Steve

After we had finished up our game of Betrayal at House on the Hill, Adam yawned and then glanced at his smart watch. “Hey, been really fun, but I think I gotta get going. I have plans to go on a hike pretty early with my girlfriend so I wanna turn in at a semi-reasonable time.”

“Well, thanks for coming!” I said, and gave him a farewell hug.

He briefly stopped in front of Maddy. “Hey, it was really nice meeting you.” The two of them then stood their awkwardly for a moment before they seemed to simultaneously settled on a loose, one-arm hug. “Anyway, sorry about murdering you all after you got turned into babies.”

“This game is so weird,” Maddy muttered. “How many of these haunts are just someone’s fetish?”

Sean laughed. “I’ve definitely seen some others. Hey, I think I’m also gonna get going. Thanks for having us over and cooking pizza and everything! It was delicious.” He patted his belly. “Thank god I’m no longer doing keto so I could eat it.”

“Oh, if anyone is keto I can try out a cauliflower crust? I’ve been thinking about trying that anyway,” I said.

“Well, I’ll let you know if I ever go back,” Sean said. “I definitely lost weight but maybe that’s just cuz I was limiting calories. Not too sure I wanna deal with the dread ‘flu’ again.” He shuddered.

“Yeah, seems like a bad time,” I said. “Honestly, I’m happy to remain an omnivore.”

“Haha, vore.” Maddy said.

Sean laughed. “Wow, do you have a DeviantArt account?” he asked.

Maddy blushed slightly. “Yes, actually. Since high school. Most of the stuff on there is terrible and embarrassing and I don’t update it much any more. All the actual professional artists are on ArtStation now anyway.”

“My little pony original character embarrassing?” Sean asked. “Yes, I’ll confess that I was a brony.”

Maddy exhaled slightly through her nose. “More like, uh, bad attempts to draw anime girls and a fantroll.”

“Oof,” Sean said. “Truly a citizen of the internet. Maybe I’ll see you out there in the great wide yonder.”

As I held open the door for him to leave, he gave me a pat on the back and said one last thing. “Steve, your girlfriend is a degenerate. Congrats.”

I laughed. “I think she’s wholesome in the ways that matter.”

“Aw,” Maddy said. “You might not say that if you saw my browser history.”

I tidied up the remains of the pizza and board game before rejoining Maddy on the couch. She deigned to briefly sit up so that my lap could be inserted below as a pillow.

“Hope you had fun tonight,” I said.

“Uh huh,” she said in a tone that told me she wasn’t really paying attention.

I twisted and craned down to bring my head closer to hers. “Whatcha looking out on there?” I asked, referring to her phone.

Maddy fidgeted a little. “Uh… I guess my parents want to come visit and see my new place and meet my roommate? They, uh, have a habit of wanting to vet my friends and… well, I haven’t really dated much, but I imagine it would be the same but more so. I mean, my mom like anyone who’s reasonably polite and seems like they’re making an effort, so she’ll love you. But, uh…”

After a longer pause than I expected, I asked,” And?”

“...And I’m, uh, not, you know… exactly out to them? I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re not terrible or anything. At most it would probably just be awkward and take them a while to adjust and my dad might make some stupid jokes.”

“Well, that is the dad’s job,” I said. Maddy didn’t even crack a smile. Jeez, she was clearly quite worked up about this.

I patted her head a bit. “I can talk to them for you, if that would help?”

“No, I can’t ask you to do that. It’s too much and they’re my parents and… I feel like I have to do something by myself, you know? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really grateful that you’re also so eager to help but… I think I have to handle this myself, you know? But I also don’t really want to be around them while they’re processing it, so… I was planning on coming out right at the end of their visit, maybe?”

“Alright. Is there anything you need me to do? Oh, and if you know when exactly they’ll be here I can get the foldout bed ready and buy more ingredients than usual. Also, do you think they’d want any lemons?”

“My mom will absolutely take free lemons,” Maddy said. “Actually she used to take lemons from a neighbor’s tree without, uh, exactly asking permission. I really had to stop myself from quoting ‘Lemon Stealing Whores’ at her because that is not something I want to explain to my mom.”

“I don’t know what that is either, although I guess I can guess from context,” I said. 

Maddy lit up, her anxiety momentarily replaced by the excitement of sharing something with a person who hadn’t seen it before. It was adorable.

“Here, let me find it on YouTube and cast it from my phone,” she said. 

“Oh, just, first, was there anything you needed me to do?”

“Oh, right, yeah, sorry. Yes, I, uh… I’m going to need for you to refer to me as ‘Matt’ and ‘him’.”

Maddy

I wasn’t completely sure how to interpret Steve’s expression. He looked… perturbed? Was that the word?

After some silence, he spoke. “To be honest, I’ll try my best, but I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Okay. Sorry if it’s asking too much.” I felt my heart sink. I was probably being selfish and shitty again and–

“It’s fine that you’re asking!” Steve said, interrupting my spiral of negative thoughts. “I just meant that, well… I think of you as a girl, you know? Like, I can try to mentally reframe you as a guy, I guess, but it takes active effort. I will try my best but I can’t promise I’ll never slip up.”

I felt some warm fuzzies hearing that Steve actually had trouble not seeing me as a girl. Honestly, I felt like I looked more like a guy a lot of the time, and despite being an artist I kinda sucked at classic girl stuff such as makeup. But at least Steve saw me the way I wanted to be seen.

“Oh, I’m going to have to dig out some boy clothes!” I realized. “I think they’re in a box in the closet right now? But I forget which one. Oh, and I should probably hide obvious girl stuff somewhere. Uh, I really don’t want to have to get a short boy haircut just for this visit. Maybe I can just have it in a low pony or man bun or something? And, uh, hmm. My eyebrows might be a little sus. I guess I could draw them back in thicker with pencil?”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Steve asked. “I just… I’m worried that your parents deadnaming you is going to hurt more than you’re realizing.”

“It’s okay. This time I have a warning. I can gird my loins or whatever. What is girding, actually, anyway? I feel like I’ve only heard it in that phrase. Oh, maybe that’s what girders do?”

Steve gave me some more headpats. “Girder? I hardly know ‘er.”

I sat upright in protest. “Boooo.”

“Aw, I didn’t think it was that bad.”

I gave him a quick peck on the lips. “It was, but you’re lucky you’re too cute to stay mad at. I think I’m gonna go work on a commission now and I might be up a little late, just so you know.”

Steve

“Alright!” I said. Fortunately, I was a deep sleeper, so her coming into the bedroom and turning the light on to take her pills shouldn’t be an issue. “Just make sure you get enough sleep, alright?”

She shrugged. “I cannot vouch for what 3 am trying-to-finish-coloring Maddy will do but I’ll make an effort to sleep in.”

I laughed. “Alright. Please try and take a break sometimes, okay? We don’t want you getting a repetitive strain injury.”

She winced. “Oof, yeah, those are not fun. Anyway… good night!”

“Good night.” I kissed her one more time before heading for bed.