by Amy Star
He didn’t set her back on her feet until they were standing in front of her front door. And he didn’t stay the night that night, but he seemed like his thoughts were busy in some other direction. So, Melissa kissed him goodbye and let him leave.
It had been a good night, she figured. Especially considering she hadn’t really planned for it to happen. Maybe she should go with spur-of-the-moment ideas more often. Especially if they
involved shoving Mitch into a pond so his shirt clung to him.
Yeah, that part had definitely been a plus.
*
Mitch was planning something. He wasn’t coming out and saying it, but it was pretty obvious that he had something in mind, even if he was trying to keep it a secret. A good secret, hopefully. Though it was a little bit hard to tell.
If Melissa had to hazard a guess, she was pretty sure Mitch was trying to be romantic. He wasn’t really great at it, though. He had been cagey about whatever was going on in his head for most of the day, and it seemed less like he was planning a surprise and more like he was planning how to cover up a murder. Melissa might have been worried, were it not for the way his face went red and he mumbled an excuse when she asked him what was on his mind. She was pretty sure he was planning a surprise and trying to be romantic. Frankly, she was pretty sure it was in his best interest to just be himself, because “romantic’’ was really not his forte.
On the whole, she was pretty sure Mitch had about as much romance in his soul as Melissa did, which was about as much as a crow. Not that she was saying that was a bad thing; not everyone had to be Casanova. It just seemed a little disingenuous, when she would be perfectly happy if he was just himself. She supposed she could give him points for effort, though.
He didn’t say where they were going when he picked her up that evening, just that she should look like she put some thought into her clothes. Suspecting that he was underselling things a bit, she even went the extra mile and did her hair and make-up.
She wasn’t surprised when they only went into town. It didn’t really seem like Mitch’s style to really go out, even when he was attempting to be romantic. Even so, the restaurant they wound up at on the far side of town was quaint, and Melissa didn’t feel over-dressed as Mitch led her inside.
They were quiet at first, as they were seated, and their drink orders were taken, and then as they looked over the menu until their meal orders were taken. When Mitch finally started talking as their waiter moseyed on his way, his words came out haltingly at first, until finally he managed, “So, uh…nice night, isn’t it?”
Melissa had the tact and self-control to keep herself from saying ‘really? small talk?’ Instead, leaning an elbow on the table and propping her chin up in one hand, she offered in a stage whisper, “Considering we’ve already fucked each other, I don’t think there will be any repercussions if we just talk to each other like normal, functional people.”
Mitch closed his mouth with a click and rolled his eyes. “Are you ever impressed?” he asked
finally, but there was no heat behind the words.
Melissa tipped her head to one side, leaning it further onto her hand. “Sometimes, I guess,” she mused slowly. “Like when I see an animal that’s endangered or when I see a plant that I thought was out of season.”
Mitch scowled at her, his nose wrinkling slightly, and it was Melissa’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh, quit it,” she sighed, one hand making a loose, flippant gesture. “Why do I need to be impressed?” she asked, emphasizing the last word to make it sound as ridiculous as she could. She even threw in some air quotes with the hand she wasn’t leaning on.
“You’re not the first man to take a woman to a restaurant. You’re not the first man to take this woman to a restaurant. I can still appreciate the gesture without acting like I’ve been completely swept off of my feet with surprise; I don’t need to be impressed to enjoy something. Especially when you’ve been lurching around like a serial killer all day.” Frankly, he was lucky she knew him well enough not to be worried about getting in the car with him.
Mitch was silent for a moment, blinking at her slowly. His jaw worked silently for a moment, as if he was trying to find the words to reply but couldn’t quite pin down what he wanted to say.
Melissa beat him to the punch, straightening up slightly even if she was still leaning on her hand and saying, “Now, tell me what you’ve been up to today.”
Mitch’s thoughts switched tracks, his brain reengaging as she gave him an actual topic to talk about, and from there, everything more or less went back to normal. It was appreciated, all things considered. Because yes, they were dating. They were dating because Melissa wanted to date Mitch, not some romanticized parody of him.
It was a good evening after that. The meal was good. The dessert was better. And Mitch seemed pleasantly surprised when Melissa invited him back into the house afterwards, never mind that his presence there hadn’t exactly been a rarity after that first night.
*
If anyone asked, Mitch couldn’t really say where the idea came from. He just knew he wanted to do something else with Melissa. More than that, he wanted to do something that Melissa wouldn’t expect.
Setting the appointment up and getting it paid for was easy, and considering their relationship up to that point mostly consisted of food, conspiracy theories, and spending the afternoon in Melissa’s house, it was easy to keep her from noticing anything until the afternoon arrived.
He herded her into his car, and she went along with it good-naturedly, wheedling at him only a few times during the drive before she decided to simply wait and see what was in store.
*
Horses were very large animals. Mitch already knew that, of course. He had scheduled and paid for the trip. But it didn’t occur to him just how big horses were until there were two standing right in front of him.
Admittedly, one of them was not actually that big. A little Arabian gelding named Blitz, jet black with enormous brown eyes and a tail that flowed behind him like a banner. He was the perfect size for Melissa to ride. She seemed absolutely delighted with him, even if he was basically a glorified pony with a pedigree.
And the other one was the perfect size for Mitch to ride. Which meant she was enormous. A red-brown blood bay, Poppy was a purebred thoroughbred and consisted of about ninety-five percent legs. And she looked like she was large enough to trample a small building without much effort.
The rancher was a cheerful old man, but his schedule was busy. He lingered just long enough to make sure Mitch and Melissa knew how to climb into their saddles and to make sure they knew how to get to the trail-riding paths, and then he left them on their own, turning away and making his way back into the barn to get back to his chores.
Blitz was a tiny little firecracker, and he and Melissa took the lead as soon as they started riding, trotting ahead as they made a beeline towards one of the paths. They paused every so often, so Melissa could look back and wait for Mitch to catch up. Poppy, on the other hand, was content to meander along leisurely and let Mitch get his bearings so he didn’t fall out of the saddle as soon as the ground began to get more uneven.
Thankfully, Blitz’s pace slowed once they were actually on the path, though he still moved more like he was prancing than walking. Melissa seemed unbothered by his bouncing gait. Mitch couldn’t help but think, ‘Of course she knows how to ride horses.’
He could probably shoot her into space in a rocket, and she would figure out how to pilot herself back down to safety.
Even so, it was enjoyable. The horses were good-natured and even tempered, even if Blitz seemed far bouncier than Mitch had expected a horse to be. They seemed completely harmless, all things considered, and Mitch felt safe enough despite the fact that he had next to no idea of what he was doing.
The next time he decided to surprise Melissa with a date, he was definitely going to aim for something he knew how to do, but still, it wasn’t a bad time. Once he got the hang of the prop
er way to sit in the saddle without getting jostled halfway out of it with each step, it was actually pretty enjoyable.
Granted, there was one other thing that had never really occurred to Mitch with regards to horses: just how skittish they could be.
A squirrel darted up the side of a tree without warning, and Poppy shied away, doing an elegant little two-step across the path without any warning. Between one step and the next, Mitch felt himself begin to slide down from the saddle, though not quickly enough to actually keep himself from doing so.
No, he was going down, and there was nothing he could really do to prevent it.
Mitch found himself on his back in the dirt, staring up the sky through the leaves as the clouds passed by, meandering slowly. Melissa was laughing at him from a few feet off, and it felt a bit like all of the air had been punched out of his lungs through his back. He didn’t bother to make any efforts at getting up off the ground until his horse began prodding at his shoulder with her nose as she snuffled at him in vague concern.
“Come on,” Melissa scoffed, her own horse sidling closer, so she could look down at him from where she was still perched comfortably in the saddle. “Get up. You took one little spill; don’t be such a baby about it.”
“I’m dead,” he informed her blandly, still making no move to get up, though he did close one eye as Poppy began shoving her muzzle against his cheek, prodding at him insistently.
“You’re very talkative for a dead guy,” Melissa informed him blandly. “And very lively looking. Come on. Get up before one of them steps on you or takes a shit or something.”
With more than a little reluctance, Mitch sat up, scowling up at her in a manner that he would stridently deny was ‘petulant’ despite the fact that it really was. “Why do you know how to ride horses?” he groused. “When I brought us here, I was hoping we would both look ridiculous falling all over ourselves. Now, it’s just me looking ridiculous.”
Melissa rolled her eyes and leaned forward to pat Blitz’s neck. “Several years of sleep-away camp,” she informed him dryly. “I can’t exactly conquer a steeplechase course or win the
Kentucky Derby, but I can stay in the saddle through a walk, trot, or canter.” Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Which I guess means I’m pretty talented compared to you, I’ll grant you.” There was a beat, followed by, “I can canoe too.”
Mitch flipped her off with one hand, but only for a moment before Poppy once again began shoving her nose against him, prodding at his shoulder, and he let his hand fall to the mare’s nose to rub it absentmindedly. She gave him another shove, more emphatically that time, and finally Mitch got to his feet, one hand against Poppy’s shoulder for balance as he did.
“Well, come on,” Melissa coaxed. “When you fall off the horse, you climb right back on.”
“That sounds like a dumb idea,” Mitch returned dryly, though he was already moving to the proper side of his horse to do so.
“You’re never going to learn anything if you just stop,” Melissa insisted primly.
Which was true enough. With an overwrought sigh, Mitch hauled himself back up into the saddle and got himself settled once more, before he took up the reins again. After that, at least, the ride was a bit less eventful, and he stayed…not firmly seated in his saddle, but seated nonetheless. Poppy evidently had experience with riders who had no idea what they were doing, as she hardly even flicked an ear at him as he fumbled his way through figuring out what he was doing, and instead she largely just followed Blitz’s lead.
They only had the horses for so long, of course. As their time limit dwindled, they rode back along the narrow, meandering paths to the ranch, so they were right on time to dismount and hand the reins to a stable hand. The young man wished them a good evening briefly before
leading the horses away.
They could have simply left after that. It would have made perfect sense. But Melissa didn’t push for it, instead just looking at Mitch expectantly, wondering silently if he had anything else in store.
They wandered quietly through one of the pastures after that, ignoring the occasional cow that blinked at them, slow and docile, before returning to grazing. The evening was mild, the sky was clear, and it was just at the right temperature to almost be considered chilly, but not quite. It seemed like the sort of evening that shouldn’t be spent inside, and as it was, they were already outside. Why not take advantage of it?
After a short while, Melissa reached out, her fingers curling around Mitch’s. It took only a
moment for him to close his hand around hers. His palm engulfed hers entirely.
They wandered aimlessly through the pasture for only twenty minutes before the sun finished sinking and the moon had left the horizon behind, and they slowed to a halt, staring upwards.
The sky was clear that night. The horses were back in their stalls, and if the rancher even knew that Mitch and Melissa were still on his property was up for debate. Everything was quiet. The moon was hardly a sliver in the sky, and it seemed like every star in the galaxy was visible above them, spreading out in every direction and putting on a show just for them.
Slowly, they both laid down on the grass. It was cool and damp beneath them, but that wasn’t
important, as they stared up at the endless view above them.
Eventually, Melissa offered a quiet, slightly awed, “I never get sick of it. The view. I’ve been coming here on and off since I was little, and it never gets old.”
“Can’t see it like this in the city?” Mitch guessed, though his gaze stayed focused on the sky even as he spoke to her.
Melissa scoffed. “Not even close,” she replied, tipping her head back as she spoke to see more of the sky, until the top of her head was nearly pressed against the grass. “It doesn’t matter what time of the night it is,” she sighed. “It was always too bright in the city. From a distance, if you were driving towards the city, it looked like the sky above it was orange at night. Like all the buildings were a bunch of burning matches.”
Mitch sighed slowly. “You think anyone else there ever learns to appreciate things like this?”
“Statistically, yes,” Melissa returned, her voice laced with dry amusement as she slid a glance
towards him. “I might just be going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure neither of us are the most unique, enlightened people in the world. Besides,” she sighed as she glanced upwards again, “we can appreciate this without trying to be better because of it. It doesn’t always have to be a competition. Sometimes, something can just…be.”
She seemed content with that, lapsing into silence once again as she stared upwards.
She had a point, Mitch supposed. Maybe he was a bit too used to striving to be the best at something to let himself enjoy it. Maybe he needed a few more hobbies that couldn’t be turned into some sort of competition, typically for no real reason. If he thought about it, it probably wasn’t even good for him.
But that was a thought for another time. In the meantime, there was nothing wrong with just
existing and appreciating the moment, and for a time, he let himself fall silent. His thoughts
wandered idly, and unsurprisingly, they kept drifting back to his current company. They did that a lot, recently. Not that he could say he minded.
Of the myriad of things he thought about her, though, there was still one thing that stood out above everything else as “decidedly odd.” It was a question that had nagged at him a few times, though generally when it occurred to him, they either weren’t together or they were in the middle of something.
Just then, though, they weren’t doing anything, other than being one with the world. It seemed like the perfect time to ease his meandering curiosity. Besides, it seemed like the sort of question that Melissa would appreciate answering.
Even so, it took a bit more time after that before he actually asked, as he got caught up in just looking at her, as if she would evaporate into the air at any moment.
“Question,” Mitch stated eventually, interrupting the peace as he looked at her profile.
Melissa didn’t actually look away from the sky, but she did say, “You may ask. I might even have an answer for you.”
“Most people would be surprised to find out that there are inhuman people in the world,” Mitch pointed out. “You hardly even seemed fazed.”
Melissa shrugged as best as she could while lying on her back. “I mean, I was surprised, but I was mostly surprised the day before when I first saw you. And then, I had time to think about it for a little while, and it’s not so weird. I mean, if you look human, sound human, act human, it makes sense that you can hide in plain sight, and it would be even weirder if you were just the only one.”
Finally, she turned her head to look at him. “And it made some other stuff make sense, like knowing why so many folklore things seemed cross-cultural. So, yeah, I was surprised at first, but then I just put all the pieces together.”