Page 19 of Batty About You
The conversation flows faster and faster, our hands clasping tighter and tighter.
This is my friend. My love. I can feel him under the fur and the strange face.
His heart is still mine.
And my heart is still his.
“Sorry. That was so presumptuous of me. We haven’t even had our first real date. But, I’m... I was thinking I could take you out tomorrow. Make a day of it? And if what the police officer said was true, m-maybe we could even go out to dinner?” he chokes out.
He looks so terrified by that prospect, the idea of people discovering his secret.
Oh, geez. I was the only person outside of his family he dared to tell, and I made it worse.
The angry little woman inside my head kicks my shins when I realize I also imprisoned my own boyfriend in a parrot cageafterI hit him with my car!
“I would love to go out with you as much as you want, or stay in. Whatever you feel safer with. I’m—I’m sorry I dumped you in Pedro’s cage. I’m sorry I hit you with my car. You might have had your own ‘dark secret,’ but I’m the crazy lady from the internet here. I backed into you, knocked you out, and held you hostage.”
To my surprise, he laughs, and it sounds exactly the same, warm and light, like summer sunshine, sinking into my bones. Utterly contagious.
“This is so not funny,” I tell him, laughing anyway.
“I know, but it’d make one heck of a story to tell our kids. ‘Listen, little Catalina—”
“Catalina?”
Bogdan shrugs as we cross the campus. Inside the student dorm,Monster Mashis blaring, and I can hear drunken giggles. I’m so happy to be away from that, with someone who might look so different from me, but who feels the same where it counts. “One time, I asked my mother if there was a Romanian version of your name, and she said Catalina was the closest thing, so in my head, I always call our daughter Catalina. You know, in my head.”
He doesn’t know it, but the more he talks, the closer I am to flinging him into the grass and starting in on that family right now.
“Creepy?” Boggie asks, hunching his shoulders so he can make himself smaller.
“Utterly adorable,” I correct.
“Oh. Well, then, we’ll say, ‘Listen, little Catalina, when Daddy went to Pine Ridge for the first time to propose to Mommy at the Halloween Ball, he was so nervous that he left two hours earlier than he should have and ended up flying all over the town—and right into Mommy’s car. Mommy bravely rescued the little injured bat—”
“And locked Daddy up in an old parrot cage.” I let out a hoot of laughter. “Our poor baby! She’s going to be so confused.”
“Imagine her telling her friends at pre-school!”
“We have to stay in Pine Ridge so she can go to school with Officer Walsh’s kids. ‘My daddy had to turn into a rabbit and hop into my mommy’s lap.”
By now, we’re laughing so hard that we can’t straighten up, and my dress is dragging in the wet grass.
“I’m such a mess,” I wheeze, wiping my eyes.
“Lies. All lies. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. The only woman I’ve ever even glanced at in that special way, y’know? Captured my heart from that first letter, and that first school picture you sent... Zowee.”
“Who even says zowee?” I lean on him, but this time, I swivel to the front so my hands slide up his chest as my heart pounds like a timpani in theSymphony Fantastique. I’m touching him. His hands grip my elbows.
This kiss is long and slow and surprisingly smooth for two virgins who have never dated. Hell, maybe it’s actually clumsy, we can’t tell. We just can’t stop.
It’s so perfect, out under the moonlight, with White Pines just over ahead, some perfect backdrop to a first kiss. Our first real kiss, one that speaks of love and lust, not just the little peck I gave him to stop him from saying mean words about my very best friend.
When the kiss breaks, his eyes are glazed. “Wow.”
“Wow,” I echo.
“You kissed me. Even though I’m like this?” He puts his hand to his lips in awe. “I was going to tell you that we can wait to do anything physical until daylight, when I’m human.”
