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The slender moth still looked as though he were contemplating escape, his eyes casting about, his wings fluttering nervously. He had an appealing silhouette: lithe and lean, impossibly tall . . . the exact opposite of her stocky, barrel-chested bull of an ex.Well, you wondered if they were cute, now you have your answer.Those incredibly long fingers wrapped around his muscled forearms as he fidgeted, clicking in distress.
"How did you find me?" she repeated, holding her arms out slightly, as if she might be able to block his escape. He suddenly seemed to have a hard time meeting her eye, and she had the distinct impression that if he’d been able to blush, he’d be scarlet.
"Y-your car." The deep hum of his voice was little more than a whisper now, although the low vibration of it still made her shiver. Her boxy little convertible was wrapped with the farm’s logo, it was true, and he’d had a clear view of it in her driveway from his position in the tree that night. "I’msorry," he blurted out suddenly, urgent chirps accompanying his words.It’s kind of adorable, she thought of the small sounds he made. "I-I didn’tmeanto watch you. I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have. I should have left. I smelled . . . I smelled the berries. I love blackberries, and it’s been so long since I’ve had them. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get farm fresh fruit in the city? I stopped in your yard when I smelled them, and then I-I . . . got distracted."
His wings fluttered nervously, the fluffy antennae atop his head twitching wildly.
"By me?" she blurted. "You got distracted by me?"
He nodded miserably and she was absolutely certain he’d be blushing if he could. The thick fluff around his neck and shoulders looked incredibly soft, and her own fingers twitched, wanting to reach out and touch the velvet of his chest. She burned in mortification at the thought of him stopping in her yard, lured in by the delectable scent of the ripe berries in her screened in porch, like an olfactory spotlight — only to see her undressing before her open window.
"I smelled the f-fruit . . . and then I smelled you."
Grace jolted, pulled from her reverie by his words, her jaw dropping open. "You smelledme?!"
"You smelled amazing, much sweeter than the berries. I-I wasn’t able to help myself." The notion that he had been able to smell her arousal made her clap a hand over her mouth. She wondered if her other neighbors who may have possessed a heightened sense of smell were able to tell when people were walking around with damp panties. "I’m so sorry. I wanted to apologize, I flew past your house the one night to see if you were home to leave an apology note, but then I thought maybe you had an alarm or cameras and I didn’t want you to wake up, and-and then—"
"And then you watched me again," she finished for him, feeling fire spread up to her ears.
You smelled sweeter than the berries.The next time he’d stopped outside her window, she'd invited him to take a taste. And he had. He was nearly vibrating with remorse as he nodded, those long digits knitted in a gesture of supplication, and she gave him what she hoped was an absolving smile as she flushed at his words.
"I’m so,sosorry. I feel like I violated you and that’s not what I intended. I-I just wanted to let you know."
"Well . . .” she sucked in a breath, squaring her shoulders, “you don’t need to be. Sorry, I mean. Please . . . I’m not mad. I-I had fun that night. Both nights. We’re both consenting adults, aren’t we? If you didn't want to watch, you could have flown away, and I could have closed my damned curtains. And I’m very glad to meet you, now at least I know it wasn’t some creep."
His fluffy mantle puffed up at her words, feathery antennae lifting, and the noise he made was very nearly a purr.Okay, it’s not kind of adorable, it’s completely adorable. "Okay, let’s go out to the field. I’m not making any promises, but like I said, the next crop will be ready in a few days. Now you, um . . . have a reason to come back. Right?"
His name was Merrick, and by the end of the hour, she was smitten.
"So, you said you lived in the city? In Bridgeton?"
He’d only recently moved to Cambric Creek, he’d haltingly confessed as she led him through the darkening fields. Grace wasn’t accustomed to traversing the farm this late in the evening, and certainly not alone, but most of the staff was long gone, having started their workdays before dawn. It was only her little table and the farmstand shop that stayed open to accommodate later visitors. Although, she considered, as they moved past the picked out rows that had been the burgeoning strawberry fields just a month earlier, adding a special night of the week to the pick-your-own fields for nocturnal residents was an excellent idea. She beamed up at her skittish companion, thrilled with the idea, one that wouldn’t have occurred to her were it not for his late-evening visit.
"N-no, I’ve been living up north, right on the unification border."
She glanced up in surprise. It was cold and snowy for much of the year near the border, and he didn't seem robust enough to live under those conditions.Especially walking around with no clothes on. "I didn't think moths liked the cold," she said with a smile, biting her lip when he shuffled nervously.
"Oh, I-I don't. If I hadn't been there for work . . . believe me. Last place I want to live."
"And what is that you do?" She was looking up, so she saw the moments when his dark red eyes darted down to meet hers hesitantly, fully prepared to remind him that not only did he know where she worked and where she lived, he had sought her out.
"I was working at a university, I'm a-a research scientist. It was in the middle of the city," he added. "All the fruit in the grocery store was trucked in, hothouse produce." He huffed in slight disgust, and Grace grinned widely.Okay, so he's heard of a blueberry before.
"How interesting! What is it that you research?" They’d nearly reached the field at that point, and she realized she'd taken him on a bit of a detour around the fallow strawberry patch.Hopefully he didn’t notice.
Another askance look, hesitating a long moment before he continued. "I study the agricultural impacts on the migratory habits of seasonal pollinators." Another swift glance down. "You know, like bees and hummingbirds?"
"Yep, I know what a pollinator is." He had the good grace to look abashed for a moment, the feathery antennae on his head flattening down around his temples. "What do you mean by ‘the agricultural impacts?' Do you mean farms or city planning? You know, the garden club here, they plant all the flowers in the park and up the medium on Main Street, and they make a point of doing a pollinator garden. Do you mean impacts like that?"
"Every individual action is helpful, of course," he said seriously, his voice taking on a slightly surer tone as he continued. "But expecting individual yards to solve the pollinator problem is like expecting individual citizens to single-handedly end plastic pollution by switching to reusable straws. Individual citizens can't reverse the impact of climate change, and a patch of wildflowers up the median strip isn't going to account for the damage done by monoculture farming. Not that it's a bad thing," he added hastily, as if he'd realized how dismissive he sounded, his antennae bobbing once more. "It's great that they're doing that, and I saw that the local schools have a field garden that the kids maintain, and that's great. But obviously habitat loss plays a huge part, of course. Suburban sprawl necessitates construction in woodland—"
"Yeah, but this is an unusual area," Grace cut in. "I've lived in the suburbs my entire life, and I've never been this close to actual farms before. And the city is literally just a half-hour away! I think they do a really great job preserving the greenspace around here."
"This area is unique," he agreed slowly, with the air of someone choosing their words carefully. "I've not seen an agricultural sector this large so close to the urban metropolitan area, at least, not very often. It's actually why I'm here, to study the effects local agriculture plays on the pollinator population in the surrounding areas."
He continued to talk, his voice having completely lost its nervous stammer. He was passionate about what he did, Grace could tell, his deep voice ringing with the surety of someone who was clearly booksmart, all of his shyness and nervous tics forgotten for the moment.He's cute. A little awkward. Definitely a cute weirdo. Kind of a dork, but that's cute too.
"So how long have you been here?"
