The Only Exception

Zara had every intention of spending Sunday evening painting goblins. Not heroic goblins. Not the sort that led revolutions or discovered hidden reserves of courage. Just ordinary tabletop goblins with chipped shields and oversized noses. She'd already primed three of them earlier that afternoon, lined them up on the edge of her desk, and decided tonight she'd finally settle on a colour scheme for their cloaks.

It was her Sunday ritual: work tomorrow, miniatures tonight. The transition from one to the other always happened with a tiny paintbrush in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

Then Roy had texted.

Now the goblins looked completely and utterly unappealing.

Zara picked up her phone again, rereading the message for what had to be the twentieth time.

Everyone.

Her grin spread all over again. Roy wanted her there. Not just for dinner. Not just to spend time together. To meet the other girlfriends.

"Oh my God," she whispered to herself, followed by a little squeak escaping her lips. It was a good thing that the apartment walls were reasonably thick.

She hugged a throw pillow to her chest, imagining that it was Roy that she was holding. The invitation had derailed her routine, but she didn't care. There was absolutely no universe where she said no to that invitation.

Not Earth-616.

Not Earth-Prime.

Not the Mirror Universe.

Not the timeline where Darth Vader opened a bakery.

Roy wanted to see her. That trumped literally everything else. The miniature goblins would simply have to wait. Honestly, if they knew Roy, they'd probably understand.

Her painting station sat untouched across the room. Bottles of acrylic paint were arranged by colour family. Brushes rested neatly on a folded cloth. The tiny fantasy soldiers she'd spent years collecting watched silently from glass display cabinets. Normally the collection filled her with quiet satisfaction. Tonight? Every dragon, wizard, mech pilot and space marine in the apartment ranked far below seeing Roy.

It wasn't even close.

She laughed to herself.

"This is ridiculous."

It really was. Only a week earlier she'd happily spent entire weekends alone, happily debating whether dry-brushing before or after a wash produced better stone textures. Now one text message had reduced her into a giggling idiot. And honestly? She wasn't even upset about it.

Her gaze drifted toward the tablet sitting on the kitchen table.

Today's experiment. The scientific method. Question. Hypothesis. Research. Conclusion.

Being with Roy had changed her. Fundamentally. Before meeting him, attraction had always been something other people talked about. Friends would point out actors, musicians, athletes. Someone would declare that a particular celebrity was unbelievably hot. Zara usually nodded along while internally wondering whether everyone else was participating in some elaborate role-playing exercise she'd never quite understood.

She'd assumed something was wired differently inside her. Maybe it was. Meeting Roy certainly hadn't disproved that theory. If anything, today's experiment had confirmed it.

Curiosity had started the whole thing. If Roy had awakened something inside her, was that something... general? Or specific?

Zara would never leave him. The thought barely qualified as a thought before her brain rejected it outright. No. It would be impossible. Roy was her boyfriend. That fact felt as fixed as gravity. Still...

Scientific curiosity remained scientific curiosity. Sure, she'd be with Roy for the rest of her life, but did she now have the ability to feel desire for other men? Other non-Roy men?

So she'd texted every woman she regularly talked to.

Responses had arrived almost immediately.

Eventually, though, the lists started arriving. Actors, musicians, athletes, some that she knew, some that she didn't.

And not just names, either. Justifications. One friend had written an entire paragraph defending someone's jawline. Another insisted she'd selected her list based entirely on forearms.

Forearms!

Apparently forearms were a thing. Who knew?

Armed with names, Zara had opened image searches. One after another. Movie premieres. Magazine covers. Action scenes. Fitness shoots. Shirtless beach photos. Underwear campaigns. If the internet contained an attractive photograph of a man, she'd probably found it.

Each time she'd studied the pictures carefully. Waiting. Expecting. Hoping to discover whether whatever Roy had awakened applied more broadly.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

One actor possessed absurdly symmetrical features. Another looked as though he'd been carved out of marble by obsessive Renaissance sculptors. Several had abdominal muscles with better definition than topographical maps.

Zara felt nothing more than the familiar curiosity and confusion she'd always felt when her friends had told her about men they liked.

It may as well have been a gallery of expensive refrigerators. Interesting design. Excellent craftsmanship. Zero emotional response.

One by one she crossed the names off her notepad. Each eliciting nothing close to the response her friends indicated they had.

Finally, almost as an afterthought, she'd typed Roy Robinson into the search bar. Only a handful of pictures existed. An old company newsletter. Some blurry photo from what looked like a charity event. A candid shot someone had uploaded years ago. But the instant his face appeared, everything changed.

Warmth spread through her chest. Her pulse sped up. Butterflies exploded into existence inside her stomach. She actually covered her face with both hands and laughed.

"Oh, come on."

One picture. One ordinary picture. Roy wasn't posing. Wasn't showing off. Wasn't trying to look handsome. He was simply smiling awkwardly at whoever had taken the photograph. And somehow that had affected her more than every celebrity in existence.

The experiment had produced a surprisingly clean result. Whatever had kept her from experiencing attraction before still seemed to exist. Roy was simply the lone exception. The magnificent, wonderful, adorable exception.

Her boyfriend.

Her ridiculous, amazing boyfriend.

Tonight wasn't about experiments, though. Tonight was about finally becoming part of a larger piece of Roy's life. His other girlfriends.

Michelle.

Elaine.

Jessica.

The names had become strangely familiar despite never having attached faces to them. Roy loved them. Which meant Zara already wanted to. That was simply how relationships worked, wasn't it? The people important to someone you loved naturally became important to you, too.

She hoped they liked board games.

No, she warned herself. Too early.

Rule of thumb: don't immediately ask strangers if they'd like to spend six hours playing cooperative dungeon crawlers. Normal people eased into friendships.

Right?

Probably.

Maybe.

She wasn't entirely sure.

Her apartment suddenly felt much too small. Too quiet. Too ordinary. She was part of something bigger now that she was with Roy. A sorority of women dedicated to loving one incredible man. Maybe her living arrangements should reflect that.

She wandered into the bedroom.

"If I'm meeting the girlfriends..." she muttered, opening her closet, "...I should probably not look like someone who alphabetizes fantasy rulebooks."

Technically...

She did alphabetize fantasy rulebooks.

That wasn't the point.

Her wardrobe wasn't exactly diverse. Work clothes. Comfortable clothes. More comfortable clothes.

Then...

Sexy Girl.

She smiled.

That persona she'd put on for her date with Roy. Sexy Girl Zara didn't wear sweats and hoodies. Sexy Girl Zara had her own set of clothes that showed how confident, flirty, and playful she was willing to be. A version of herself that would've seemed completely impossible only days earlier.

But Roy had loved it. And more importantly...

She'd loved it even more. Not because she was pretending to be someone else. Because she'd discovered she could be that version of herself. Maybe Sexy Girl Zara wasn't fake after all. Maybe she'd simply been hiding. Or maybe she needed someone to be Sexy Girl for. And now she had him.

Decision made, the skirt came out first. Pink, a colour she normally wouldn't have worn, but Sexy Girl Zara loved it. So short that she had to concentrate to make sure her hands didn't spend all their time pulling down the hem.

High heels followed. Those still felt faintly miraculous. She'd spent most of her adult life actively avoiding footwear that made walking more complicated. Why wear something that threatened to turn your ankle every time you went for a walk?

But now? Well worth the risk.

The grey fitted top completed the outfit. Tight, low-cut, showy. All exactly what she was looking for.

Standing before the mirror, Zara adjusted her glasses. She was still Zara. Still short, still curvy, still showing her nerves through her smile. At the same time, she was more than Zara. She was Zara for Roy. Roy's Zara. Which made everything better. Her clothes. Her hair. Her smile. Her life.

Being with Roy, she was discovering, was giving her life a surprising amount of meaning. She wondered how she had gotten along without him.

And he'd love it. She was sure of that. The thought filled her with ridiculous satisfaction. Hopefully the other women would like her, too. Not because she needed their approval. Well...

Maybe a little.

But only because Roy loved them. She wanted to understand the people who made him happy. Learn who they were. Hear their stories. Become part of whatever unusual little family had somehow formed around the sweetest man she'd ever met.

"What kind of girlfriend would I be," she murmured to her reflection, "if I didn't at least try to love the people he loves?"

The answer seemed obvious. Not nearly as good a girlfriend as she wanted to be.

Phone in hand, Zara opened her ride-sharing app. Six minutes. Perfect. Sunday evenings were wonderfully quiet. She tapped the button before she could overthink anything.

Ride confirmed.

Well. It was happening. No turning back now.

A quick stop in the kitchen produced the dusty bottle of wine she'd received during the office Secret Santa exchange two years earlier. She didn't drink much herself, but bringing something felt polite. Host gift. Meeting-the-family gift. Meeting-the-other-girlfriends gift. Whatever category this incredibly unusual evening belonged to.

Purse over one shoulder. Wine bottle tucked under one arm. Apartment lights switched off. Lock engaged behind her. Standing outside her building, Zara bounced lightly on the balls of her feet while waiting for her ride.

Her phone buzzed with the driver's arrival time.

Five minutes.

Only five more minutes until she'd be on her way to see Roy. Until she'd meet the women who loved the same extraordinary man she did.

Sunday evenings were usually about winding down. Tonight felt like the beginning of something. And Zara couldn't remember the last time she'd been this excited to simply walk through someone's front door.