Page 42 of By the Fae

Oh.

Then it hit me.

Why he’d chosen us to be the main characters.

Gods, he was smarter than I gave him credit for.

Because now, with him as the fae and me as the human, both of us in the game together, I would not pester him to make it about love.

Well, that was what he thought.

“Two can play this game,” I said aloud, chuckling at my pun.

Reluctantly, I selected my character. My human character. Despite the stats being pants compared to his, I couldn’t bring myself to stare at Goldie’s bare, muscled back all morning. Even if it was a generated image.

The game itself was beautiful. The setting was somewhere north of Borderlands, in the Mythic Realms. Rolling hillsides, wild forests, glistening rivers fattened with silver fish meandering to breathtaking waterfalls and caves. There were no NPCs - non-playable characters yet, or any form of missions, so I simply explored the terrains and tried to avoid death. I was twice mauled by a preternaturally vicious moose-type animal. Drowned once. Plummeted from a cliff-top, from the roof of a chapel, from the crow’s nest of an old frigate, and into an unexpected sinkhole in the middle of a footpath, which may or may not have been a glitch. Knowing Goldie, it was probably the latter. His idea of a joke.

Despite all the unnecessary and rather gory deaths, I was enjoying myself too much, giggling too hard, to notice the arrival of Goldie’s flatmates, the minotaur, and the red-haired human woman. Why couldn’t I remember their names?

“Morning,” said the minotaur, his gravelly voice rumbling through the room. “Did Goldie go to The Witching Flour?” He swooped down and scooped up the last cinnamon swirl. A balloon deflated inside my chest. “Coffee? Oh, you’ve got coffee.” And then, before I had collected myself enough to return his greeting, or weep over the pastry bereavement, he marched straight into the kitchen. The ginger cat toddling along behind him.

“The one in the bag is for you,” I said to the human woman. She picked it up, peered inside, and did a happy little jig.

“Ooooh. Elvish doughnuts. My favourite.”

The Witching Flour was probably the bakery I’d seen on the corner of Goldie’s block during the taxi ride over.

“Mind if I sit with you?” she said.

“Of course.” It wasn’t as though I had much choice, it was her house after all. I shot a glance towards the kitchen, half-dreading the re-arrival of her seven-foot minotaur husband. She followed my gaze, yet her smile didn’t waver.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. My cheeks began to heat. “I’ve forgotten your names.”

Even in her pyjamas, which were almost scandalously low cut and short in the leg, and her flimsy, red, cotton robe, she was aggressively beautiful. She curled onto the other end of the sofa, tucking her legs underneath herself, still smiling. “I’m Joey. Goldie calls me Sugar Paste.” She whispered the next part, gesturing towards the kitchen. “That’s Taurin, my mate, husband. He’s just making me a coffee, then he’ll bugger off. His size is probably freaking you out a bit?”

My shoulders traitorously dropped in relief. I knew little about minotaurs. Only what my parents and grandparents had told me over the years. That they were savage beasts, prone to fits of rage and destroying buildings . . .

Oh my Gods. That was him! I recognised him then from the newspaper photos. He’d demolished an Ichor coffee shop. I remember driving past the reconstruction job when I’d visited my apartment block for the first time.

“He’s actually a softie,” she said, no doubt reading my expression. “It’s not true, what they say about him, about his kind. Well, most of it isn’t true. But it takes a while for people to get used to. To overcome the things they think they know.” I realised she wasn’t being unkind or judgemental towards me. “But like I said, he won’t be bothering us. He’ll probably go upstairs, take a dump for an hour, and then have a shower in the same room.”

I laughed. Taurin re-entered the living room, handing a steaming red mug with a picture of a peach on the front to his wife.

“Thanks, babe,” she said, accepting the coffee and a kiss. His horns almost scraped against the wall behind them. I was staring. I quickly averted my gaze.

“Right, I’m gonna take a shi—” He looked at me as though only just remembering I was there in my GG&P pyjamas. “Shower. See you both later.” And then he left again.

Not Ludo pounced up onto the couch, trailing a fishy-gravy-cat-food aroma with him, and snuggled against Joey’s legs.

“Goldie still in bed?” She was smiling again. I didn’t know her well enough to decipher it properly, but I’d hazard a guess she wanted the lowdown on last night.

Did the cool kids still say lowdown?

“Yeah. Apparently, he stayed up late to program the game and needs to sleep it off.”

She nodded, as though none of this was news to her. “I don’t normally care to know more about Goldie’s conquests, but this is different. It’s not very often he brings a human home, and he’s been very weird about you coming over, so forgive me if I ask inappropriate questions. I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. If I’m bothering you, please just tell me to fuck off.”

“I could never do that.” Literally never. But then something struck me. “What do you mean, he’s been weird about me coming over?”

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