Somewhere I Could Stay

My tail came free with all the dignity of a nervous question mark.

Micah looked at it, then at me.

“You’ve been sitting on that?”

“Not exactly.”

“Every day?”

“I have special clothes.”

“That looks uncomfortable.”

“It is when somebody steals the good side of the bed.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked faintly offended.

“I’m choosing to hear affection.”

I laughed, and my tail loosened.

He watched it move with an expression I would have found unbearable the day before. Now I could see the curiosity inside the surprise.

“Does it do that by itself?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can you stop it?”

“Can you stop looking pleased with yourself?”

“Rarely.”

“Then you understand.”

He held out a hand, palm up. I sat beside him and let the tip of my tail brush across his fingers.

His face changed. The teasing softened into something almost shy.

“Hi,” he said to it.

I stared at him.

“Don’t make this weird.”

“I think we’re past normal introductions.”

I hit his shoulder lightly. He caught my hand and kissed my knuckles.

We stayed like that for a while.

It wasn’t the end of every difficult feeling. I still caught myself reaching for the hat whenever he looked up too quickly. The first time he accidentally brushed an ear while kissing my forehead, I startled hard enough to bump his nose.

He swore. I laughed. Then I apologized until he told me his face would survive.

We also talked about the things the ears hadn’t caused.

“I was wrong about the room,” he said that afternoon. “Before any of this. You don’t have to make it smaller because I brought you pancakes.”

“I haven’t. The pancakes were uneven.”

“Devastating review.”

I smiled, then looked at him properly.

“I was unfair, too. Asking you to be my friend and getting angry when you acted single.”

“You were pretty terrifying in that mask.”

“I was excellent in that mask.”

He laughed, but I kept holding his hand.

“And I should’ve told you more than ‘nothing’ when something was wrong. Even if I couldn’t tell you everything.”

He nodded.

“I can wait,” he said. “I just need to know whether you still want me there.”

“I do.”

“Then tell me that next time.”

I leaned against his shoulder.

“I want you here.”

He kissed the top of my head, carefully this time.

“Good. My snacks are here.”

When I told Miyu, she cried, hugged me, then demanded to know whether Micah had cried.

“His eyes did something,” I said.

“Excellent. I approve.”

I reminded her that I had not submitted an application.

She hugged me again anyway.

Gavin called that evening. He had seen my missed messages after leaving the club and sounded shaken when I described the rest.

“I should’ve checked you had actually got home,” he said.

“I told you to go.”

“You were already drinking. I wanted to leave, and it was easier to believe you were fine.”

I appreciated him saying it plainly.

“I made my own choices,” I said. “Some of them were pretty bad.”

“Still. I’m sorry.”

We were quiet for a moment.

Then I told him Micah knew.

Gavin’s breath caught audibly.

“And?”

“And he’s still here.”

“That’s good.”

“It is.”

He went quiet again.

“I shouldn’t have told you to keep hiding,” he said eventually. “I was talking about myself.”

“I think I wanted you to.”

We didn’t pretend that made the advice harmless. We also didn’t turn the friendship into something worthless because it had been imperfect.

He told me about his date. I told him about the pancakes. We agreed to meet for our next assignment in the library, where neither of us would confuse relief with a promise we hadn’t made.

Over the next few weeks, my ankle healed, the boot came off, and the semester became a series of deadlines separated by inadequate sleep.

In public, I still wore the beanie.

In our room, I began leaving it on the hook by the door.

The first evening I managed an entire hour without touching it, Micah didn’t comment. He just moved his notes so my tail wouldn’t knock them off the bed.

That almost made me cry again.

I was becoming inconveniently emotional.

He was becoming inconveniently good at noticing without making a spectacle of it.

In early December, after I had been cleared to return to normal activity, he asked me to take a walk.

“Please tell me there’s food,” I said.

“You wound me.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

We drove to a family recreation property beyond the north end of the lake. Jyll volunteered with their weekend programs and had introduced Micah to the caretaker. He explained this while opening a gate, which made me immediately suspicious.

“What have you done?”

“Several useful things. Please sound less astonished.”

A short path led between bare trees. At the end stood an old oak with a wooden platform built around it, reached by a sturdy staircase.

I stopped.

“Micah.”

He watched my face.

“The caretaker lets volunteers use it when there aren’t programs. I helped replace a railing. Jyll made me prove I knew which end of a screwdriver to hold.”

I barely heard him.

Above us, a little treehouse sat among the branches. Its windows caught the pale afternoon light.

I had told him about my childhood treehouse once, while he helped me organize missed coursework. I hadn’t thought he would remember.

“You said it was your favorite place,” he added, suddenly less sure. “I couldn’t exactly build one, but I thought—”

I kissed him before he could talk himself out of the gesture.

He laughed against my mouth, then touched my cheek.

“Good reaction?”

“Shut up.”

“Excellent reaction.”

We climbed the stairs. Inside were cushions, folded blankets, a thermos, and a paper bag from the bakery near campus. He had arranged everything beside the window, where you could see a strip of lake through the trees.

There were no candles, no extravagant decorations.

There was a spare pair of thick socks.

I picked them up and looked at him.

“You’re always cold,” he said.

That was when I cried.

Not gracefully. Not in a way that made me look interesting against the window. I stood in an old treehouse clutching socks while my boyfriend panicked and offered me three different bakery items.

I laughed through it and pulled him close.

“I’m happy,” I managed.

“Oh.” His arms tightened around me. “Good. Because I’m out of emergency pastries after this.”

We sat beneath a blanket while the light moved across the floor. I put the socks on. He looked smug about their success.

Then I took off my hat.

Not because it had slipped. Not because somebody had discovered something I couldn’t take back.

I folded it and put it beside me.

Micah watched my ears lift, then looked at my face.

“Better?”

I nodded.

My tail settled across his lap. He rested his hand beside it, waiting until I nudged his fingers.

Outside, a bird landed on the railing. One of my ears turned toward it, and Micah’s mouth twitched.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

He laughed, and I kissed him because I could. Because he was there, warm and solid beneath my hands, looking pleased and a little amazed that I had chosen him.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you, too.”

He brushed a thumb behind my ear.

The purr escaped before I had any chance of stopping it.

Micah froze.

I closed my eyes.

“No.”

“Loui.”

“You heard a bird.”

His shoulders began shaking.

“I’m going to throw you out of this treehouse.”

“Worth it.”

I tried to glare. He kissed the corner of my mouth, and the stupid sound happened again.

For a second, I reached automatically toward the folded hat.

Then his hand closed around mine, warm and familiar, and I stopped reaching.

I left the hat where it was.