"Selkie."

"You're serious."

"Yes, I am selkie."

"This is freaking ridiculous!" I threw my hands in the air and stormed away. Mr. Soft Coat followed swiftly behind.

"What?"

"This whole deal!" I sat down hard on a petrified log, "The selkie seal thing, the ring, everything!"

Mr. Soft Coat sat down gently beside me,

"But you believe me."

"Of course I believe you!" I shouted. He backed away, eyebrows creased and palms out facing me. I heaved a deep sigh.

"Sorry, this has been the most stress I've had all at once since college. I keep snapping at you."

He shook his head gently, and scooted closer to me, but kept silent.

"I guess this is all just so weird. You know, all at once?"

He cocked his head to the side, but continued his inquisitive silence.

"Do other things exist? Like fairies and vampires and stuff?"

He looked off and to the right for a bit, then he spoke,

"The Fae are real, don't know about vampires."

I let out a puff of air and leaned back on my hands placed behind me on the log.

"Geez Louise, that's a little intimidating."

He only nodded, copying my body language. We sat there in silence, waves breaking against the rocky shoreline and the faint cry of gulls the only sounds breaking the thoughtful reverie.

As we sat there, my mind raced through questions a million miles per hour. If the Fae are real, how come we never see them? Have they been real? Are all the stories true? I'd never actively looked up a selkie story, were they good Fae or bad Fae? Did I need to be worried about being alone with him? Would I ever return home? In the midst of my inner turmoil, my mouth blurted out the first thing that seemed important enough to ask:

"Am I safe with you?"

I felt my cheeks flame. That was a little bit too blunt, even for my taste.

"Sorry, I—"

"No."

"Sorry?" My heart pounded a bass drum in my high school drum line.

"No, you are not sorry. You ask question, you are lyubopytnyy."

"Lee-you-boss-what?" I fumbled over the foreign word.

"Lyubopytnyy, it is—" he broke off and whispered what I felt was a curse under his breath. He heaved a sigh and stated,

"You are like child, you do not know, you want to know. Lyubopytnyy."

"So I'm, like, curious?"

"Yes! Curious! It is good to be curious!" His wide, puppy dog eyes glittered and his ear-splitting grin made me laugh a little in spite of myself. He was so overjoyed to communicate his ideas, it was kind of cute.

"What?"

I blinked,

"Uh, what?"

"I am cute?"

Shoot, I'd said it out loud.

"Uh, yeah, I mean, just a little."

"Cute is good?"

He sidled a little closer to me, his knees touching mine and his torso facing fully towards me instead of the ocean. I could feel his fingers knocking up against mine on the log and the heat of his skin burned my numbed digits.

"Uh, yeah, I guess?"

"Good. Very good."

He stayed there in that position, slightly leaned towards me past his space into my own. Obviously, this guy was not used to boundaries.

"—wife."

Jolted out of my thoughts, I caught the tail end of his sentence.

"I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't hear you."

"Your question. Yes, you are safe with me—"

"Okay, that's good—" I interrupted, but he kept going,

"Because you are my wife."

"OH-kay, THAT again, what is UP with that, dude!"

I stood up quickly, startling him a bit and standing a little bit away from him. His heat was a little too inviting and, consequently, distracting. Turning back to face him, I folded my arms and held them tightly in front of my chest.

"I don't understand why I have to marry you. Like, I didn't accept this, I didn't know that picking your coat up would make us engaged, and I don't even know you. How would you like marrying a complete stranger!"

He nodded, solemnly, arms folded as well.

"Difficult, yes. I do not know you. But!"

His exclamation caught my attention,

"I do know you."

"What—"

He held up a finger, and my mouth shut.

"I will explain. You leave café, I follow. I see house—" I opened my mouth to protest, but he soldiered on, "I go. Morning, I am seal. I see you. You feed cat. I hear sneeze here in water. You are good person."

"Okay, so I feed one stray cat, so what? That doesn't really make me marriageable material."

"You feel bad because of cats. You feed cat. Bad feeling not stop you. I like that."

That left me a little speechless. First, he followed me to my house—strike one, then he watched me in the morning from his seal form—still not sure how I felt about that, and he said he was okay with marrying me because I was allergic to cats but still fed a random stray that showed up when I moved in? This guy was insane.

"Okay, so you're okay with marrying me, but I'm definitely not okay with marrying you."

"Why?"

He was so calm and so unbothered that it irked me.

"Because! I don't even know you! Marriage is a serious commitment! If you mess up, you pay a lot of money and your kids have to go through a bunch of crap, and it's not just something that you can sign up for on a whim!"

"You do not know me, so you know me and I know you. We—how do you say it? We go on—what is the word?"

"Dates?"

"Yes! Dates! My clan tell me about dates!" He pronounced clan more like 'cool-ahn,' obviously it was a Russian word with more meaning for him than for me, "When?"

"When what?"

"When we go on dates?"

"Dude, I haven't even agreed to go with you!"

"Do you agree?"

"Uh," This guy was turning my brain to mush with his direct replies, "I mean, I guess?"

"We go on date tomorrow?"

"Uh, sure?"

"I will take you to see best fishing spot."

"Sounds... good?"

"I will walk you home. It is dark."

I only noticed once he said it, but it was getting dark out. Stupid daylight savings or whatever. I didn't even know which one it was. It was stupid anyways.

He held out his hand and, after hesitating for a bit, I took it. My previous fall running through my mind, and not wanting a repeat, I followed him back over the rocks towards the woods. In silence, we walked together through the trees.

We came to the fork in the road that led to my house and stopped in the middle. I dropped his hand like it was on fire.

"Well, this is my stop. Thanks."

I kept looking down at the path. Awkwardly, I waited for him to say something.

He cleared his throat, and I could audibly hear him swallow.

"I am happy to see you tomorrow."

"Oh, um, that's, uh, good? I guess?"

"I will see you tomorrow. At three."

My head shot up.

"Oh, at three? Uh, okay, I'll make sure I'm back from the café by then, I guess."

"Goodbye, Sam."

"See ya tomorrow—wait. I never got your name. What is your name?"

He paused.

"Andrei."

"Alright then, see ya tomorrow, Andrei."

He smiled at me, not the giant ear-splitting one from earlier, but a more intimate and a gentle one. He waved awkwardly, then turned and headed back down the path towards the sea. He held no more pretenses with me, I guessed, and I watched him go as he disappeared around the bend. Remembering my phone, I quickly texted Sally,

I scurried down the path towards my house and quickly stripped a few of my layers off in the entry way. Slipping my feet into the slippers by the air vent, I shuffled into the kitchen, where I put the kettle on the range. As I waited for it to come to a boil, I checked my phone. All I'd gotten in response from Sally was a smiling gif with waggling eyebrows. And an email from some weird trampoline place I'd visited twice in college. The utter absurdity of what I'd just experience juxtaposed with the absolute normalcy that bombarded me just then hit me as utterly ridiculous and I burst out laughing. Then I started to cry. My life had been turned upside down in a few hours, and I didn't even know what to do with myself.