Chapter 24
???????
No one told me the singular bed trope was included in this DLC??
I. Am. Horrified.
“Well,” Samson says, “I guess this is what happens when you call me dear in front of an inn receptionist while I’m getting us a room.”
We are standing, side by side, in a somewhat lavish room.
As we climbed the gilded stairwell and traveled down cerulean carpets, I knew Samson bought us a nice place to stay tonight.
I simply had expected it to have, you know, two beds. At least.
Not heart-shaped pillows.
And flower petals strewn across the down comforter.
It’s bad enough that I had to spend a solid thirty-seven seconds talking myself down from how Samson said he needed a room for two not two rooms. Eventually, I convinced myself multiple rooms would be more expensive than multiple beds.
Two beds. Same room. No big deal.
It does not, at all, matter that I know Samson sleeps topless.
I don’t know why that information would be relevant in any way, actually.
And I should stop thinking about it right now.
Samson, calmly, strides to the bedside table where a bottle of wine sits on a tray with two pedestal glasses and two unlit candles. “Riesling. It’s sweet.” He looks at me. “Want some?”
The last thing I need right now is wine. “Samson…please don’t let your sweet tooth into the driver seat right now. That is alcohol.”
Without breaking eye contact, this man pops the cork. “Yes. And? Do you not handle it well?”
I need to sit down.
Unfortunately, while this room is plush, it is still small, mostly taken up by the king-size bed in the center, also known as: the only place to sit.
Maybe I’ll just collapse to the floor, where I shall offer to sleep for the night.
Before I know how I’m going to phrase that classic male lead option in a way that won’t have Samson volunteering himself for the carpet, he’s holding a wine glass with a pale amber liquid out to me.
Whatever look I give him as my gaze crawls up to his face makes him pull the glass back. “Sorry. You don’t drink?”
“I never could afford alcohol. I never understood the point, either.”
“I like the way some tastes. This could be terrible, though. No idea.” He takes a sip, makes a low sound, and offers me the glass again. “No, it’s good. Really good. Notes of apricot, citrusy.” He smiles. “I like it.”
Yeah? Well…I like indirect kisses. So I take the glass, watching Samson return to the bed, sit amid the rose petals, and pour himself one.
Very tentatively, I see myself to the other side of the bed and sit on the edge. The mattress sinks, welcoming me into its foam embrace. Cautious, I sip the wine.
Samson was right.
It both tastes and smells strongly of citrus while not entirely foregoing touches of apricot. It’s sweet. Good. I take another small sip.
“You okay, Lemonade?” Samson asks while I nurse the rim of my glass.
The gentle question makes me jump. “Um. Y-yes. Why?”
“You seem tense.” The bed shifts as Samson reclines against a heart-shaped pillow. “You don’t have to drink that if it makes you uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable.
What a word.
Setting the glass on the nightstand nearest me, I toy with a petal beside my thigh. “Are…you comfortable?”
“Drinking? Yeah. I was raised around harder things than a glass of wine. I’ve seen it cause enough stupidity to know when to stop while I’m still sane. Were it anything but sweet, I wouldn’t bother with it…but…” He exhales a soft laugh. “Well, you know my weaknesses.”
I know a handful at least. What he doesn’t know is that he’s my weakness.
His eyes close. “It was a good day.” Warmth radiates off him, seeping directly into every centimeter of my body. “You’re a very considerate wife. Whoever becomes your husband will be very lucky.”
Hurk.
Just impale me, I guess.
Managing a shaky smile, I push up my glasses and keep fiddling with the petal. “Y-you think?”
“Yeah.” His voice lowers. “Don’t marry Pyro, though.”
Because my heart’s already broken into a zillion splinters over the idea Samson thinks I’ll marry someone else, I ask, “Why?”
“He’s…” Samson leans his head back, looking at the ceiling. “…loud.”
He also goes on periodic month-long adventurer campaigns once you marry him and he determines that you are capable of protecting the Ridge in his absence, thus leaving you to tend the farm by yourself and have secret not-quite-adulterous—because the game isn’t coded to allow it—interactions with your true love next door.
I ease myself fully onto the bed, sitting against a heart-shaped pillow beside Samson. “What about…Slate?”
Disgust wrinkles his nose. “Also loud.” His attention cuts toward me.
“Probably louder. The people in the Ridge aren’t the only ones you can consider.
There are matchmaking services right here in the city, and you can say how you want someone interested in farm life, assuming you want to stick around in the Ridge itself, not move out here. ”
I am going to cry. “Is that…so?”
He nods. “I briefly considered it, but I never could quite feel comfortable around even the people I knew the most, so I figured introducing a stranger to my oddities would be cruel, especially if that stranger were someone I was supposed to grow to love.”
I am crying. Just not literally. Swallowing hard, I whisper, “That’s…really sad. You must have been so lonely to consider a matchmaking service.”
“I got used to it.”
“I’m sorry. That’s a horrible thing to get used to.”
He shakes his head, faintly smiles as he takes another sip to finish off his wine. “It’s okay. Even your game understood I wasn’t particularly lovable.”
Horror stricken, I lose every word I could possibly say.
Rubbing his neck, Samson sets his glass aside and rises. “I’m gonna get ready for bed.”
“R-right. Me too.”
Together, we brush our teeth in the bathroom, then separately we wash up. He lets me go first, which means I’m already snuggled up in bed and talking myself down off a ledge when he emerges—shirtless—from the bathroom.
“Ready for the lights?” he asks, standing at the switch that turns off the gemstones currently gleaming in glass cages overhead.
Dumbly, I nod, and the world darkens, leaving nothing but streetlight to stream in and caress Samson’s form as he approaches the bed.
Why hasn’t he said anything about the one bed? Is this normal here? Does the absence of sexism make the concept of a man and woman sharing a bed something other than the illicit activity I consider it to be? Does he just sincerely and completely not think of me in any of the ways I think of him?
I wish I could sneak by the window with my journal and whisper all this panic to it. It would metaphorically roll its eyes at me and explain something about the culture dynamics here that would help settle my bleeding heart.
Samson and I have been playing husband and wife all day.
Casually.
I guess I just didn’t realize exactly how deeply casual it was for Samson.
He is so good at it.
So good.
My breaths shorten as he pulls back the covers and changes the gravity in the bed. There is no feasible way in the world I do not roll into his gravity tonight, so I guess I’ll be spending the next few hours gripping the side of the bed for dear life and trying not to cry.
Trying not to cry is an exercise I am particularly bad at, if I’m being honest.
But I’m not being honest right now.
I am desperately lying to myself, saying it’s fine and this is fine and I’m okay and everything’s okay.
Because—hahaha—of course it is.
Once I move out of Samson’s, I’ll just live alone in my farmhouse and spend the rest of my days stuck at eight friendship hearts—or a dozen question marks—pining for the man next door. No problem.
Maybe one day I’ll not fear rejection enough to whisper the truth to him. Or, more likely, I’ll spend the next seventeen years writing and rewriting a love letter that I deliver in a bout of severe delusional manic.
Yeah.
My future’s looking bleak.
“S-Samson?” I say, with absolutely no plan.
Already sleepy-voiced, he murmurs, “Mm?”
“T-this bed’s really plush.” I swallow. “I’m not sure I like it. I’m used to something firmer.” Like the floor. Let’s casually introduce the floor. For lumbar-supporting reasons.
“’Kay,” he mumbles, which is the weirdest response ever to what I’ve just said.
While I’m trying to figure out what ’Kay means, his hand finds me, scoops around my waist, and reels me in. In a majestic point five seconds, I…am on top of Samson’s broad, firm chest, lips grazing my temple.
“There,” he whispers, as though my legs are not cradling one of his thighs. His body shifts, adjusting to me, and I slot right into place, like I was made to be here. The full palm of his hand smooths up my back. “Is that better, Lemonade?”
So. Um. Yeah.
I’m not sleeping tonight.
I’m counting heartbeats and going drunk on his scent.
His skin is so warm, and in the light coming from behind me, I can just make out his scar, by my mouth.
With enough hysteria, I could kiss it. I might.
After all, who knows what the sleep deprivation will do to me by 3:00 AM.
It is entirely possible that the half sip of wine I had earlier shut down my frontal lobe.
I’m drunk. Completely, entirely, utterly— “Yeah,” I breathe. “It’s better.”
The. Best.
“Good.” His thumb moves in small, soothing strokes. “Night.”
Hoarse, I echo, “Goodnight.”
Then I don’t sleep a wink.