Page 171 of Fake Game

“Jackson.”

“Yeah?”

Her brows crease, and she chews on her lower lip. “I—uh. How long are you staying for?”

“Depends. However long you’re here, I guess.”

“What?”

“I told you, I’m not leaving your side again. So, I’ll stay for as long as you’re here, and when you’re ready to leave, so will I.”

“What if”—she looks down at the ground—“what if I’m never ready?”

“Then I’ll probably need to start looking into how to obtain Irish citizenship.”

“What? Jack—”

“But I don’t think that will be the case.” I stop walking and turn to her. “I know you, Deer. You have a lot of resilience in that pint-sized body. You’ll be ready someday. And when that day comes, I’ll be ready to bring you home.”

“Thank you.” She looks up at me, some of that sparkle back in her eyes, and I know that I would wait until the end of the world for her.

She is the spark that makes my heart beat, and I would be lifeless without her.

FIFTY

DEER

ONE MONTH LATER

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What’s wrong?” I frown as I focus in the mirror on slotting another pin into the left space bun I twisted atop my hair.

“He rejected me!” Jackson shouts incredulously from the bedroom. “I spent the last six hours wooing this man, doing all the little things he likes—including wasting one of my days helping that annoying band camp chick—and he just rejects me? What a fucking douche.”

I stifle my laugh. “Let me see.”

He hops off the bed, stalking over as I tuck the last flyaway behind my ear.

“Look.” He holds out the Switch like he’s presenting a badge.

I turn and squint at the screen, looking at the different statistics of Lucien LaRue, one of the conquerable love interests inLove Love Passion School: Summer Session.

“Ah.” I tap the screen with the tip of my nail. “You’re half a sun rating off.”

“What? I thought you said it only mattered what the heart ratings were.”

“Yes, on normal mode. But you’re the one who insisted that he was too good for that, picked hard mode, and then said you didn’t want any help because that wascheating.”

He tsks.

“I told you that hard mode is no cakewalk; those men are a finicky lot.”

“Whatever,” he huffs.

He is such a sore loser, but I have to admit it has been funny watching him these past few days trying and mostly failing to win some of my otome games.

Since he arrived here four weeks ago, Jackson has helped me ease my way back into gaming. No streaming or content filming—nope, he just lies next to me on the bed as we both play our Switches, or he sits next to me when we’re on our laptops. He gives me commentary on when he thinks I’m picking the wrong villager to woo or animal to invite to my farm. Thanks to him, I now have this ugly octopus resident on myCherry Farm, and it looks like I’m going to marry the hot florist girl in my newMoonstone Valleysave file.

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