Chapter 15
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Just a normal day in the mines.
“And so that’s about point two percent of why I absolutely hate Florida,” I state, knowing full-well I have been rambling about nothing to fill the quiet darkness of the mines for, oh, maybe twelve minutes? Possibly seventeen hours?
Who can really say for absolute certain, right?
The privilege of being in my freshly-cleaned khaki dress has done a number on my inhibitions. Not existing beneath a thin layer of grime is almost too good for morale, leaving me sorely yappy.
Seemingly unbothered, Samson watches me stab a slime straight through and arches a brow, looking between the now-helpless-puddle and me. “I’m sorry. Why would finding a snake in your room inconvenience…you?”
Did he miss my eighty-seven paragraph essay about the cicadas? Or the alligators? The cockroaches??
I step up to him, lift my sword, and swat a nayfly out of the air before it can reach us. To the sound of the bug’s body hitting stone ground, I glare at the man who is depicting a staggering lack of brain cells at the moment. “Shoulders.”
His throat bobs as he tilts his head down to face me. “Yes?”
“I did not have a sword in my other life. I was a poor defenseless girl with but a single HP to my name. One attack, and I’d be toast. No clue how many bonks would keep a cockroach down for real, I’d just keep whacking. And I’d lose morale around seven hundred, while tears plummeted down my face.”
“HP,” he murmurs, and I’m pretending his voice isn’t sultry in every feasible way. “Health Points. How many Health Points did I have in your game?”
My eyes roll. “That information’s unknown. In my game, all the townies exist on schedules that keep them perfectly safe.”
“You never felt the urge to walk up to anyone and whack them with your sword?”
I let loose a dry laugh. “Fortunately for Austin, the game doesn’t let you attack the townspeople.”
“There’s a…commitment to your hatred that I appreciate. Your attitude toward Austin has me wondering how you treat people you do like.”
My heart learns gymnastics, so I shoot my attention toward a mimic, who might drop that topaz we need to start getting the stupid elevator back up and running. “Oh, you know.” I pull my pick from my bag, catch, and kill the mimic in a quick motion. More quartz. Blast. “I like most everyone.”
“Not Austin.”
“My liking everyone trait required a notable exception. For character depth.”
Samson hums as he breaks apart a boulder, lifts the chunks as though they weigh nothing, and drops them into my backpack.
“Don’t sound so skeptical just because you have the opposite problem,” I say.
He flips my bag flap closed. “Opposite problem?”
I tilt my head back, looking up at him. “Your notable exception is the person you like.”
His fingers fall, the brush of their presence somehow traveling through my backpack to me.
When the sensation disappears, he tilts his head over me and murmurs, “I don’t dislike you.
” He steps back. “Or Austin. Or Ines.” He lifts his pick and obliterates another rock, hefting a massive chunk to deposit into my bag.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure I only dislike Lazul, so we’re the same. ”
Thankfully, hearing Austin’s name so shortly after what was almost, but not quite, a confession rebooted my ability to speak before inability would have become problematic. “I guess I’m still thinking of how you’re presented in the game. Game you didn’t really seem to interact with anyone.”
His gaze catches mine a moment before it drifts. “Does liking someone mean you willingly interact with them on a regular basis?”
I blink. “Um. Usually. I think?”
“Oh.” He rubs his neck. “Then I guess I only like you.”
My hand hits my mouth so hard it rattles my brain, and I’m just glad I already put up my pickaxe.
Concern creases Samson’s brow. “What…just happened?”
I swallow tremors. “S-sorry. That…it just… What you said…feels monumental, doesn’t it?”
He winces, scans the darkness around us, then steps heart-destroyingly close. Voice low, he murmurs, “Lemonade…how much of an—” He swears. “—was game me depicted as?”
My head shakes, violently. “No. You weren’t…that word at all! You’re depicted as a loner, a recluse. You don’t leave your farm unless you have to visit Kaolin’s to presumably drop off your farm goods, and even then you’re programmed not to linger. You walk in, stop for a mere second, then leave.”
He eyes me, stoic. “Does your game provide any particular reason for my antisocial behavior?”
Tension turns my muscles rigid as my gaze skids from Samson’s eyes to the foot of space between us. “It…does. Yes. I’m… I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
A humorless laugh escapes him as he turns from me. “Great. How much do you know about me, Citrus? How much do you know about all of us?”
“I…know a lot more than seems comfortable when none of you know anything about me, but…” I force a breath into my lungs and hesitate before reaching out to him, grazing my fingertips against his back.
“Please believe me when I tell you I know so much less than I thought I did. I’m still trying to navigate the discrepancies.
But I am so sorry for…everything, for knowing anything you never decided to share with me, for the assumptions I’m trying not to make, all of it. ”
Breath leaves him as he takes my hand, squeezes once, and returns it to my side.
“I’m not going to blame you for things you couldn’t know to control.
You were just playing a game. I wouldn’t expect to suddenly wake up in any of the games we have around here, so I don’t think I’d be making much of an effort to be considerate of the game pieces’ privacy. ”
It hurts to keep my tears at bay. “I…want to confess something. But it’s embarrassing, and I’m terrified to admit it, so I’m going to turn around, okay?”
He arches a brow, but I’ve spun on my heel before I can see whether or not he nods.
Shaking, I whisper, “You were my favorite character in the game. Getting to meet you in real life is…wonderful. The best part of all of this is the chance to know you. Really know you. From my very first playthrough, you made me feel less alone, and you are so much kinder and closer and familiar than I could have known to expect.”
His fingers skate through my hair, setting the strands back over my ear. “So…what you’re saying is the chocolates were premeditated bribery?”
I shudder. “Yes…”
“You were intentionally seeking me out in an effort to befriend me?”
I hug myself, gripping the handle of my training sword. “It’s horrible, I know. My selfishness blinded me to your feelings. Having some weirdo show up and impose herself on your personal space—”
“—with treats—” he interrupts.
“—with bribes must be mega awkward for you. I know I’d hate it! Stranger danger, right?”
He chuckles, and stray strands of my hair tickle my neck as he combs again. “Citrus. I think I’ll get over it.”
I twist, practically weepy when I face him. “You shouldn’t have to get over it. Please validate that this is a very odd, very uncomfortable thing I have done, and if you can find it in your heart, please forgive me.”
He sighs, almost…charmed. Or at least that’s the vibe I’m getting off the slant of his smile. “The only thing about this situation that concerns me, Lemonade, is the fact you spent so much money on chocolate while living in a shack with one set of clothes.”
I crumple. “I am not the best with priorities.”
“Yeah, or I’m just at the top of them.”
My heart thumps.
“You won’t catch me complaining about that.
” Blowing out a breath, he gives the darkness around us a cursory glance and murmurs, “If you know my history, you know how little I’ve mattered to anyone.
The idea that someone could know me better than I’ve allowed anyone to and still want to be around me is anything but offensive.
I’m…” He leans forward, tilting my chin up on a finger and touching a kiss to the crest of my hair. “…honored.”
Heat explodes beneath my flesh.
“Sincerely so.” He pulls away. “Thank you for choosing me as your favorite character. Being anyone’s favorite anything means a lot to me.”
He’s…not upset?
He’s honored?
Surely he just doesn’t understand that I’m an obsessed fangirl, helpless in her adoration?
Before I knew anything of substance about this man, I said shoulders and was smitten.
I am, really, so simple.
Just a simple, overheating girl, about to pass out in the mines from a forehead kiss. I’m almost positive my entire world now revolves around this moment. Favorite character doesn’t begin to describe how completely and utterly gone for him I am…
“S-Samson?” I whisper.
His head tilts.
I swallow hard, step up on my tiptoes, and press my lips to the stubble on his cheek. “You’re not just my favorite character anymore… You’re my favorite person, okay?”
As I settle back down on my feet, Samson’s wide eyes meet mine. Achingly slow, he lifts his hand, grazes his cheek with his fingertips, and swallows.
In the dim, yellow-tinted hue of his glow ring, warmth seizes his face. His gaze drops. He scrubs his knuckles over his mouth.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “I…don’t know how to express what that means to me.” Steeling himself, he throws his shoulders back and takes a breath. “It’s getting late. We’ll have to try to find a topaz again tomorrow. At least we made good progress with iron and stone.”
“R-right. Yes.” I cough, cover my mouth, look anywhere but at Samson’s beautiful blushing—BLUSHING!?—face. “Maybe tomorrow we can try speedrunning.”
I know it’s a futile request, but I am overheating right now.
“Speedrunning?” Samson strides back toward the ladder we came down to reach this level. Like the last time we left the mines, he scans our surroundings, looks up the hole, scales the rungs, and pops back down before extending his arm to me like an escort. “What’s speedrunning?”
Toasted—thoroughly—from the kiss, the blush, and his consistency with being the best kind of gentleman, I grab hold of the first rung.
“It’s a gaming term for when you try to finish a game as fast as possible without any breaks.
The deeper in the mines you go, the better the loot you find.
Instead of clearing out each level like we have been, we’d dodge the monsters, find the ladder down, and keep pressing on until we’re deep enough that topaz might be a more common find.
Once we can get the elevator running again, we just need to make sure we reach each elevator checkpoint with a fresh topaz to install. Better progress toward better loot.”
Samson follows up behind me, grumbling, “Absolutely we will not be doing that. We won’t know what might be waiting for us on the return trip if we don’t clear out our path back.”
“Well, true. To be fair, in the game, you click the ladder going up, and a dialogue box asks if you’d like to leave the mines. Click yes, and you’re out.” Realism mod strikes again. Must I say it? Boo.
Although…
I touch the top of my forehead once I’m on stable ground again.
Maybe there are parts of it that I don’t mind. I know for darned sure I never got forehead kisses from Samson in the game.
“We could always try to buy a topaz from Mimet,” Samson offers.
“Ew.” My nose scrunches. “Capitalism strats.”
Samson peers up at me as he emerges from the hole, then he shakes his head and chuckles. “Sometimes, I swear you’re speaking a different language.” He passes me. “It’s cute.”
My wee adorable heart soars.
My cuteness! Confirmed! By Samson!
I am going to actually, literally, tell my diary about this when we get back. In the corner of the guest room that Samson is letting me stay in, I’m going to kick my legs and wiggle as I relay the historical event that has just taken place.
Cute.
I can’t believe it.
Is this what self-esteem tastes like?
Incredible. Outstanding. A marvelous vintage.
After finishing up the task of dropping the stone we gathered on the farm and from the mines off in the appropriate places for the retaining wall quest, we start our trek toward Samson’s.
Once we crest the hill that separates the path leading to the ocean from Samson’s farmland, dusk falls over the still house, sleepy animals, and a package on the front porch.
The scene of fiery clouds tilting into navy blues steals my breath as Samson lifts the brown paper parcel off the step and mumbles something about how Nes works fast.
Seeing him, backdropped by a world I’ve only known through pixels, holding something for me, turning to me, smiling at me, knowing he’s flattered and not disturbed by my attention, does horrible things to my heart.
Without warning, he asks, “Any requests for dinner, Lemonade?”
Incomprehensible ease fills my soul. This—right here, right now—feels more like home than anything else ever has. I want to hold onto it, keep it, forever.
As I make my way to him, I say, “Fried rice, maybe?”
He nods. “Fried rice, definitely.”
Then he opens the door, and lets me in.