanced at my phone, realizing the time, and stood up.  “I have to go or I’ll be late to work, but it was nice to see you again.  I really do wish you all the best – I’m sorry it didn’t work out with you and Kat.”

Leah’s eyes softened a bit.  “You’re a really nice person, Ezra.  I wish I’d been able to be attracted to you, too.  But don’t give up – someone out there will be attracted to both, I’m sure of it.  You’re both great in different ways, so you just need to find someone who can appreciate both.”

Appreciate both.  Right.  That sounded simple enough.  And completely impossible.

As I continued my walk to work, I saw a giant sign advertising the Christmas party in Basil Park, and some posters in windows as well.  The town was starting to decorate for the holidays, too, even if there wasn’t any snow yet.  I liked the Christmas lights and couldn’t help but think about the fairy prince’s mom and hope that she saw the lights and felt more like herself for a bit.

When I got to work and hung up my coat and scarf and sat down, Elanius rolled their chair over closer to my desk.

“I got Kat’s text.  I asked my aunt to send her all the info she asked for, but my aunt refuses to send it to a random person and is confused about why Kat would want it, so I told her I could have Kat come over for dinner and explain it?  If that’s cool?”

I nodded.  “She’s not awake right now, but yeah, I think that’ll be fine.”  I carefully lined up my pens.  “She’s hoping to help the situation.  I’ll let her explain how, though.”

Elanius seemed to understand, though.  “Got it.  Okay, let me know if she has a time today, or I’ll just text her if she thinks it’ll be another day.”

I did some mental math.  “She works tonight, but not tomorrow, so probably tomorrow’s better?”

“Okay, I’ll just text her then,” they agreed.  They glanced up as the clock chimed, sighed a bit, and slid back to their desk.

I had a fairly normal day to begin with, filling out some forms and processing things brought in.  I had a couple of filings I wanted to reject because they were bad, but decided to let them go this time because people were stressed due to the holidays and I should probably try to be nicer even if they messed up the forms, right?

It was late morning and I was considering where I wanted to eat for lunch, while Kat had woken up and seemed cheered up by the idea of meeting with Elanius’s aunt tomorrow.  I was surprised when my phone rang and my boss wanted to see me in their office.  That was unusual, but I hadn’t done anything that should get me in trouble – I was too obsessive about following the rules, actually – so I shrugged a little, got up, and went down the hall to his office.

The official City Clerk, aka the boss, looked up when I knocked and entered.  “Ah, Ezra, great.”  He slid a manila folder across his desk to me.  “Please deliver that.”  He slapped a sticky note on the front.  “It’s a priority.”

I stared at him for a moment, bewildered, automatically picking up the folder.  I wasn’t a messenger or delivery person.  Why was he asking me to deliver something?

Before I asked, I looked down at the envelope and saw the name on the top of the note.  L. FitzJames Woodson.

Wait a second.

I tried to manage a polite smile but it probably came across as more of a grimace.  “Is this related to the Christmas party?”

“Yes.  Oh, that reminds me.”  He shuffled around in his desk, looking for something, then went to the other drawers, before realizing it was on top of his desk all along.  He handed me a seal.  “Just in case you need to approve anything.  You’re a senior clerk, so you can approve it since I’m giving you authority to.  Grab some generic forms just in case while you go, why don’t you?  If he needs anything, just fill it out and approve it there.  We’ll handle the proper forms on this end after you get back.”

I hoped I was hiding my distaste for his obvious favoritism.  “I’m not a messenger, Sir,” I pointed out.  “Perhaps we could ask one of the couriers?”

He immediately waved me off.  “No, no, he asked if you could handle it.  The mayor has told all of us to do what we can to keep him happy, so if he wants you to handle it, then you handle it.”

What the fuck?  Kat sounded as pissed off as I felt.  He asked for you to come?  Play messenger boy?

Spoiled rich people, I realized.  I thought he was different, but I guess not.  He lives in a different world and doesn’t realize that real people don’t live like that.

I had no choice but to go with it, since my boss was making such a big point of it, but I was mad.  I was mad that someone felt so entitled to interrupt my work and have me personally serve him, and I was mad that my boss was playing along because the person was rich.  But I was not happy.

I was going to end up skipping lunch for this, because the boss wanted me to go now, and I had no idea how long it would take.  I went back to my desk, feeling more than a little salty as I shut things down and locked my desk, let Elanius know where I was going – they were as startled as I was that I was having to run errand duties – and then got my coat and scarf.

I checked the address when I got outside, frowning.  This isn’t close.  It’ll probably take half an hour to walk down there.  I didn’t bring my bike today because I felt like walking.  I guess that means a bus?  I don’t know which buses I’d even need to take.

Stop grumbling about that, Kat responded as I pulled out my phone.  You don’t really mind looking up stuff like that.  You just care about interrupting your work and having to deal with all the germs.

Yeah.  That was the problem with the bus.  So many germs.  At least I had some hand sanitizer and my gloves, but I wasn’t thrilled with having to take the bus.  And then after we got there, I had no idea what to expect.  Bother.  This was going to be such a headache.  Maybe not the worst thing ever, but it definitely was not making my day better to have to cater to rich people.

After an unpleasant ride on the bus, I reached the building on the sticky note and took a moment to tilt my head back and stare at the shiny skyscraper.  This was probably the tallest building in town and man was it fancy.

Whoa.  For being able to work in such a shiny building, I’m surprised he seems so down-to-earth, Kat murmured.

‘Seems’ being the operative word.  I grabbed the door handle and pulled, then stepped inside the large, polished-marble lobby and glanced around, feeling too small and casual to be in a place like this.  I swallowed a bit as I headed towards the receptionist desk.  At the end of the day, he turned out to be like all the other rich people – just expecting people to bend over backwards to help him.

Look, I’m glad you’re not a fan of letting people use you anymore, but don’t you think you’re being a bit harsh on him?  Kat sounded like she wasn’t sure if she should challenge me.  You did offer to help him, after all.  He might have thought this fell under that.

A normal person would know better.  I had to avoid snapping at her because I was upset.  Actually, I was maybe more angry than I would have been with most people, just because I had felt like he was a nice person and now I felt like he’d betrayed those feelings.  After Phil and Jolene, I was very distrustful of being used by people and now the fairy had crossed the line with what was allowed or not.  I wasn’t happy.

I stopped at the receptionist desk and tried to smile stiffly at the smartly-dressed young man who looked up at me.  “I’m here to drop something off from the Clerk’s office,” I told him.  “For FitzJames Woodson.”

He glanced down at his desk, flipped through some sheets, then reached for his phone.  “You’re not on the list.  One second and let me check with his office.”

I sighed a little as I looked around, waiting for him to make his call so I could just hand this over to someone.  I glanced around at the lobby, again kind of impressed with the sheer size and luxury of the place.  Why did a philanthropist need a fancy office, though?  Wasn’t that a waste of the money?  Or did it help in some way?  I had no idea, to be honest.

Hey look, Kat murmured.  At the list of names over by the elevator.

I let my eyes flit over there, pausing when I saw what she meant.  He lives in the penthouse.  Makes sense.  Rich people.  I didn’t realize this place had residences in it, but for all I knew, he – and his mom and aunt – were the only ones.  But maybe that also made sense for why he had an office here, then, if he lived here.  It would be a quick trip to meet with anyone and he wouldn’t have to leave his mom alone for long.

“Excuse me?”  The receptionist gave me a friendly smile when I turned back to him.  “Mr. Woodson is expecting you.  You can go right up.”

I blinked, fiddled with my envelope, and wanted to internally scream.  “I’m just here to drop this off.  I don’t need to talk to him.”

His smile didn’t fade.  “He’s expecting you,” he repeated.  “Go right up.”  He nodded towards the elevator.  “23rd floor, if you haven’t been yet.”

Oh great, I remarked sarcastically as I reluctantly accepted my fate, this is more than just a drop-off mission.  Lovely.

I mean, maybe that’s a good thing?  If you’re getting dragged all the way down here, maybe it’s good if it’s more than just handing the envelope over?  Kat sounded cautious, but like she was trying to trigger my optimism.

The problem was, my optimism was currently drowning in annoyance and red flags.  I wasn’t a fan of any of this, and dragging it out even longer wasn’t helping anything.