The restaurant was nice. Not suit and tie nice, since Mario wasn’t dressed for that, but clearly on the better end of where one could dine in a t-shirt. It was a family owned Mexican place that Romeo had always known was good for meaty meals, which he hoped was the sort Mario prefered.

It did seem like the menu had interested the other man, though every bit of conversation Romeo tried beyond explaining dishes Mario didn’t know crashed and burned. Even pointing out that he was paying and had plenty of money to cover whatever Mario might order had seemed to somehow go poorly. Who didn’t like free food?

Well, as awkward as it was, it beat dealing with Rachel or Logan right now, both proposals hanging over his head. Plus, travelling with any of his bandmates was probably a bad idea when he was trying to keep a low profile. It was risky enough being out at a quiet restaurant he knew, dressed as incognito as he could manage with the thick rimmed fake glasses on his face. The internet conspiracy circles hadn’t changed all that much in the past few hours, the most aggressive display of them had just been broken.

But Romeo wanted to keep his mind off of that and make the conversation work with Mario. He just had to figure out why he was failing.

Sitting there in a stifling silence, the issue finally clicked in Romeo’s head. “Even with me a guy this still kind of feels like a date, doesn’t it?”

Mario’s lips twitched into a sort of guilty grimace, the muscular man shrugging. “Maybe a little? Which… there’s nothing wrong with two men on a date. I just… I just don’t know how to be on a date with a guy.”

“Alright. I’ll… I’ll go change. I’ll eat less that way anyway,” Romeo said with a shrug. “But it’s still not really a date. You don’t want into the mess that is my love life, alright?”

“Yes ma’a—sir. Sir. Yes sir,” Mario stammered.

With that, Romeo got up and headed towards the men’s room, with a vague sense of deja vu. This trip, to a much smaller washroom, proved quite different, however. There were no men hanging out having secretive conversations, but there was a familiar deity lurking in the mirror.

“We think it’s magic,” they said, as Romeo closed the door behind them.

“What’s magic?” he asked, not really sure how to respond to that cold open.

There were too many things in his life right now that he was ready to blame on magic.

“The way everyone so strongly refuses to accept the actual cause of your gender situation,” Hermaphroditus explained. Vaguely. “It shouldn’t be so hard for them to accept the idea of magic, unless there’s magic making them not think about magic, you see?”

“Uh… I’ll take your word for it?” Romeo said, starting to wash off the sigil on his arm. Then the actual meaning of the words sunk in and she felt a shiver run down her spine that wasn’t just from transforming. “What—or, who do you think would be behind that?”

“We have two competing hypotheses at the moment,” Hermaphroditus replied. “Salmakis thinks that it’s a general coalition of magical beings wanting to hide from humanity and the march of science. I haven’t been able to reach to anyone about it, though, so I have an alternative idea… that humanity has done it to themselves.”

“Pardon?” Rosalind asked, confused but feeling less in danger than she had when she thought she was specifically being targeted.

“All humans have a little magic to them. Toss out a few billion humans not wanting to acknowledge the idea of magic for various reasons, including religion, and suddenly it becomes very hard to acknowledge it exists,” Hermaphroditus said, nodding pensively.

“This… this doesn’t actually affect me directly, does it?” Rosalind asked, starting to feel she was simply going to get a dragged out lecture.

She’d heard horror stories of the way grandparents could prattle on indefinitely and was sure a millenia old deity could probably be even worse, being so much older.

“Not directly, no,” Hermaphroditus explained. “But it’s really quite a fascinating possibility and I—”

Rosalind turned and left the washroom, not really caring to hear any further ramblings about magic theory. 

Returning to the table across from Mario, she saw the food had arrived while she was away. A beef quesadilla was an excellent distraction at the moment, so she happily dug in as Mario started his own meal. Things were quiet for a while, the food being excellent enough to kill any conversation that they might have wanted to have. Since neither of them was feeling particularly chatty to begin with it was doubly effective. 

Eventually, however, something seemed to be sticking in Mario’s mind, and Rosalind slowed down to be attentive to what he might have to say.

“It’s funny, but… somehow you still seem a bit of a man right now,” Mario whispered. “Something about your movements and… such.”

“Ah, well, I suppose that’s no surprise,” she replied, keeping her tone just as hushed. “I can flip my body around when needed, but my brain is rather more stubborn.”

“Your… but do not the, um, the hormones change that?”

“They help a little, I think? But,” Rosalind explained, taking a moment to breath and weigh how best to word things, “well, if hormones changed your gender on the inside trans people wouldn’t exist, now would they?”

The statement seemed to cause a lightbulb of realisation to flash in Mario’s eyes, the muscular man nodding with realisation. “That makes sense. Though, molto complicato in your case.”

“I suppose,” Rosalind replied with a shrug.

“Should… should I still call you Romeo and… ‘he’?” Mario asked.

“Nah,” she replied. “I appreciate the offer, but pronouns don’t really bug me, and it’s just easier to call me by how I look.”

“Capisco,” Mario said with a nod.

-

The rest of the dinner was a bit less awkward after that. Mario seemed to be able to handle treating Rosalind somewhat like a guy, while also not worrying about looks from others for thinking he was dating another guy. It struck Rosalind as a bit silly, but she supposed she’d been shy about dating guys when she’d first started. Social pressure was powerful.

It was also funny to think about that at the moment, where she was, officially, a woman on a ‘heterosexual’ date with a guy. A concept that would take getting used to.

By the time they left the restaurant, hailing a cab to get to Rosalind’s condo (because she did not trust Mario’s driving) she had found herself feeling far more feminine. Perhaps it was the size difference between them. Perhaps it was a soft influence from estrogen on her already malleable gender identity. Or, maybe it was not being around Logan and Rachel, who’s presence had felt like the reason she’d started feeling masculine that afternoon in the first place. The day had started with her feeling quite a woman, after all.

Getting out of the cab (she’d paid) they headed into the lobby of the condo tower. Mario seemed slightly intimidated by the luxury of it, which made Rosalind self conscious about how he’d respond to her actual condo. It was all rather high end in styling after all (at least according to the decorator Rachel had hired). She had the brief elevator ride up to the 55th floor to worry, which wasn’t really enough time to come up with a plan.

Instead, just talking seemed the best go to. “So, the guest bedroom is the one to the right of the bathroom… and, uh, you can use my body wash, if you need a shower.”

Mario just nodded, seeming to still be a bit thrown by the height they’d gone up. Stepping into the condo proper, he did a visible double take at the view out over the city.

“I couldn’t quite afford one of the lake-side units, but, honestly, I think the city vice is nicer,” she said, locking the door up and taking her shoes off.

There was more nodding from Mario as he quietly removed his shoes as well. “It’s… big. The apartment and the windows.”

“Good for parties, but… I almost never throw those here. Too busy. Heck, I barely even sleep here most months,” she explained with a vague shrug.

“Speaking of busy,” Mario said, looking slightly embarrassed. “I probably should not stay up too late. I have an opening shift tomorrow and so will have to drive all the way back.”

“Oof, yeah. That’ll have you up early,” Rosalind replied, offering a compassionate smile. “I’ll let you have first dibs on the shower then.”

Mario took a moment to process the phrase, then his eyes filled with determination as he turned to look her in the eyes. “If I understand the concept of ‘dibs’ correctly, then… there is something else I would like to throw my hat into the ring of for ‘dibs’.”

“Pardon?” Rosalind asked, certain he was discussing something serious, but not quite sure what.

At least until he gently and slowly placed his hand against her cheek. His large and slightly calloused hand that carried a worn strength to it that was quite different from the more carefully maintained hands of all the others who had kissed her recently. Even Teddy seemed to keep hers a bit softer.

“I… I know it is far too early to talk of marriage like the others have, but, since I met you my heart has raced. You are… bellissima. Sei divinamente perfetta,” he whispered. “I just—I needed to tell you, but now I struggle to say it in words you would know… let me say it with action.”

Rosalind felt her lips quiver in anticipation before he leaned in to kiss her. It was far gentler than his hands had made her think. Far shier, to the point she wondered if he’d ever kissed a woman in romance before. (Was he younger than her?)

It made her weak in the knees all the same, though. 

“I…” she gasped, when the kiss broke far too soon for her liking. 

He was smiling down at her. “I do not expect to win your heart. Having seen my competition… but I could not lose without having tried.”

With that, he then lowered his hand, smiling, but heading across the spacious living room and towards the bathroom.

Watching him go, she was left with a single thought, which she only allowed herself to whisper once he’d closed the door.

“That’s it?”

Just a kiss. No sweeping her off her feet and into the bedroom for an evening of passionate love making? 

Or even just a quickie?

Was Mario just that innocent, or…

“Am I a nymphomaniac?” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror beside the coat rack.

“You get it from your father,” Hermaphroditus said, leaning into view… no, no. That was Salmakis. The nymph put on airs more than the deity, who simply already had a presence. “As well as your grandmother, to a lesser extent. Though I have to wonder about you mortals calling it ‘nymphomania’… most of my fellow nymphs prefered hunting with Artemis to such activities. It was mortal men who lusted after them instead.”

“With you being an outlier?” Rosalind mumbled, remembering reading the excerpt from Ovid about her and Hermaphroditus’ encounter.

The nymph in semi-divine body blushed. “Well… a little. Though not nearly as badly as Ovid made me seem. My arrangement with Hermaphroditus was not nearly as lustful as he wrote it. We’d been raised together as children. They’d left for a time, to explore the world, and I’d been alone, abandoned whenever the older nymphs went off hunting. It was severely boring. So, when Hermaphroditus had returned, I’d clung to them and begged for us to never be separated. I did discuss marriage, but you must understand how often that was done for reasons other than romance back then.”

“Ah. Well… I’m sorry you got slandered so much by Ovid. Seems like he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Didn’t he make up the whole Athena cursing Medusa thing too?”

“Popularised it, at least,” Salmakis replied.

“Though, I think I can understand why one would get a chip on their shoulder where the gods are involved, considering the magical meddling you all get up to,” Rosalind muttered, preparing to turn and head away from the mirror.

“You’re wrong about that, you know?” Salmakis said, making Rosalind freeze half turned. 

“Pardon?”

“We didn’t do anything magical except tell them the truth. We could see in your heart that you’d fallen for each of them, even if you’d never admit it. All we did was visit them in their dreams and tell them you loved them. You would be amazed how effectively you’d built a wall between yourself and both Rachel and Logan. Years of insisting things remain professional,” Salmakis explained, “they’d felt rejected by you. Even after you’d slept with Rachel more than once… and, well, of course Teddy and Mario thought you existed outside their league due to your celebrity status.”

Nodding slowly, Rosalind felt a confused swirling in her gut. It was both dropping at the realisation she’d rejected true confessions of love and afloat with butterflies at the knowledge those around her actually cared for her on a deeper level. Only…

“W—what about Beata?” she asked.

“Uh… that wasn’t us,” Salmakis said, shrugging with a look of honest confusion in her eyes.

“Then… who? She specifically said the figure had wings.”

“We’re guessing it might have been your father, interested in having you look after his grandkid. It might also have been a meddling angel, though. There’s a truce these days, but they’re still pretty good at finding ways to be annoying,” Salmakis said, pouting slightly and fussing with her wings.

“Wait. Angels—angels are real?” Rosalind asked.

“Yes? Did you think the Olympians lost to a made up illusion of a deity? Christianity is as valid a religion as ours… and Apollo’s little coup did not help us stand up against them,” Salmakis muttered.

There was more after that, though she slid into ancient Greek as she complained to herself. A few names stood out to Rosalind, but she couldn’t even speak modern Greek, so she had no ability to identify beyond ‘Athena’ or ‘Zeus’ being talked about.

Especially not when her head was spinning so thoroughly about the combined revelations on her love life and on world religions. The latter was less impactful for her life directly, but she was still pretty sure it deserved to have at least a handful of neurons devoted to it. 

With too much of her brain rotating around those world shattering new pieces of information to pay attention to what her body was doing, she found herself in front of the fridge. Blinking, she realised she was looking for a drink. There wasn’t any alcohol in the fridge at the moment, however. Which was normal, despite recent events having increased her alcohol consumption.

Not having alcohol, though, she found herself needing something for comfort in the immediate term. A bit of digging in the freezer led to the discovery of a small tub of Skøldgübbe ice cream. Fancy faux-Scandinavian goodness to comfort her at the moment. 

As she ate it, she realised she was going to have to get everyone together tomorrow, to explain the situation.

Which would mean she needed to phone her mother to ask to ‘borrow’ Mario. Which was surely going to encourage her mother to meddle more in future… still, that was probably the lesser evil to letting the chaos swirl longer.