I smacked my alarm clock at 6:45 a.m. and sighed. I was lucky work was only a five minute drive from home. I'd hit snooze maybe six times since waking up. I didn't really want to get up. It was Saturday, and I wanted to stay home, but naturally I had to work.

Here I was complaining like this wasn't just my second day on the job. I was being quite stupid for no reason but my own personal griping.

I sat up and pulled the tie off my hair. I played with it a second and made a personal commitment to some of my first paycheck going to a haircut. Actually, the money I'd made in tips yesterday could cover a haircut. Maybe I'd stop at that salon down the block from the cafe.

I hopped in the shower and let my mind just drift. I liked to do that in the shower. I just left everything behind and allowed myself to wander.

As my mind traipsed off to far away places, I felt hands reach around from behind me. The hands slid up from my stomach to my breasts, and I felt a moan escape my lips. Why was I letting whoever this was do this and why was I already enjoying it? All he’d done was touch my tits, was I that sensitive?

One hand remained where it was while the other slid down toward my crotch. A part of me wanted to grab that hand and force whoever this guy was out of the shower. Instead, I found myself helping the hand get closer to my moist, warm…

Two fingers slid inside me. One was his, the other was mine.

My other hand reached up for his and helped his fingers circle my nipple. I bit down on my lip as another moan threatened to find its way out. I couldn't bear this. Why was I just so into it? I hadn't wanted anything remotely like this since I'd been changed, but now… Now I couldn't stand not having it. What the hell was wrong with me?

"Nora…" a voice said from behind me. A voice I recognized.

"Evan?" I asked, which sounded breathy and desperate.

"Nora…" he said again.

I felt immense pressure between my legs, something that sent a shiver up my spine. I felt something sticky slide down my thigh. Had I just… Did I just cum? I hadn't done that since I was changed. Was that feeling, that shiver up my spine, was that an orgasm? God, it hit my whole body… Hell, I was still feeling it.

"Nora!" a different voice shouted. I looked around in the shower and realized I was the only one in the tub. One of my hands was on my breast, the other was down by my crotch. Had… I mean… I hadn't…

I poked my head out through the shower curtain and saw Lucas there, shirtless, a confused expression on his face. "What?!" I practically shouted at him.

"Were you… You were screaming Evan's name."

I turned red-faced. "No I wasn't!"

"Did you just fantasize about a guy you just met last night?"

I sunk back behind the curtain. "I wasn't… That's none of your business!"

He chuckled. "Does the Goddess of Thunder have a teensy crush on the Chinese trickster monkey?"

Goddamn it, he was not gonna let this go. "Shut it, Lucas, or I will tell Aunt Helen on you!" I was well aware I sounded like some snot nosed little girl who would tattle on her brother at a moment’s notice.

He laughed. "Calm down, Miss Flustered, I'll keep my snark down for a little while." Not content to leave it at that, he added, "But you do realize it's just a teensy bit hilarious that you met this guy last night and you're already having extremely wet dreams about him, right?"

"Get out, Lucas!"

* * *

"Why would I be having wet dreams about him literally the next day?" I asked as Debi and I stood around, waiting for customers. The morning had been, in Arnold's words, uncomfortably dead. He'd considered sending us home and closing early.

She shrugged. "He's magic, you're magic, you want to be magic together?" She had a look in her eye that all but said aloud that she'd be happy if Evan and I did end up together.

I glared at her. "I am not having that discussion with you, young lady."

She giggled. "C'mon, would it kill you to give dating a try?"

I rolled my eyes. "Let's just leave that to the side for… Ever. Even if I did, that doesn't change the fact that I don't wanna be screaming his name while I'm alone in the shower. And I personally believe it can't be love at first sight if my first sight of him was Oh god, this guy could be here to expose me."

She smirked. "Oh, I bet he wanted to expose you, alright."

"You're not helping."

"Not the way you want."

I sighed. "Whatever. I just don't wanna be thinking of him like that until I have good reason."

She put her arm around my shoulders. "Sweetie, you have good reason. He called me last night after we all went home and asked about you. You may have been terrified that he was gonna spill the beans on you, but he was just too taken aback by you to think of anything like that.”

I groaned. "You just wanna get me dating Evan like right now."

She nodded, then added, "I want you experiencing every facet of life as an attractive teenage girl on Earth. You've already done the depressed drinking game that almost led to rape, makeovers, clothes shopping, being a waitress and having old men stare at you and from the sound of things, a pleasant night's walk with a guy who’s unbearably nice and really likes you. Dating is the easiest of the bunch."

I glared at her. “This was your plan the whole time, wasn’t it?”

“What? I had a friend who just suffered a devastating loss to his fragile male ego, and he needed a confidence boost by meeting a nice girl who would at the very least be a friend to him. Would it really be so bad if something closer came from it?"

I didn't really want to agree with her because I was the nice girl she was talking about. I would have likely done the same, however, if I'd had a friend who needed a little companionship and I could hook them up with a date. Still, I’d like to think I’d tell the date I was hooking them up with what the plan was and let them back out if they were uncomfortable.

Then again, Lucas had promised me nothing would happen, nothing did happen, and at worst, I made a new friend. Sure, Evan might be a little interested, but he'd agreed we'd just be friends. I couldn't exactly say I hadn't been interested in him at least a little bit. Enough to look up Sun Wukong online, at least. Not that I learned much other than what Evan had told me, but I was still curious.

Finally, after hours of waiting, someone came in and sat down at one of Debi’s tables. I just let out a slightly audible sigh and realized I was overthinking everything about Evan. He was a friend, nothing more, and it would stay that way for however long it did.

I hoped.

* * *

I plopped down on my bed and untied my hair. I couldn't wait to get it cut and feel a little less like I had a ton of snakes falling from my head. How other girls dealt with so much hair was something I didn't think I'd ever really understand. Hopefully, I'd be a guy again by the time it grew back to this length.

I quickly changed from my work clothes back into house clothes. I didn't have any plans for the evening that weren't Lay around and play video games or watch YouTube videos. Then again, the last time I’d had those kinds of plans, Lucas practically kidnapped me into a date with Evan, so maybe I should actually consider making plans from now on.

I heard my phone buzz and realized I’d forgotten to turn the ringer volume back up after I got home. I grabbed it off my nightstand and saw a text from Aunt Helen. I’ll be home later, just order pizza tonight. Huh, I hadn’t even realized she wasn’t home when I got in. I wondered where she went, since she wasn’t really one to just up and disappear.

I walked downstairs and poured myself a glass of lemonade. Now that I thought about it, Lucas didn’t seem to be around, either. Was I really all by my lonesome at the moment? That was both a comfort and an annoyance at the same time. I enjoyed the alone time, but having someone to talk to would also be nice.

I could always call Evan…

Nope.

I got about halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang. Great, probably somebody looking for Helen. I turned around, walked back down the stairs and answered the door. It took everything not to drop the glass of lemonade I was holding.

Because Evan was standing there.

He looked slightly different, not as European as he had last night. He was a shapeshifter, though, so that was likely just a personal choice. “Hey, Nora,” he said with a little wave.

“Hi, Evan…”

He sighed. “Yeah, I don’t really know what I’m doing here, either. I was walking home from school and remembered that Lucas said you guys lived around here. Figured I might as well stop to see you.”

I laughed nervously. “Well, you’ve seen me!”

He nodded. “Yeah. Mind if I come in?”

I actually didn’t know what to do here. I was standing there with a doorway between me and the guy I’d basically masturbated to the idea of, and I wasn’t sure what I should do. I didn’t really feel good just making him stand there on the porch, though, so I stepped out of the way and let him into the house.

For a long time, neither of us said anything to one another. I kept slowly drinking my lemonade, he just twiddled his thumbs while sitting on the couch. It was clear to me that he didn't really know why he was around right now.

It was also clear to me exactly why he was around: He was lonely.

He'd just had a bad break up, he had met a girl he connected with, and he wanted to spend more time with her. The fact that the girl (me) was the Norse Goddess of Thunder probably didn't hurt the connection any. Or the fact that I was attractive. I blamed my mother's genes for that.

By not talking to him, I was likely telling him I wasn't interested in being his friend. I didn't want to give him the wrong impression and make it look as though I were interested in being more than his friend. He had just had a bad break up, after all, and was probably looking for that sort of companionship. I was sure he wanted to respect my boundaries, but that didn't mean he didn't have his own desires.

And there I was acting like he was so hungry for sex that he'd come after me the first chance he got. Just because I was a small, skinny girl didn't mean I didn't have a magic hammer that could tear him to shreds.

But I was also doing my damnedest to avoid my own urges. Dad wanted me to fail at this little test of character, all probably so that he could exile me somewhere he didn't have to be embarrassed of his daughter. I was already a disappointment to him, after all. He had half a reason to get rid of me.

But even if I didn't give into my urges, what did that matter? He'd still want me out of the way because he's just an asshole. I'd never done anything to intentionally anger or hurt him, and he'd still done this bullshit. I would make sure I proved him so wrong.

That little internal rambling brought me back to the present, where Evan was still just lounging around on the couch. He had a quizzical look on his face, like he wasn't quite sure what was going on with me. I wasn't so sure, either, and it annoyed the hell outta me. My mind was going in seven different directions and I didn't think I'd actually be able to figure out which one I wanted to go down.

"Sorry," I said, not really sure what I was apologizing about. "Did you want something to drink? I'm pretty sure there's more than just lemonade here."

He shook his head. "Lemonade's fine. I… I really don't know why I'm here, honestly."

"I don't know why I do things most of the time," I said with a nervous laugh. God, I sounded like a lovestruck girl. Oh, wait, I probably was.

He stood up. "I should probably go."

I stepped in his way. "No!" Dammit, that sounded desperate. "I mean… You don't have to. We can just hang out and watch TV, since neither of us really has anything to do."

He smiled. "That sounds good."

I smiled, too. I wasn't sure if it was just because he smiled or because I was genuinely happy I had someone to hang out with who wasn't my brother or his girlfriend. Hell, for all I knew, it was both.

He sat back down on the couch and I sat down beside him. I grabbed the remote and jumped onto Helen's Netflix account. "So, whaddya wanna watch?"

He scratched at his chin. "I hear Seven Deadly Sins is good."

"Okay. It's been awhile since I saw a really good anime."

"Do they have anime in Asgard?"

"Yeah, we do, we just have to wait for it to be translated to Scandinavian."

He looked at me funny. “Are you serious?”

I laughed. “No! Everybody on Asgard just speaks whatever language they do and everybody understands them, same as any other realm.”

He sighed in relief. "I was actually kinda worried there."

"Why?"

"I dunno. Kinda wanted to visit Asgard one day, see where the princess calls home."

"It's not that impressive. It's like Earth, but a little more crystal spirey. And it's all one city, mostly. We don't really have fields, or anything."

"Huh. I got the impression it was just a big mountain, like Olympus."

"My dad says Olympus isn't even a mountain anymore, that the Greek gods just lounge around wherever they please doing jackshit."

He propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Probably true."

* * *

The strangest thing happened as Evan and I sat and watched anime for something like six hours: I enjoyed it.

Outside of when I ordered the pizza, all we did was just sit there and talk. We talked about the anime we were watching, we talked about my job at the diner, we talked about his job at a local gas station, we talked about our families, we just talked. I couldn't believe how good it felt to just talk.

He told me about college, where he was majoring in art with a preference for drawing. He showed me pics on his phone that he took of a lot of his drawings, which were all crazy good. His love of anime definitely influenced his art, because it was all very animesque and heavily stylized. He would probably have a damn good career in art after he was done with school.

I told him more about my job as a waitress, mostly the types of customers I had to deal with. I told him as much as I could about my situation, as well that I couldn’t tell him everything thanks to that stupid vocal block I had on me. I didn’t tell him Lucas was involved, because I didn’t want him thinking Lucas had done this to me on purpose. He asked me questions about my interests, and I think I surprised him that I really didn’t have many.

During the conversation, I realized that for the first time since I’d been sent to Earth, I actually felt like I was being myself. This entire time, I’d felt like I was playing the role of Nora, of being this girl people expected me to be, even if those people were my own brother and his girlfriend. But talking with Evan, I just… Felt like Nora. She was natural for the very first time in my short experience as her. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know why, all we were doing was talking, and yet I was so very me for the first time in days. Even more than the night before, and we had been mostly alone in that park.

It wasn’t because I might have feelings for Evan, was it? It just couldn’t be because I was home while I was talking to him.

He seemed to notice something about me. "What is it?" he asked.

I shook my head. "It's nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm just… I've never actually talked about me as much as I have today. Not with anybody."

"Even your brother?"

"He'd probably be the closest."

"Wow." He smirked. "I'm the first person the Goddess of Thunder ever opened up to."

I shot him an annoyed look. "Don't tell anybody that!"

He chucked. "Calm down, Nora, calm down, your secrets are safe with me." He laughed again. "It's sweet, actually, that you picked me out of anybody. Was it just because I was the only one here, or was it something else?"

I sighed. I didn't really know the answer. I had to go with the only real thing I had. "It was a feeling. A feeling that I could be… I could be Nora around you, and you wouldn't expect me to be something. I know that sounds stupid, because nobody expects anything out of me, just… I always feel like everybody wants me to be someone in particular. With you… I feel genuine."

He leaned his head against my shoulder. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about me."

"I wish I understood it, really, but I can't."

He put an arm around me. I should've felt annoyed, but it felt… Nice. "It's perfectly understandable to have feelings you can't understand. That's how people get thrown into shitty marriages and terrible real estate scams."

I leaned back in the couch. "I'm glad one of us can rationalize this."

"Well, I wouldn't say rationalize, exactly."

"Whatever." I grabbed the remote and tossed it in his lap. "Just pick the next show."

"You got it." He whistled. "Ooh, Evangelion."

* * *

For some reason, I was cold. Very cold.cold enough that I could barely stay warm under a blanket and needed both that and a comforter to feel any semblance of warmth. It had started just before I came upstairs to go to bed, and it was like this feeling of inverse low blood sugar, only I wasn't diabetic and either way, unless Lucas had screwed with my biology any, I was immune to pretty much any human ailment.

The door to my bedroom opened and in walked Lucas, a curious look on his face. I was too busy not bothering to remove the comforter to ask him what it was he was looking for. In fact, I even pulled it over my head in hopes he'd get the hint and leave, but getting hints wasn't always his strong suit.

Finally, he pulled the comforter off me and said, "Excuse me, miss, I'm trying to find my sister. Y'know, broody girl, blonde hair and a figure most women would kill for?"

I pulled the comforter out of his hands and covered up again. I didn't at all understand why I was so cold, but I needed something to keep warm. "Shut it, Lucas," was all I said.

“Y’see, I’m asking because while I was out with Debi, she got a phone call from a certain someone, I think his name is… Ethan? Ephram?”

“Evan!” I shouted through a pillow.

“Yeah, that’s right, and apparently he spent a very pleasant evening with a girl who fits most of the same description as my sister, has the same name, and owns this big ass hammer that lets her shoot lightning bolts.”

I pulled the comforter down so that it wasn’t covering my head. “I said shut it.”

“What? It’s not like I’m criticising you for spending time with Evan. I am just a teeny bit curious why, after spending all damn day acting like being around Evan was going to be the most toxic thing possible, you finally came out of your shell with him and spent like seven hours watching anime.”

I sat up. “I don’t know.” I laughed. “I literally do not know.” I brushed some hair away from my face. “I just… He came over after his classes and he didn’t know why he was here and I didn’t know what to do, so I asked him if he wanted to watch TV and we just enjoyed each other’s company so much.” I pulled the blanket and the comforter tighter around me. “All we did was talk, too. It wasn’t like anything back home where I’d be doing my damnedest to get the other person in bed, I… Just wanted to talk to him, and I felt so much better...“

Lucas nodded. “Uh-huh, uh-huh…”

I glared. “I’m serious, you asshole, this… Is totally new for me.”

He smirked. "It's okay, sis. Y'know, I think you may have just started down the road to that change Dad wanted you to fail at."

I couldn't actually describe what that made me feel. "You think so?"

He nodded. "Yup. And it only took… Five? Days. Five days."

I sighed. "I suppose that's a decent compliment."

He sat down on the bed beside me. "And since this little breakthrough was thanks to Evan, I took the liberty of enrolling you in college."

I stared at him blankly. "You what?"

He nodded. "Yup, and I even decided to find out what classes the beloved monkey king is taking…"

"You what?"

"...And I figured you'd at least be good at the creative writing class…"

"You what?!"

"You have three courses, and your schedule won't interfere with your job or stop you from having whatever it is you girls call 'a life'."

"How did… Why… YOU WHAT?!"

"You have creative writing with the dreamy boy, cosmetology with Debi and marketing/business advertising with me."

"I… You take a business advertising class?"

"Yeah. I also take that creative writing class, but I take it with Debi on different days."

"How the hell did you do that? Don't these things have to be done like months in advance?”

He gave me a look of hurt, as if I'd just insulted him. "Nora, please, you're talking to one of the best reality warpers in the whole pantheon. As far as they're concerned, you're starting late classes for some bullshit I made up."

“You’re serious about this? I’m starting college tomorrow?”

He held out his arms. “Can I get a hug as the brother you’ve got?”

I swear, I felt warmer. “You’re the only brother I’ve got, but y’know what, yeah, you get a hug.”