Chapter 27
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Did I expect to gloat about my marriage in front of Austin? No. Not really. But who am I to miss gloating opportunities?
Tearfully, I press my fingers to my lips and watch my beautiful babies.
They are so marvelous, I can almost ignore the fact they have a crowd.
This morning, fresh and happy and on my usual slept beautifully in my beloved’s arms high, I marched myself to my farm and put my Great Mid Summer Harvest Plan into action.
Since my land is mostly clear now apart from what turns up and over in the middle of the night, I have so much room for crops, and you better believe I am using that room.
I spent all morning tilling with my lame starter hoe, heading to Kaolin’s for seeds, and returning to plant, but when I started to water the great big expanse with my lame watering can, my trailing puppies caught onto the task, so now Tsuki is trotting a cloud cover above my farmland while Yami pops along behind him, every pawstep of hers creating raindrops.
My angels.
This should have been a feature in the game.
I can’t believe WonderGlass actually went through the trouble of making you earn mythical magical beast pets that then behave like any other farming sim’s pets, which you’re given day one.
Utter. Nonsense.
“What the—” Austin swears, standing beside Aurelia, who dragged him out of the forge when she saw my babies and I making our way back from Kaolin’s shop.
I still haven’t thought up a snide remark about my having been here for, wow, over a season now. Insane, I know. Look at all I’ve done in such a brief—yet longer than a week—time.
How’s it feel to live in the shadow of the person you were nasty to, Austin? Must suck. I wouldn’t know.
Hehehe.
“This is…incredible.” Aurelia’s wide eyes track every movement my wolves make, glimmering. “I can’t believe it. It’s like a moment taken from ages gone by. Animals like these aren’t common anymore.”
“Humans poached them,” Austin growls, and for all the horrible things I think about him, the level of anger in his voice just now was acceptable. “Imagine killing such amazing creatures just to wear their skin.”
I don’t want to imagine that.
Huffing, Austin tucks a hand in his pocket. “Who the—” He swears. “—are you, Citrus? How do you blow into town like a second storm and just act like someone looking for a home?”
“I don’t know. How do you live here for so long and…not have magical wolf puppies helping you in the forge?” I sniff. “Seems silly to me.”
Aurelia giggles. “She’s so right.”
“S-shut up…” Austin mutters, and Samson chooses this moment to make his way through the path between our farms.
His brow rises first on our playful puppies helping their mommy water her crops, then on Austin and Aurelia.
Lifting his chin vaguely in our guests’ direction as a Samson greeting, he makes his way to me and naturally tucks a golden lock of my hair behind my ear before he lets his hand linger there, tracing the shell.
“Lunch is ready, Lemonade. Are you almost finished up here?”
“Yup,” I say, keenly aware of Aurelia’s eyes burning into the interaction between Samson and me. Her lashes flutter as her lips draw a perfect circle.
In stark contrast, disgust riots across Austin’s face, and he blurts, “Are you two dating?”
Without missing a beat, Samson glances at him and says, “We’re husband and wife, actually. Why?”
Aurelia’s hand hits her mouth in such a way that the resounding slap can probably be heard at Slate’s lab on the far side of the map.
My knees, for reasons unbeknownst to me, go weak, and Samson has to catch me before I collapse in a puddle before him.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I breathe. “Just…tired. Probably.”
Helping nothing, he hums seriously and murmurs, “We’ll get to bed earlier tonight.”
Aurelia blurts, “When did you two get married? Why wasn’t I invited to the wedding?
” She gasps, heartbroken. “Is that what you did in the city? You eloped? Who proposed? Who has a marriage circlet? Can I please see it? What gemstones did you pick? And also why did you pick them? Tell me everything!”
Still overflowing disgust, Austin grimaces in his sister’s general direction.
“Sorry…she doesn’t get out much.” His gaze shifts to Samson, narrowing.
“And neither do you. You know it’s barely been a season, right?
You’re not supposed to marry someone unless you’ve known them at least a year. Twelve seasons, Sammy. Twelve.”
After assuring I’m stable on my own feet, Samson folds his arms. “Barely a season…” Samson’s voice trails, then, viciously, he nods. “That’s longer than a week, isn’t it?”
Red taints Austin’s cheeks, and I am once again at risk of collapse. Darn astigmatism.
“Will you two never let me live that down?” Austin snaps.
“I don’t know. Have you apologized for it yet?” Samson’s head angles as a brow lifts. “Have you said you were wrong?”
Austin’s nose scrunches as he glares at us dully. “This feels like bullying.”
Samson’s arched brow remains high. “That’s not bullying. This is bullying.” He turns squarely to Aurelia. “Lunch is made, Lia. There’s plenty. You’re invited.” His finger points. “He’s not.”
An ocean of emotions floods across poor Aurelia’s face, torment launching her gaze between me and her brother, me, her brother.
I watch her soul die, bit by bit, as she wrestles with needing to know how in the world Samson and I are “married” and needing to be an angelic sister. It’s painful. Guilt eats me up.
But Austin just rolls his eyes, grabs Aurelia’s hand, and turns toward Samson’s farm. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Sammy. What’s for lunch?”
Lips quirked, Samson takes my hand. “Roasted vegetables, boiled eggs, and fresh bread…with fresh butter and fresh cheese. Just the way my wife likes it.”
My heart soars, fumbling about in the sky—an utter mess.
He dips to kiss my forehead. “Spoiled.”
I whisper, “So spoiled.”
Looking over his shoulder, Samson whistles, and our happy playing babies leap across a cloud road to our sides, bumping into our legs, tongues lolling.
“I made extra boiled eggs for them,” Samson notes.
Their tails wag, and Samson’s smile softens.
Ahead of us, Aurelia whispers to her brother, “They’re the cutest family I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t make me gag, Lia.”
It is in this exact moment that I decide what my goal for this afternoon will be.
~ ~
Samson strokes my hair, as though it’s perfectly natural for me to be cuddled against him while we eat lunch.
I’m shocked myself by how normal it feels, but I have the darnedest feeling that if Austin weren’t turning more and more green by the moment, I would simply not have the gall.
“—and so,” I continue my winded story about how Samson and I eloped—including the part where he punched a guy, “—Samson said he couldn’t imagine a life without me, so we got married while the night market stalls crowded the streets.
It was beautiful. Some poor onlooker cried. ”
Samson, bless, nods. “I saw that. Very moving.”
“You are so full of—”
“That’s so romantic!” Aurelia butters her fourth slice of bread and scoots to the edge of her chair, fixing her glowing eyes on Samson. “How did you know you were in love with Citrus?”
My stomach takes a turn, but Samson drops his hand to my hip and hums, providing an astonishingly convincing, “She makes me feel safe.”
“Ew.”
“That’s beautiful,” Aurelia breathes.
His blue eyes hit me with a finality I am not prepared for. “Yes, she is.”
Good granite. Man should have been an actor—or I need to scramble to my room and throw open his profile, because he’s not acting, and those offensive question marks have replaced themselves with a full ten hearts.
I cross my ankles to offset the itch.
Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll survive the whiplash if the question marks remain, scorning me. It’s best I don’t check.
“This is disgusting,” Austin declares—around a mouthful of roasted veggies, from my farm. The ingrate.
“Watch it,” Samson says, “or I’ll kiss her right here.”
My heart skips a beat as my horrible little brain attempts to locate a way to force Austin to do absolutely anything but watch it.
Samson adds, “With tongue.”
Heat swarms into Aurelia’s face as her brother forces himself to swallow. Giving me, perhaps, too much hope, he says, “Are you sure you even know how to do that?”
“Absolutely. Isn’t that right, dear?”
I think I lose my mind a little imagining it, because all I can do is squeak, “Mhm. Yup. So very…absoluteness.”
Disdained, Austin’s pallor turns deathlike. “Convincing.”
Aurelia puffs a sigh. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be in love. He has a morose outlook on life, and it’s very, very, very sad.”
“Pitiful, even,” Samson adds, separating himself from me to lean forward, pluck a boiled egg from one of the serving bowls, and feed it to Tsuki before retrieving one for Yami. Gentle as ever, he murmurs, “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you out.”
Now that I am no longer attached to Samson’s body, I am feeling left out, but it’s fine. I will get over it. In a few years. Probably.
Dramatically, Austin sets his fork down.
“I don’t believe it. You’re not married.
I don’t know how Citrus convinced you this would be a fun joke, but there’s no way if for literally no other reason than you didn’t properly propose.
You’ve lived here ten years, and for ten years, you have sold your farm’s products to Kaolin every week on the exact same day at the exact same time.
There is no way you’d marry someone without conforming to proper procedure. ”
“Unless,” Samson starts, offering me a boiled egg, possibly having sensed how I felt left out, “I fell madly in love.”
“Wouldn’t happen.”
Possibly enjoying this too much, Samson drops his stubbled cheek against the top of my head and says, “Did.”
Austin’s eyes roll up so far and fast they disappear into his head. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t care. You’re married. After less than six weeks. That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it?”
Samson looks at me.
I nibble my boiled egg and nod.
So, he concurs, “Definitely.”
Austin’s resulting sigh could shake the very foundation of the mines, but you know what?
I could not care less.