Basil meowed.
“No. That’s insane. This is fiction.” Sam tapped the laptop. “Fiction. Made up. Not real. Vampires don’t exist, and dragons definitely don’t exist, and fated mates are just a convenient plot device that lets me skip the messy parts of relationship building.”
The mysterious gifts flashed through his mind – the coffee beans, special edition books, chocolate coins…and that gold bar. That last one was definitely unusual.
“Lots of people give expensive gifts,” Sam said to the empty room. “Rich people do it all the time. There’s probably a simple, reasonable explanation that has nothing to do with supernatural courtship rituals.”
Basil settled into his lap, purring louder. Sam absently stroked the cat’s fur while his brain spiraled through increasingly ridiculous connections. The way Rux had stared at him. How Mabon’s attempt at teasing had seemed genuinely painful, like someone who’d neverlearned proper social interaction. Urien’s insistence that Sam deserved beautiful things.
“They’re clearly eccentric,” Sam decided. “Wealthy and eccentric, probably homeschooled or something. That’s why their social skills are weird. There’s nothing supernatural about bad small talk.”
He looked back at his document and at the three vampires who’d spent weeks circling their mate, leaving gifts, and trying to find the best moment to reveal an impossible truth to a human who had no idea his entire world was about to change.
“Okay,” Sam said to Basil. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to call Rux tomorrow, and I’m going to invite him and his friends for a pint. We’re going to have a normal conversation like regular people, and when nothing supernatural happens, I’ll stop projecting my novel onto random strangers.”
Basil purred agreement as Sam closed the laptop.
He didn’t need to figure out how his vampires revealed the truth tonight. Maybe some confessions took time. Maybe trust had to be built first, brick by careful brick, until the impossible started feeling almost reasonable.
Or maybe he was overthinking everything because his own life felt so empty that he’d started crafting elaborate fantasies around three men who were probably just trying to make friends.
“I know. I’m hopeless at making the first move, but tomorrow is the day,” he told Basil. “I’ll call Rux tomorrow.”
/~/~/~/~/
“Don’t look at me like that,” Sam said around his toothbrush an hour later. “I’m being rational.”
Basil’s tail swished.
Sam rinsed, spat, wiped his mouth, and met his own reflection in the mirror - round face, freckles, glasses slightly crooked. He had the same face he’d had at fifteen. Nothing special. Nothing that would makethree men like Rux, Mabon, and Urien look twice.
Except they had looked…a lot.
Rux had stared at him with burning intensity, like Sam was the only person in the entire café – and okay, he had been at the time. But Rux had drunk six coffees just to stay longer. When he’d turned up the next time, he was dressed so smartly, Sam worried he’d get mugged in broad daylight.
Mabon was another one who dressed in a three-piece suit, although for him it seemed to be his daily outfit. But he was another one who had tried so hard to say the right thing that he’d fumbled it entirely.
Then there was Urien, who had brought flowers and said Sam deserved beautiful things…yet, he’d sat at the coffee shop window on a later visit looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Not even the cookie Sam offered had seemed to help.
“Stop,” Sam told his reflection.
But his brain wouldn’t stop. What if they were interested? Not as friends but as something more. The thought was so tempting.
All of the men were gorgeous in completely different ways. Rux, with his long red hair and broad shoulders, was full of energy. Mabon was sleek and sophisticated, his wealth worn like a second skin. Urien, tall and gentle, with dirt under his fingernails and flowers in his hands.
What would it be like? Sam’s reflection flushed pink. He’d never dated three people. Hell, he’d barely dated one person successfully. But the fantasies he wrote late at night, the scenes where his protagonist discovered he didn’t have to choose, that love could multiply instead of divide…
“It’s just a story,” Sam whispered.
But what if it wasn’t?
What if Rux’s awkward conversation was a case of nerves? What if Mabon’s excessive tipping was his form of courtship? What if Urien’sflowers meantI’m thinking of youinstead ofI’d like to be friends?
Sam’s heartbeat quickened. He imagined Rux’s boisterous laugh filling his tiny cottage, his big hands gentle on Sam’s waist. It was easy to dream of Mabon reading beside him on the sofa, occasionally glancing up to smile at something Sam wrote, or Urien, in his garden, dirt-smudged and so patient with him because he cared.
The warmth in his chest spread lower. Gods, what would it feel like to be wanted by three men at the same time? Rux’s intensity, Mabon’s careful attention, and Urien’s quiet devotion. Three different kinds of desire - all in pointing the same direction - at him.
Sam gripped the bathroom counter.You’re beingpathetic. He was spinning elaborate fantasies about three strangers who’d been polite to him. They’d given him their numbers because they wanted friends – well, one of them had. They’d complimented him because that’swhat people did in coffee shops. They’d brought gifts because…
