There were weirder ways to fall in love, Mel supposed. She couldn’t really think of any offhand, but she was certain they existed. The world was ancient and people had been falling in love for tens of thousands of years. Weirder shit was bound to have happened. And come to think of it, she didn’t even know how old the dragon realm was. Maybe it was a million years old.

As a single mom, raising a baby by herself at age 18, Mel had come to learn one hard but true rule. Don’t question happiness. There’s no time for that. By the time you’ve put it through the ringer, interrogated whatever it was that was making you happy, it was usually on its way out the side door.

So, she didn’t question this moment. With her barreling down the highway, windows down. She peeked up in the rearview mirror to see O leaning toward Ike in the back seat.

“Okay, now this string goes under that one. See, like this,” said Ike.

“Oh my god, this is brilliant. You’re a genius,” O muttered, following directions.

Ike was teaching O how to make a certain kind of friendship bracelet that he’d learned at camp last summer. Mel had no idea why learning a new stitch with some embroidery floss would give a grown man so much pleasure, but like she’d said before: she wasn’t going to question it.

Ike had been a little bummed at first, when she’d picked him up from the Marriott and told him that their beach vacation was over. But that disappointment had been pretty short-lived when she’d explained about their quest.

“A dragon?” Ike had looked back and forth between the two of them. “A real dragon?”

Mel had nodded solemnly.

“No. Mom. I mean a REAL dragon. Not some Santa Claus bullshit.”

“Ike!”

“Come on, it’s hard to know what to believe when you’re a kid!” Ike threw his hands up in the air. “People always lie to you and then you’re a dummy when you don’t figure it out on your own!”

Mel had bent and grabbed her son by the shoulders. “I’m not lying to you, hotshot. O is from a different realm. When he’s there, he can turn into a dragon.”

“Prove it,” Ike had said to O.

“Ike,” Mel had started but Ike had cut her off.

“No. Listen here, if you’re gonna stick with me and my mom then you better be able to prove this to me. She’s all soft for you, I can see that. But I look out for her, okay?”

At that moment, O wasn’t the only man she was all soft for. Her son often stood up for her. But never quite in such a tough guy way. She was proud of him.

“Alright,” O shrugged. “I can show you my dragon if we can get to a portal. We can hop over to the dragon realm and I’ll prove it.”

Mel’s eyes had gone wide. “Just like that.”

O flipped his hair off his forehead. “No biggie.”

He turned and sniffed at the air like a dog. “There’s one west of here, I think. If we drive in that direction, I think I’ll be able to find it.”

So that’s exactly what they were doing.

Driving west. With two men she loved in the back seat making friendship bracelets.

“Hey, pass those pretzels up, please!” Mel called to the back seat. She expected the bag to land in her lap, but instead felt a hand reach past her cheek and jam some pretzels straight into her mouth. “Hey!” she sputtered, laughing and spraying crumbs over the steering wheel. She wasn’t sure if it had been Ike or O who’d done it. Neither would have surprised her.

“So, being an oracle means that you can see the future and stuff?” Ike asked.

“Yeah, dude.”

“Can you also see the present, though? Like what somebody is doing right now?”

“Yeah, dude.”

“A specific somebody?” Ike asked. Mel crunched her pretzels and wondered where her son was going with this.

“Sure, if I wanted to. Crap, I got this all tangled again. Show me how to do that last part of the knot again.”

Mel glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw Ike bent over O’s bracelet as O watched intensely. His rumpled blonde hair tumbled out of the sides of a peach pink Santa Barbara baseball cap he’d bought on their way out of town. Her stomach flipped. She was such a goner.

Ike sat up, having fixed O’s bracelet and started fidgeting with his own. “Would you find my dad if I asked you to?” the boy asked.

To her credit, Mel didn’t swerve the car. “Damn, hotshot, warn a girl before you spring something like that on the group!”

Ike flashed a distracted smile her way, but his focus was on his bracelet and on O.

“I don’t know if I would,” O said, his eyes on the twist of the string in his own hands.

“Why?” This time Ike looked up and studied the man beside him.

“Because sometimes people ask for dumb crap that ends up really hurting them.” O looked up, too, and rolled his head on the back of the seat, floppily gazing down at Ike. “And you’re a kid and I know a lot because I’m an oracle, so if I felt like you might get really hurt because I did what you asked, I might not do it.”

Mel watched in the mirror as the two gazed at each other for a second.

“Makes sense. Kids ask for dumb crap all the time.” Ike shrugged and the two smiled at each other. “Mom, remember when Will Jensen was so convinced that he wanted that unicycle and his mom got it for him and he busted all his front teeth out in like two seconds?”

Mel shook her head at the memory. “Oh yeah. That was terrible. He looked like a jack-o-lantern.”

“One that got its face kicked in.” Mel and Ike grinned at each other in the mirror. Ike turned and looked out the window but Mel kept watching him for a second. She wondered why he’d asked about that.

He’d long ago accepted that his dad wasn’t gonna be a part of his life. Outwardly at least. She’d have to talk to him about it again soon. She’d told him a little bit about his dad. About as much as she knew. How do you explain a one-night stand to a kid?

She sighed and propped her elbow out the open window. She’d figure out a way to tell him. She’d answer his questions as best as she could. They’d get through it with honesty. The way they always did.

“There! There! Mel, pull over!” O screamed from the back seat, rolling down his window and leaning halfway out.

“Jesus Christ on a cracker!” Mel screamed back at him. “Give me a heart attack, why don’t you!”

They’d gone a little north as well as west from Santa Barbara and they were currently skirting the southern edge of the Sequoia National Forest. The desert had given way to the austere grandeur of the redwoods. Even the smaller ones that dotted the land before you got to the forest were breathtaking.

Mel pulled the car over where O indicated and they ended up in the silver green shade of a grove of the trees. Three car doors slammed and for a moment, it was all they could do to just crank their heads back and stare up at the little winking thatches of periwinkle sky through the leaves.

“Why did we stop?” Ike asked the grownups once his neck got tired and he got bored of appreciating all the nature. That was one thing about his mom that he never really got on the same page with. She could sit around and appreciate nature like it was a TV show. Seriously. She could binge-watch the ocean. He got bored after about two minutes.

“Oh! Right.” O shook his head and turned to walk about twenty feet into the forest. “Come check out this portal!”

Mel and Ike turned and looked at each other, both of them checking to see if the other one believed what they were hearing. They paused for a full beat before they took off running at the same second, elbowing one another out of the way in their rush to follow O.

Standing a little ways back from the road in between two redwoods, he held his hands out to the two of them. Both mother and son grabbed his hands at the same time. Without preamble, O tugged them toward him and brought them all tumbling backwards in a heap.

Mel whipped her arm out to grab her son closer to her, and she felt O do the same. They should have hit the ground by now, but somehow they kept falling. Not from a great distance. It was more like a controlled, compressed twirl. An uncomfortable feeling, but not terrible. The next second, they lay in a patch of gray green moss, with a different kind of tree stretching out above them.

“Jesus.” Ike sat up and shook his head like he was shaking cobwebs out of his ears. “That was like getting squeezed through a tube of toothpaste.”

Mel sat up, too, her coppery swing of hair reflecting the dapples of sun through the leaves. “Holy crap, O. Is this it? Is this the dragon realm?”

O nodded, but didn’t get up, or look around, or even open his eyes. He just settled back into the moss and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Home sweet home. It even smells better in the dragon realm.”

“Smells the same to me,” Ike said, dusting off his shorts. “Looks the same too.” He turned a circle and took in the landscape around him. Sure, it was pretty. Lots of green trees and a prairie rolling away from the tree line. And he was pretty sure he could make out mountains in the distance.

“Yeah,” Mel said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “It really does look just like earth.”

“Well,” O piped up from where he lay on the ground. “Except for the dragon.”

“Dragon!” Ike squeaked, hopping in a hundred directions at once as his eyes scanned the horizon. “Where?!”

“Right here!” O roared and sprang to his feet growling and clawing at the air like a man possessed. Mel held her breath for a second, but it quickly chuffed out in a puff of laughter as nothing happened. O just stood there. A man pretending to be a dragon.

Ike bit back his own laughter and rolled his eyes. “Jeez, you’re corny. Mom, how’d you get so sweet on such a cornball?”

“I don’t know,” Mel shrugged as she turned her liquid brown eyes on O, still clowning for her son. “Destiny, I guess.”

O finally broke character and clapped his hands together. “Okay. Well. We came here to see a dragon, huh?”

Ike nodded solemnly. “We came here to see you turn into a dragon.”

“Alright then, sailor. You asked for it.” O stripped off his shirt and reached for the button on his pants. “Turn around kid, I don’t wanna scandalize you.”

“Why do you have to get naked?”

“Because if I don’t, then all my clothes will be ripped to shreds and I’ll have to ride naked in the back seat when we go back to the human realm.”

“Gross,” Ike shook his head and turned around, but Mel could see that he was vibrating with curiosity, nerves, excitement.

O stripped off his shorts and underwear and stood there, stark naked for a second. Mel felt her pulse heat instantly at the sight of him. He really was beautiful, all long golden lines. His chest was shadowed along each dip and rise of his muscles. And all of it, every graceful line of his taut body, drew the eye right down to his cock. Mel felt her breath catch for a second. Not in front of her kid. She had to pull herself together.

Luckily, O took that moment to strike a muscle man pose, pointing one toe and flexing his back muscles for her, an idiotic look on his face. The next pose involved a good deal of strutting and aggressive pointing to show off his pecs.

“Good god,” Mel sighed through a laugh.

“What’s he doing back there?” Ike asked, still facing safely in the other direction.

“Trust me, kid. You don’t wanna know.”

“Alright you two. Ike, you can turn around in five seconds. But no touchy the scales, okay? They’ll skin you like a cat.”

Mel didn’t expect it to be such a graceful act. The act of shifting into a dragon. She’d been expecting a roaring, snapping, werewolf kind of a thing. But it made sense to her when O merely stretched, like a lazy jungle cat might, and just kept on stretching.  He wasn’t really a roaring, snapping kind of a guy. He was more like a leopard. He would recline, flicking his proverbial tail, but in a flash he could transform into a killing machine. Which is just what O did. In seconds, he’d expanded to the size of a school bus, turquoise scales erupting all over his body.

Ike’s hand found its way into Mel’s as the two of them watched the rest of the transformation take place. Blue-green spikes erupted along his spine, and his tail, the length of a pick-up truck, sprung out of nowhere, curling around the two of them, protectively boxing them in. Like he was protecting them from the world.

His eyes, still the same light green as when he was in his human form, were gigantic. The size of platters and utterly bottomless, they caught the light like they were made of glass. And last, behind him, paper thin, but still somehow strong, unfolded his wings.

And then it was over. The man she’d fallen in love with stood before them. A dragon. Mel let out one long breath. Okay.

He took one step out from under the shade of the tree and Ike clenched her hand when the ground shook a little. Loose leaves sprinkled the ground around them.

Okay.

Ike was the first to get some words back.

“Can you fly?” he asked. “Oh. Wait. Can you talk?”

The dragon casually draped his head to one side in a gesture that was just so O that Mel felt the tension drain from her body. Okay. This was actually okay. O was in there. No, that was wrong. He wasn’t just inside that beautiful creature. He was that beautiful creature.

“You’ve been hanging out with me for the whole weekend and you haven’t figured out if I can talk yet?” O’s voice rolled through their bodies; it was as deep as the ocean, powerful.

Ike let out a surprised chuckle. “I was asking if dragons could talk, not just you specifically.”

The dragon winked one of his terrifically large eyes at the boy and took another step out from the clearing. And another step. “As for flying, I used to be able to. But I guess we’ll see.” He slowly spread his wings behind him.

Mel gasped and forced her hand not to cover her mouth. O faced away from them now, gazing out toward the prairie that rolled out in front of them. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his wings. They were the same turquoise as the rest of his body, except deeper, more velvety somehow. Magnificent in size and scale, they stretched out beyond either side of him, as wide as the width of a city street.

But that wasn’t what had her gasping. O’s wings were gorgeous and awe-inspiring, sure. But they were also terrible. His left one was torn, deep gashes causing the top to gather in some places and hang loosely in others. It was obvious that the wounds weren’t fresh, a lot of healing had gone on, but just looking at them was painful. Mel couldn’t imagine the pain of stretching his wings right now.

And he was about to try and fly on those poor injured things?

Hell, no.

Mel sprinted around her lover, in dragon form, hopping deftly over his tail and skidding to a stop in front of him.

“O! Stop!” She threw her arms out to either side, unintentionally mimicking his spread wings.

The dragon’s head drifted to the side in a look of curious confusion.

“You’re injured,” she barreled on. “You’re gonna hurt yourself if you fly on that. Don’t do it.”

O turned his great head back and studied his own injuries with a deceptively lighthearted playfulness. “Well, would you look at that?” he murmured.

Mel put her hands on her hips. “You’re not gonna joke your way out of this one. I’m sly to your games at this point, O. I know exactly how easily you can break the tension in a situation to lessen the severity of any given moment. And you’re not about to get away with that crap right now. Not when you’re seconds away from injuring yourself even further.” She slapped her sternest mom expression on her face and raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, boy,” Ike muttered, covering his eyes with one hand for a brief second. “You better do what she says, O. She always wins when she has that look on her face. Trust me.”

O’s great head, glittering turquoise in the bright sun, tracked from the mother back to the son.

“And she’s right,” Ike continued. “I don’t wanna see you fly if you’re gonna hurt yourself. Show me another time.”             

At that, O deftly, if not carefully, folded his wings neatly onto his back. Although now Mel could see that the left one didn’t fold in quite as small as the right. A beat passed where no one said anything. And then another. And another.

“Well, this is awkward,” O’s deep dragon voice rolled out over them.

Mel and Ike looked at each other, couldn’t bite back the laugh that bubbled out of both their throats.

“Ike, I think O has sufficiently proved that he’s a dragon. Can we go home now?”  Mel asked her son.

“Sure,” Ike responded. “I’m hungry anyways. Can we stop at an Arby’s when we get back to the human realm?”              

“Duh.”

“What’s Arby’s?” O asked as he started his transformation back into his human form. Mel crossed back over to stand beside Ike and they both watched breathlessly as O shrank and smoothed, the turquoise of his scales seeming to dissolve into thin air.

Mel slapped a hand over Ike’s eyes as the transformation completed and O stood in the bright sunlight in his birthday suit.

“Arby’s is god’s gift to his underlings,” Mel responded. Her voice was casual, but her eyes searched out the scars that laced over the skin on O’s left side. She understood now how painful they must really be. But she didn’t let her eyes linger there. Now wasn’t the time. “It’s roast beef and jamocha shake heaven. You won’t even know what hit you. It’s the closest thing mortals have to ambrosia.”

“Yeah,” Ike agreed, his mother’s hand still clamped over his eyes. “You’ll fly high for about 20 minutes after eating the most delicious food on earth. And then you get diarrhea.”

“Sounds perfect,” O chuckled, dragging his pants and shirt back on. “Let’s blow this pop stand and get back to the human realm. Diarrhea waits for no man.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Mel laughed, grabbing O’s hand on one side and Ike’s on the other.