His lips slant, humored, and he bites into his cheese. “Cockroaches don’t count.”
Huffing, I bite into my own stick. Mozzarella. Homemade. Like the bread, and everything else here. So full of flavor, despite mozzarella being known for its mild taste. I sigh and let my gaze wander back toward the sea. “Living here is a dream.”
“Even when your only bathroom was an outhouse?” Samson finishes making his sandwich and takes a bite that is approximately the size of a small country. I don’t know where his cheese went, but I’m assuming the sandwich is about to find out.
I pout. “You know that an outhouse doesn’t compare to the horrors of Florida.”
His nod is sage. “Florida,” he says, and if there were anything good about the state, it’s the way it sounds rolling off Samson’s tongue. “The outhouse of your old world.”
“Exactly.” I giggle.
“I can’t imagine living somewhere I hate as much as you hate Florida without a formal contract forcing me to stick around. Why didn’t you ever find somewhere better, with views like this?” He lifts his chin toward the scene ahead.
This time, I don’t stop looking at him. “It’s expensive to move. Scary, too. Even though I wasn’t exactly living in a city with a low crime rate, the fact I hadn’t been brutally murdered yet made it somehow safer than the time, energy, and money involved in leaving. Moving is starting over. Even if I had themoney, which I definitely didn’t, I don’t know if I’d have been brave enough to give up the familiarity I knew. It’s comforting, being where you’ve survived. The threat of finding something you won’t know how to deal with if you try to reach something better keeps you kind of…stuck.” Dragging my attention down, I stare at my sandwich. “I take it you’ve had some bad contracts?”
He puffs a breath. “Yeah. A few. I guess they were my familiar, though. As soon as I could walk, they put a training sword in my hand. I cleaned for my food before they shoved me out on jobs. The first few monsters were terrifying. The first few people I watched die…the first few deaths I heardcelebrated…were rough. But, it’s like you said, there’s comfort in familiar, so I guess I just grew numb to the brutality.”
I can’t even imagine. Trying to makes my heart ache. “Can I…ask you a personal question, Shoulders?”
Finishing his sandwich, he watches me, intently. At last, he says, “Yes, you may.”
Breath fills my chest. “How did you wind up in the Ridge?”
A dark brow arches. “Such a vital piece of backstory wasn’t provided in your life simulation game?”
I flush. “All I know is that you retired here when…” My attention drifts to his neck, to his scar. “…when you were injured. I don’t know the details or why you chose here, over everywhere else in the world. There isn’t really much about the world outside Gem Ridge in the game.”
“Really?” he murmurs.
“Before this morning, I didn’t know the name of the city where Austin and Aurelia grew up. It was always justthe citywhenever they talked about it in game.”
“Odd,” he hums. “Maybe whoever made your game didn’t know the name of the city while they were making it.”
“Maybe.” I shift to get more comfortable on the blanket before hesitantly asking, “Was my question too personal?”
His head shakes, and he cuts another piece of cheese off the block. “No, you’ve just distracted me with ideas.”
“Ideas?”
“About how I might be able to get you to Amecrest. The thought of taking you somewhere completely outside the realm of your game…is enticing.” He doesn’t allow me to compute that before he’s referencing my sandwich. “Is it okay?”
I swallow, hard. “Um. Yes. Sorry. I’m talking a lot. I like egg salad. I do. One of my favorites, actually. I’ll eat…right…now.” Until this exact moment, I don’t think I realized exactly how deeply embarrassing it is to eat in front of somebody. Maybe after this I’ll just never eat again.
Oblivious to my distress, Samson lets a flurry of a smile lift one corner of his mouth as a breeze sends petals showering all around us. “Sorry. I guess I should answer your question so you have a moment to chew, huh?”
Wetting my lips, I nod. “That would be a very kind thing to do, yes.”
Air fills his chest while I dutifully take a bite of my sandwich. Pressing a finger to the scar on his neck, Samson lifts his attention toward the sky. “A den of mites opened up between here and Amecrest. I was between assignments and staying at an inn on the outskirts of the city to save money. The deeper into a city you go, the safer it is, so the more expensive the inns get, but I didn’t feel like I needed to pay for that extra protection, so I didn’t bother. I’m glad, too, because if I hadn’t been where I was, I wouldn’t have heard Aurelia scream.”
My heart stops.
“They were teens on the cusp of adulthood then. And they were cornered, coming home late from visiting their grandparents who lived at the forge where they now do. You don’t expect monster dens around here. I don’t know why or what it is about the Ridge, but the land is forgiving and fruitful.The fact it turned over a den that night and hasn’t since remains a mystery to me. I can only think that maybe I was meant to hear Lia and find myself on Peri’s table in the aftermath.” He smiles, expression stiff as his eyes close. “I couldn’t handle the whole den by myself, so the queen mite got me. If Austin hadn’t grabbed my sword and screamed like a madman to keep the things at bay until reinforcements showed up, I’d have died. Maybe we all would have. Once city soldiers intervened, Austin and Lia began dragging me to safety. I blacked out when they lifted me, though, so the next thing I knew, I was at Peri’s. She sewed me up, and her potions brought me back from the dead, but the wound was so severe it took me weeks to regain my strength. I guess that was enough time for the Ridge to become familiar. It was definitely enough time for Lazul to swindle me into taking on the farm beside yours.”
My brow furrows as I swallow another—glorious—bite of egg salad. “What is it with Lazul and his compulsion to give strangers farmland?”
Samson’s eyes roll. “Nobles like having underlings, I guess. I…liked having a home.”
Breath and words escape me as that simple line floats into the cooling spring air.
