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  Adam

  I only let go of her hand for half a second, and she instantly fell through the ice. I screamed, terror exploding out of my mind, body, and soul as I shoved my fists below the gap in the ice and reached for her. I rolled up my sleeves and extended my arms deeper and deeper into the cold abyss, muttering expletives under my breath as I tried to find her. No, no, this was not happening, this couldn’t be happening, I’d just found her, I’d just…

  I’d just gotten her back.

  Assuming she was who I thought she was.

  And even if she wasn’t, I’d taken a vow to protect her with everything I had. There was no way in hell I was letting Lake Superior snatch her away from me.

  A cold pair of hands joined with my own, and I kept on screaming as I yanked her from the water. The tiny bit of core strength I’d managed to retain came in clutch as I tugged with all my might and brought her back over the surface. She nded in my arms once again, shivering and soaking wet and blue-lipped as I rushed her towards shore.

  I dug through her purse until I found her car keys, put her in the passenger’s seat, and drove us back to the hotel so fast I’m genuinely amazed I didn’t get pulled over. The night clerk at the front desk lobby did a double-take when I stormed in with Daisy barely conscious in my arms, asking if he should call an ambunce.

  “No,” I said. I had a funny feeling Daisy’s desire to avoid cops extended to other types of first-responders as well. “Just… Just start a fire in that hearth in the corner. I’m gonna go warm her back up.” The whole elevator ride up, I whispered, ‘please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die.’

  I unlocked the door and brought her into the room. She’d bcked out entirely, but hadn’t stopped shaking. This was bad. Before I’d moved out to the northeast, I’d read up on stuff like hypothermia and frostbite, spending hours going down internet rabbit holes out of sheer paranoia. Picturing this woman, this absolute gem who thought I was all the things nobody else did, who came to help me but didn’t step on me or overshadow me, who may or may not have been my crush from freshman year of college, suffering through the horrific pain of freezing to death made me terrified beyond reason.

  I closed my eyes, breathed in slowly, exhaled slowly, and got to work. I knew what to do. And she was safe. It was like I said: I would protect her, no matter what.

  First things first, she needed to get out of those wet clothes. I didn’t exactly feel great about undressing a woman while she was bcked out, but it beat the hell out of the alternative. So I pulled off her hot pink sweater and her long bck skirt and tossed them on the floor of the rustic inn bedroom, then ran to the bathroom and started running the tub. I set it to medium-heat (since too hot would send her into shock), and once the temperature got to the appropriate pce I put the stopper into the tub and went back to Daisy.

  Still out cold. Still spyed across her bed, now in nothing but a bra and briefs.

  Briefs which had small but noticeable bulge coming out of them.

  Yeah, yeah that made sense. Between her dad not wanting her to get an unspecified operation and calling her ‘boy’, Harrington saying he recognized her and calling her a ‘biological male’ (God, what a fucking maggot), and her generalized complex around wanting to disappear and blend in and stay beneath notice… It expined a lot.

  It didn’t necessarily mean she used to be Oliver Johannson, though.

  I steeled myself, and went to finish undressing her. I started with her bra, having perfected the art of removing them from a girl’s chest without actually looking at what I was doing during high school makeout sessions under the bleachers, then tugged down her briefs as well. I didn’t look. I knew what I’d find.

  I didn’t care. Nobody should.

  Unfortunately for her, lots of people (assholes, every single one of them) did.

  Fortunately for her, I never would. She was a woman. And like I’d told her, I couldn’t stomach a woman in danger. The world saw me as a mere boy, saw me as less-than, but around her, I felt like a real man. And hopefully, around me, she could feel like a woman.

  I brought her to the tub and lowered her into the lukewarm water as it rose higher and higher in the basin. I gradually raised the temperature, a little at a time, to coax the cold out of her and repce it with the gentle, blissful warmth she deserved.

  Slowly, steadily, the shaking stopped. I tried to fix my eyes to the ceiling but occasionally checked to make sure she was getting better, making sure my eyes didn’t linger or register anything I wasn’t supposed to see. Her life was in danger right now. The gutter was not where my mind should be. I needed to focus on helping her get better. Even if it deyed my work, it was the right thing to do, and given what she was dealing with it was better if I didn’t become yet another complicating factor in her already-convoluted existence.

  Still… I’d seen how she looked at me. How she acted around me. How she seemed freaked out by people touching her but then constantly glommed onto me. If she was Johannson, I don’t think she recognized me, but… Perhaps a sense of familiarity and safety had lingered over the years? I wasn’t anything special, but maybe-

  “What happened?” a soft, ft murmuring came from the tub.

  My eyes shot up and locked on the bathroom wall. “You fell into the ke.”

  “Oh shit,” Daisy whispered. “Am I okay?”

  “Gave me a real scare, but I think I got you back here on time,” I chuckled.

  “Back on time for what… Oh. Oh, I’m in a hot bath. Thank you, that was nice of… Oh, God, I’m naked right now.”

  She said it in a dull monotone, but the words were clearly ced with shock. She stared right at me, panic sparking out of her.

  I stammered, “I, uh, I didn’t look-”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean, I did see stuff, but not on purpose.”

  “How much did you see?” she said, retreating further into the tub, bunching her legs together.

  I stood up. “I should go-”

  “No, Adam, please,” she said, grabbing my damp sleeve. “How much did you… Did you see my… My…”

  I went with the best euphemism I could conjure. “Your surgical area?”

  She winced, letting out a fragile, high-pitched groan-whine. Her expression kept defaulting back to a bnk, unemotive state, and her voice was still feminine but incredibly ft. Her body nguage was… I couldn’t read it. This was different. She was different than she’d been before. Maybe some of that was an affectation? Pretending to be someone else to make it less obvious that she was… Which was absurd, she completely passed. Not that it mattered, but she… She didn’t need to pretend.

  “Yes, I saw,” I said. “I-”

  “Please leave.”

  “Daisy-”

  “Get out!” she snapped, face contorting once again, this time unmistakably wroth.

  I shut my damn mouth and nodded. As I left, I looked over my shoulder and found her burying her face in her hands as she kept ying in the bathtub.

  I fell onto my bed after closing the door behind me, rolling over and taking off my wet shirt. I felt like I’d run a marathon and then gotten beaten up. Maybe I could sleep this off.

  Aaaaannnndddd then her phone started ringing. Of fucking course.

  I recognized Rose’s number, so I answered the video call. “Hi, Mrs. Duggan.”

  “Adam! Hey,” Rose said, sitting in her living room nursing a hot mug of what looked like tea. “Gd I could catch you this time.”

  “Yeah,” I said, fending off dissociation. Oh God, Daisy hated me now!

  “How did the negotiation go?”

  “Uh, well, mostly it went well. I got them to agree to our terms.”

  “Fantastic! Great job, k… Great, job, Adam,” she said gently.

  She’d been about to call me kid. She did that sometimes. I understood why: I was less than a year out of college, nine years her junior, at a vastly different pce in my personal and professional life than she was; to her, I was very much still a kid. I tried not to let it bother me… But it did. It bothered me a lot: another example of a person in my life, a person I respected, a person who was, yes, my boss, but in many ways also my friend… Not taking me seriously. Not considering me a mature adult so much as a child in need of guidance. A boy, rather than a man. It was fucking frustrating, but at the same time, she was my boss, and it didn’t seem prudent to correct her on this sort of thing.

  This time, though, she’d stopped herself. It was a relief, not having to hear that word. I felt seen, and it was really nice.

  Daisy had spoken with her earlier. Had she… Had she said something?

  God, this girl kept going to bat on my behalf for seemingly no reason beyond her being that good of a person. Fucking hell. And I’d… I’d humiliated her. I’d seen more than I was supposed to see. I’d crossed the line, and yes, I’d had to save her life; yes, I’d do it again without hesitating. But I still felt like shit.

  “Is everything okay?” Rose asked. “You look…”

  “What do I look like?”

  “Pensive. And riddled with guilt.”

  “I’m that easy to read?”

  “Adam. I’m Catholic. I know what guilt looks like.”

  “Point,” I said, ying down on my mattress and holding the phone directly above my head. Exhaustion melted out of me, my limbs growing heavy and my heartbeat slowing inside my chest. My adrenaline must’ve finally been crashing: an overpowering urge to slumber for a month pushed against my chest like a makuragaeshi.

  “Is everything okay?” Rose asked. “Where’s Daisy?”

  “She’s… She’s in the bath.”

  “Is she alright?”

  “No, actually, she fell through the ice into Lake Superior. And it’s my fault.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I’m serious, Mrs. Duggan.”

  “I believe you, I’m just gonna need context.”

  Shit, how much was I allowed to tell her? If anyone would understand what just happened, Rose definitely would (same with Lavender or Lily or Violetta… God, I knew a lot of trans women. And they all had flower names. Seemed statistically unlikely but whatever). But given how Daisy had reacted when I’d found out about her situation, I doubted she’d want more virtual strangers knowing all the details of her travel pns.

  So I told Rose everything but left out the part about Daisy being trans. There, that seems like a good compromise-

  “Oh, she’s trans. Gotcha,” Rose nodded.

  Goddammit! “I never said-”

  “I can read between the lines, Adam. There’s really only one reason she’d react like that, especially given the other details you’ve shared.”

  “Really? There’s only one reason for a woman to react like that after being seen naked?”

  “When she’s just been saved for the second time in two days by a guy she’s clearly got the hots for… Yeah. And with the whole operation thing-”

  “Whoa whoa whoa, back it up, boss-dy,” I held up a finger as I gred at the screen. “Who said anything about her having the hots for me?”

  Rose’s mouth upturned into a deeply amused smirk. God, and I thought Crispin could look like a smug fucker when he was feeling a certain kind of way. “I spoke to her earlier, Adam. I saw her face light up when she talked about you. I saw her correct me when she thought Kyle and I were infantilizing you. Sorry for doing that, by the way.”

  Oh damn, that was her. “She and I met like a day and a half ago. It seems a little early-”

  “Adam, this girl literally fell into your arms and you whisked her away to safety, putting yourself in real jeopardy by doing so. She’s been glued to you for almost forty-eight hours and feels safe enough around you to share a hotel room with you. If you described that to anyone else, what would you think was going on?”

  I grimaced. “I’d say that sounds romantic as fuck.”

  “Exactly,” Rose said with a snap of her fingers.

  “Okay, look, you’re right, but I crossed a line-”

  “No, you didn’t. She’s just embarrassed. Probably feeling super dysphoric right now.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense. I’ve seen how Lavender gets when she’s in a funk like that. I’ve never been super clear on how to help her out of it, though. What should I do?”

  “Just give her some space,” Rose said gently. “And make it clear to her this changes nothing about how you see her.”

  I nodded again. “Right.”

  “And go easy on yourself, alright? You’re doing the right thing. And you’re doing a good job. Those… Don’t always overp, but when they do-”

  “You stay the course?”

  “Damn right,” Rose said. “Also, I’m gonna wire some more money to your account so you can buy a new phone.”

  “Rose-”

  “We’ll write it off as an expense. It qualifies,” she said with an errant wave of her hand. “Are you still good to be in Marquette in a few days? I understand if you’re not feeling up to it-”

  “I’m good,” I said, sitting up and looking straight at my boss. “I… I need to keep going. I need to do this.”

  “Hell yeah,” Rose smiled. “Call me first thing once you get the new phone. I can help you rebuild most of your contacts.”

  “Much appreciated.”

  “Anything else we should go over before I let you take care of business?”

  “There is one thing,” I said.

  “Shoot.”

  “You and Kyle are big hockey fans, right?”

  Rose tilted the camera to the side to reveal a wall pstered in news headlines of every time Boston had won the Stanley Cup in the past hundred years. Including one that literally looked like it was a hundred years old, framed and embossed above her mantle. “You could say that, yeah.”

  “Does that include college hockey? Specifically Boston University?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t follow it as closely, and I didn’t go to BU so I’m less immediately knowledgeable where they’re concerned. Kyle’s a Terrier through and through, though. Why do you ask?”

  I spoke extra softly, so there was absolutely no chance of Daisy overhearing what I was about to say. “Do either of you know anything about a pyer named Oliver Johannson?”

  “Off the top of my head? No. But I can ask Kyle if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Adam, what’s going on?”

  “Maybe nothing. I don’t even wanna say it aloud until I’m sure,” I said.

  “Okay, fair enough. I’ll ask. You be careful, yeah? And be good to her.”

  “I will,” I nodded. “Have a good night, Mrs. Duggan… Rose.”

  “A good night to you too, Adam,” she said with a cheery smile.

  I clicked the phone off and then fell backwards onto the mattress once again.

  I lost track of time staring at the ceiling as all my energy fell away, and before I knew it consciousness slipped from my grasp entirely.

  I dreamt of Daisy stuck in a high tower, and I was scrambling up to get her free. I climbed through the window and jumped inside, tearing off her clothes and going to town on her tits; bringing her to her knees, taking off my pants, letting her service me with her mouth while I whispered sweet nothings into her ear; her throwing a tantrum after I came into her hair, pouting and crying before I put her over my knee and spanked her not as a punishment but as a treat; her riding me after I’d already switched her ass raw and red, until I flipped over and made it clear I was on top during these proceedings; sliding into her, and-

  I woke up with a boner tenting my pants and Daisy standing at the foot of my bed.

  GODDAMMIT!

  “Hey,” I said, sitting up, pulling the covers over my lower half and crossing my legs in a moderately successful attempt at concealing my hard-on. “Listen, I just wanted to say-”

  She wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were locked on the ceiling. Like she was trying to be a million miles away.

  “You… Are not doing so great, huh?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  She shook her head for no.

  “Right. Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She looked away again.

  I tucked my semi up into my pants. I looked out the window and saw it was still pitch bck out, while Daisy was wearing a bathrobe and had her golden mane up in a towel. I managed to get onto my feet before I realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt, prompting me to reach for my luggage… Only to stop when I realized Daisy was staring at my chest.

  She was hard to read like this. She was probably worn out by everything that had happened, and… And if she was Johannson, that would mean she was on the autism spectrum. I might’ve been making a big leap here, but it would expin a few other things: the nonverbal state, the bnk expression, the meltdown she’d suffered earlier.

  I walked over and reached my hand out towards her shoulder, but she pulled away and shook her head again. So this was a no-touch kinda state. Another drop in the autism bucket.

  There’d been a kid on the spectrum in my year at high school. A girl named Penny. And the main thing I remembered about her was that she preferred it when people were direct with her, because she struggled to read between conversational lines.

  Straightforward approach. Let’s give it a shot.

  “I don’t care that you’re trans,” I said, looking at her face but away from her eyes. “I have no problem with that sort of thing. I look at you, and I see a woman, same as any other. If it helps, my boss, Rose is a trans woman, and so is her boss, Violetta. And my roommate, Lavender. And Lily, my best friend Crispin’s fiance, is too. And there’s another one in our group as well named Lisa, but I haven’t interacted with her too much. Guess I only know how to talk to trans girls with flower names.”

  She cracked a smile.

  “What is it with y’all and flowers, seriously?” I asked.

  She chuckled, very quietly. But it was an absolutely beautiful sound.

  “I asked Lavender about it once. She said it’s always either a flower name or Emily. And then I pointed out Lisa to her and she said that it’s proof she lives up to the dumb blonde image. Her words, not mine.”

  Daisy gave another ugh, louder this time.

  “All that’s to say,” I continued, “I don’t see you any differently now that I know. You’re still the same girl who I rescued from that high tower.”

  “Technically I jumped and you happened to be there.” Her tone was ft but her voice sparkled.

  “There she is,” I said, and dammit, I swear a light shone out of her eyes.

  She nodded again.

  “So I gotta ask,” I started.

  She gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Are you autistic?”

  She seemed taken aback by the question, but after a moment of silence, she nodded.

  “Gotcha.”

  “I told you people don’t like it when they see… When they see under my mask,” she said, so quiet I could barely hear her. I wanted to stop closer. I wanted to be close to her, as much as she would let me. But I didn’t want to scare her off, either.

  “I told you, you’re still the same girl to me,” I said again. “No matter what happens, you’ll always be the girl who fell from the sky. Who nded in my arms. And I’ll carry you as long as you need me to. Or as long as you’ll let me.”

  “Even though I’m-”

  “You’re beautiful,” I cut her off. I didn’t make a habit of interrupting women when they talked, but dammit, Daisy needed to get out of her own head. “Whatever else you are, you’re beautiful. And not just your looks, either. All of you.”

  “You just met me.”

  Don’t know if that’s actually true… But this doesn’t seem like the time to cross that particur bridge. “I know that I want you to feel safe around me. Right now, that’s all I want.”

  She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. She walked over to me, and put a hand on my bare shoulder. On my pride fg tattoo. “Who are you, Mr. Kurosawa? What’s your story?”

  “Quid pro quo. Okay. I learned something about you today. May as well tell you I’m bi.”

  “Same here,” she murmured.

  “Well that’s something else we have in common,” I said. “My… My parents don’t know about that. But my brother, Aaron, does. He’s… Well, he fucking sucks, to be frank. He found out when we were in high school and he’s been bckmailing me with it ever since.”

  “Holy shit,” she said, taking aback as she traced an invisible line from the fg on my shoulder to the dragons on my chest.

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s a cheater. Strings girls along constantly. I caught him once, and he made it clear he’d blow up my retionship with our mom and dad if I told anyone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. I’m sorry your dad is a prick, by the way.”

  “Thanks.” Her hands, both of them, lingered on the dragons. “What about these?”

  “Uh… A leftover from my days as a pretentious college student,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “Eastern dragon and western dragon. Japan and America. My heritage and my present. Two sides, diametrically opposed but still tangled up in each other. Like I said-”

  “I think it’s cool,” she said, finally making eye contact with me again. “I think… I think they’re beautiful. That you’re… You’re…”

  “Thank you,” I said. “See, that’s just one more thing we have in common.”

  “We’re both beautiful?”

  “I was gonna say that neither of us are blind, but that works.”

  “Hmm,” she intoned, smiling again.

  “You feeling any better?”

  “A little. But I… I’ve been keeping my affect up pretty nonstop the past few days. It’s gonna take time for me to recharge.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Just… Don’t get offended if I don’t say much, or if my face looks annoyed.”

  “Okay,” I nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Thanks. You’re… You’re a good guy, Adam.”

  “No problem. Hey, so, on the way in, I asked the desk clerk to put a fire on. Do you wanna maybe go downstairs, see if we can finagle ourselves some hot cocoa?”

  Her face lit up again. She probably wasn’t aware of it, but the way she sparkled at my words… Dammit, this girl was something else.

  “I’ll get dressed,” she said.

  “Cool. Me too.”

  And so we did, and we made our way down into the lobby and parked ourselves in front of a roaring fire. We weren’t able to get our hands on any hot cocoa, but that didn’t matter. We had the hearth, and the smell of woodsmoke, and the calm quiet of night. And each other, sitting in the hotel lobby, side by side as we kept each other warm and safe.