“Hey Luna?” I started, staring down at my phone while she searched through the rules of the card game we were pying.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is it alright if Maddy and her roommate come over for dinner tonight? We texted a bit, and she’s fine with giving me a chance to clear the air, as long as she can bring her friend,” I said, the hesitation in my voice less to do with worry that Luna would say no, and more to do with wondering if this was a good idea in the first pce.

  She gnced up from the folded paper. “That’s fine with me, is there anything you need me to do? Can I help with cooking?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, if you don’t mind I could use help. I’m more worried about the talking part of the dinner, though.”

  She reached across the piles of cards in front of us and pced her hand on my leg, smiling. “Don’t worry babe, you have me and Snuffles here to protect you.”

  I couldn’t help myself from smiling back, even as I internally squirmed against her casual flirting.

  Surely she’s still doing it because she knows it doesn't mean anything, right? Surely she would stop if she knew how I felt about her or what I did for work, right? Hell, I’m literally asking her to help me get Melody to not be mad at me – although I’d be more than fine with us just being friends.

  Luna’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Okay, I think I found it. It says if you have to discard more cards than there are in your hand, you draw cards equal to the number of extraneous discards plus one, and then complete the discarding, leaving one card in your hand.”

  I blinked, looking down at the mess in front of me, trying to remember which pile was my draw pile and which was my hand. “Uhhh…”

  She flipped to another page, eyes darting back and forth as she furiously skimmed. “But actually none of that applies to you, because of your character. Given that you’re over fifty percent cybernetic, running out of cards in your hand represents running out of energy, which means you auto-lose…” She trailed off, bewilderment on her face. “But does it count as running out of cards if in the end you’re left with one?”

  I gnced at her side of the pying field, where there were a dozen face-up cards with little tokens on them. Even though I didn’t know what a single one of them did, I knew I was beyond screwed. “I think I lost either way. Good game.”

  Luna sighed, nodding. “Good game. Sorry that it turned out so complicated, I swear the post and the rules made it sound easier…”

  “It’s fine, Luna,” I said, smiling and stacking the cards together to be put away, “You learn these games way faster than me so I always have to catch up. Give me a few more times to learn and I’ll be coming for you.”

  “Thanks.” She reached over and ruffled my hair, petting my ears in the process.

  Without thinking, I leaned into the touch and whined – my ears had gotten so little attention from other people and it felt so good.

  Both of us froze and then turned away at the same time. Luna coughed and quickly changed the subject. “So you’ll never guess what I found this morning while I was using my lint roller…”

  “No, what?” I asked, somehow coming across as robotic and nonsensical at the same time.

  “There was an orange fox hair on my shirt,” she giggled and the tension in the air finally dissipated.

  I rexed, ughing and continuing to clean up the game. “And you’re sure it wasn’t Snuffles’?”

  “Sarah, she doesn't have a single hair that isn’t white on her body – I’m sure it wasn’t Snuffles,” a teasing smirk danced across her face, “Now if my coworkers ask, I have to say I have a second cat.”

  “I’m not a cat…” I grumbled, not disputing that I was hers.

  Once we’d packed up the cards we moved to the couch, sitting next to each other with a small gap between. It was still far too early to start on dinner, but I wasn’t sure we had time to go out to do anything.

  Luna turned to me, frown on her face. “Sarah, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly do you want to do tonight with Melody?”

  My eyes widened at her suggestive phrasing, but she didn’t blink. “Um, I…” I stuttered. “I want to clear the air and become friends with her, and maybe if she’s okay with it, continue going on dates with her. I’m still figuring out my sexuality, so I don’t really know what it is that I even want from a retionship… I mean my dates already have to deal with–” I cut myself off right before I started talking about work.

  Thankfully, Luna didn’t notice. “Yeah,” she ughed, “Your dates do have a lot of stuff to deal with,” she gnced up at my ears, causing me to blush.

  When I remained silent, Luna continued, still staring, “So what does it feel like when someone pets you?”

  “Oh, I–”

  Would it be wrong to say it feels orgasmic, even after Luna herself has pet me? What if I said that it was on the same level of intimacy as sex, that if she touched my ears right now she could melt me into a blissful puddle of sappy romantic feelings?

  She smirked, one eyebrow raised.

  “It’s like a nice massage,” I said mely. Internally, I berated myself for not mentioning that I didn’t have much experience with the sensation, something that might prompt her to pet me more. On the other hand, it still felt wrong to act on my attraction to Luna.

  Unfortunately for me, Snuffles waltzed over to the couch and climbed up onto Luna’s p, meowing demandingly.

  “I guess someone heard us talking about pets,” Luna smiled, reaching down with one hand to scratch at her cat's chin and the top of her head.

  My ears twitched, my tail stiffened, and my stomach clenched, but I couldn’t look away.

  As Snuffles quickly began to purr, Luna brought her other hand down, smoothing out the white fluff on the feline’s back. Snuffles stared up at me with a smug look as if to say, ‘Look at how easy it is, all you have to do is ask.’

  I shot up from my seat and mumbled something about the bathroom before scurrying off. Once in the bathroom, I bent over, hands supporting me on the countertop as I stared into the mirror, panting.

  I hate feelings…

  —

  I twisted my arms, wrangling the corn tortil into the correct shape under a thin yer of oil with a dual pair of tongs. The hissing and bubbling formed a violent contrast with Luna's slow, methodical chopping beside me, the space we had to work in too small to give each of us our own space.

  "Damn," she hissed.

  I contorted my neck to look at her, further tangling my body into a mess of worried discomfort. "Are you okay?!"

  She shook her hand out and then carefully inspected the tips of her fingers. "Sliced the corner of my fingernail."

  I breathed out a sigh of relief, and turned back to my task. "You scared me for a second there..."

  "Yeah..." She let out, still staring at her finger.

  "You sure you're okay?" I asked, turning the taco shell around and evaluating if it was done yet before dunking it back into the oil.

  "It's nothing." The sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board rang out behind me after a moment.

  A minute ter, after I'd fried a few shells, she spoke again, disappointment all over her tone. "It's just, people are coming over and now my nails aren't all the same length, and... I hate having hands."

  "Uh..." I didn't exactly share the sentiment, being someone that liked having opposable thumbs, despite my insistence on taking on other 'animalistic' traits.

  "I meant it in a gendery way," she crified, the next thunk on the cutting board ringing out particurly loud.

  "Oh." I paused for a moment, thinking. She hadn't been very detailed about her dysphoria in the past, and even though it felt like we should have a shared experience now, it didn't really feel that way to me; I was as lost as ever. "Is there something I can do to help you?"

  "No, I'm fine, just... Annoyed," she sighed. "Do you really not get what I'm talking about?"

  "I mean... maybe?" I set my tongs aside, not wanting to burn myself with hot oil while having a heart-to-heart. "Like if I ever had to go back to my original body, I could see myself thinking things like that, but as it stands, I guess I kinda skipped over the lingering dysphoria? At least with regards to my body...?"

  "Weird," she mumbled, loosening up as her expression shifted from irritated to thoughtful.

  "Yeah, I don't really have the trans experience?... Like, you had to go through so much to get to where you are, and I'm just..." Incompetent? Useless? Ungrateful? I left the thoughts stabbing me from the inside unsaid.

  Luna let out a short ugh, striding behind me to check on the tofu crumbles in the oven “You’re lucky I love you or I’d be furious about you calling my goth phase in college ‘going through so much’.”

  I stared at her, stunned by the emotional whipsh. My mouth opened to return the ugh, but I was unable to make a sound. We’d been close for a long time, and I’d known for what felt like forever that I loved her ptonically, but we’d never vocalised our feelings. And now, right when I finally didn’t want her ptonic affections, that was when she said it.

  I probably would’ve stood there for another ten minutes if it weren’t for the voices I heard outside the front door.

  “It’s kind of funny, I’m pretty sure my ex-boyfriend used to live in this exact apartment. You’re sure her roommate was a girl?”

  The voice sounded familiar, but there was too much going on in my brain for me to pce it, given the impending conversation, the words Luna had just said, and the empty oil smoking behind me.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” another voice grumbled, before a knock rang out.

  “I’ll get it,” Luna called, sliding across the floor while I sweated in pce.

  The door opened, and I listened to the initial conversation, hopeful for a positive first impression, but still too scared to intervene myself.

  “Hello, wel– Beaumont?!” Luna stuttered, surprise in her voice.

  “Luna? The name’s Emily these days – or Em for short,” the voice said, before the sound shifted as it changed direction, “You were dating Luna?”

  The second voice responded annoyed, “No, I’ve never met Luna. Hi, by the way, I’m Melody, and you must be the roommate.”

  I finally moved, taking tentative steps towards the door when I heard Emily’s name. Thoughts of impending doom raced through my mind as I pieced together the implications.

  Emily spoke again. “So what’s so special about this girl anyways that you still won’t tell me – I mean she’s not Luna…”

  Emily trailed off when she saw me walk in from behind Luna. Everyone froze for a moment, before she broke the silence with a sledgehammer.

  “Oh, it’s Sarah from work – that makes a lot of sense…” she let out, staring at my ears.