Page 7 of The Satyr Next Door
Or maybe I’d let him keep calling me Juliet.
After all, Juliet got her balcony scene and her Romeo.
Chapter 4
Cal
I wasn’t raised to write sonnets. Satyrs sang, we danced, we played the pipes until mortals blushed and begged for mercy. We left verses carved into tree bark and songs tangled in ivy, not tidy lines on folded paper. Poetry was meant to be wild, intoxicating, something that grabbed you by the throat and dragged you into the woods where civilization couldn't follow.
But when a beautiful, dark-eyed woman told me not to call her Juliet unless I meant it, I found myself thinking in rhyme.
So I picked the ripest grapes from the arbor I’d nursed back from neglect, rolled ink across paper, and shaped the words the way I might shape a melody. Not polished. Not perfect. But true. Then I left them with a single fig where she’d find them.
This time, I retreated to the safety of my kitchen but stayed close enough to see her reaction.
My kitchen was still shamefully new, like the rest of the furniture in the house. Not at all like the possessions I'd carried before the Convergence pulled our worlds together. No photographs. No family heirlooms. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the silence of a house too empty for comfort.
I poured honey wine into my favorite mug, a thick ceramic thing that looked hand-thrown because it was. It was made by a dryad in Oregon who understood that some of us needed beauty to survive the beige suburban wasteland. It was early for wine, even by satyr standards, but my nerves needed settling. I leaned against the window ledge that overlooked the yard, positioned perfectly to see her balcony.
I told myself I was waiting to make sure the fruit didn't spoil in the sun.
But the truth was simpler and more dangerous: I wanted to watch her read my words.
The sliding door opened, and she stepped outside with her coffee, hair tumbling loose around her shoulders, still damp from a shower. The scent drifted down to me on the morning air, something floral and clean that made my chest tighten with want. She moved cautiously, as if she expected another surprise, wary but curious in that way that made me want to give her a thousand reasons to keep looking.
Her gaze landed on the folded page and the fig gleaming beside it like a jewel. She froze, coffee mug halfway to her lips.
My pulse, kicked harder.
I abandoned the window and moved out the back door and to the fence, leaning my forearms against the weathered post, shameless in my watching. Let her see me waiting.
She picked up the note delicately, unfolded it, lips moving as she read.
For Bella of the Balcony
The figs are jealous of your lips,
The grapes envy your hips,
The vines themselves unclasp their hold
To show you secrets they’ve long rolled.
Your sigh could bend the strongest oak,
Your laugh, sweetest kind of smoke.
I’d brave a thousand ladders tall,
If hooves could climb, I’d risk the fall.
So tell me, Bella, name divine
And I’ll make you my sonnet line.
Her cheeks flushed crimson, the color spreading down her throat to disappear beneath the loose tee shirt she was wearing this morning. She pressed the paper flat against the railing like she wanted to pin it there, make it permanent, keep it safe.
"Presumptuous," she muttered, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her, curving upward despite her best efforts.
