Chapter 25: Married Life, Morgan POV (Patreon)

Chapter 25

Married Life

Morgan POV

A small weight leaned against my side as I woke up at the end of the 26th Cycle. Melody fidgeted as she came too, snuggling into my arm. Dad liked the tradition of us being together while we were in the Game, and so far, we hadn’t broken it. He had asked me to include her since she was now part of the family, but he had said it was my choice. But when your dad asks you to do something, but only if you want to, that doesn’t mean you have a choice.

Buster snored, curled up over her feet.

It had taken him less than a day to work out Melody was weak. I’d caught him sneaking into the conference room to beg for treats and her swearing she couldn’t give him more even as she handed them over. She was as bad as my mother.

Dad glanced around, smiling as four of us all came to. The entertainment lounge was filled with white leather furniture, that was as soft as could to sit on. A giant window covered one wall, giving us a view of the ocean and the rising sun. They had taken the armchairs, leaving Melody and me with the couch.

“How was everyone's time in Game?” Dad asked.

“I won a sleazy strip club in a high-stakes game of poker,” Peter said. “Turns out it was being used for money laundering and the owner was trying to skip town. I got arrested. Now I’m working through a quest chain to clear my name, but Melody thinks I might be able to twist it, so I eventually become a crime boss.”

Simon chuckled. “You should have listened to Melody and bought a mining ship like I did.”

“I can buy five if I clear my name,” Peter said. “Why do think I was gambling?”

I smiled at Dad. “What did you get up to? Still running that restaurant?”

He shook his head. “Since I’m in the capital, Melody asked me if I could manage the renovation of the station in orbit that she bought for the faction. She ended up in the system next to yours, and she’s still a few days away. I’m mostly just a go-between, passing along the information, designs, and instructions she gives me.”

“So, what did you get up to?” I asked.

She leaned against me for a few more seconds, then looked up and smiled. “I’m on a very slow transport ship heading for the capital. I’ve interviewed the hundred best applicants who passed the AI interviews for recruiter positions, began a quest chain to become a tycoon, and oversaw the transfer of 22% of humanity's assets in Sector 13 to your faction’s control. The Cycle wasn’t as productive as I would’ve liked it to be, but the communication systems on the transport aren’t the best. Also, I missed you.”

“Ahhh.” That was about the best I could do in this situation. The Game had been a welcome reprieve from whatever this was. I still wasn’t sure how I wanted to deal with our relationship, but Tee had some surprisingly good advice. “Would you like to go on a picnic with me?”

Her smile grew. “I would love that.”

“There is a beach where I was thinking of building a house. Does lunch work for you?”

“Yes. Just let me reorganise my schedule.” She leapt to her feet, running for the door. “Tee, I need the phone number for your tailor.”

Tee sighed. “But I didn’t get to share what I did.”

“You got moderated,” my brothers said together.

“I don’t always get moderated. Sometimes I organised Morgan’s phone calls.”

“Is that how you got moderated?” Dad asked.

My brother’s snickered.

Melody stuck her head back through the door. “Tee, I need that phone number. I have a date and own nothing but work attire and activewear.”

Tee sighed and pulled out his phone. “I’m coming. What style were you considering? I’ve tailors in all the major countries along with several designers who work in Moylan.”

Tee left the room, closing the door behind him, and Dad turned to me. “You’re going on a date?”

I nodded. “Tee said to ignore the fact that I’m married to Melody and treat our relationship like a friend had set me up on a blind date with someone who they thought was perfect for me. It made sense to me, so I’m giving it a try.”

“That’s not bad advice,” Dad said. “I like her. I wouldn’t be upset if you were dating her. But I’m not exactly sure if she’s right for you.”

I frowned. “What happened to you whispering, don’t screw this up?”

Dad shrugged. “That was before I realised how good Melody is at making first impressions. She has a lot of social skills and no small amount of training when it comes to communication, but she’s exactly what she says she is. A workaholic. She doesn’t know how to shut it off. I don’t think she slept more than twelve hours the entire time we were in there, and she slept even less out here. I’m hoping that this activity level is just her trying to get your faction up and running because if it isn’t, then I’m not sure she’s the right match for you.”

I glanced at my brothers. “What do you think?”

“She’s hot,” Peter said sagely. “But you’re like the king of Mars, so you get all the babes. By that, I mean, ignore her looks because she was out of your league before, but not anymore. I’ve got celebrities and models hitting me up on Twitter just because I’m your brother. Try to focus on Melody’s personality.”

I raised one eyebrow. “You really think I’m that shallow?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re a dude, right?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Then her being hot is going to distract you. My advice is to be aware of that and try to focus on who she is.”

“I can ignore Alex, and she’s just as hot.”

“You hate Alex, though. It’s easy to ignore someone if you hate them. You remember Janet, Tim’s old girlfriend. She was super-hot, but after what she did to him, I ignored her when she took a pass at me. Yet I dated Bel for like six months.”

Dad shook his head. “You really need to stop dating his ex-girlfriends.”

Peter shrugged. “It’s only been three.”

“What about Jill in high school?” Simon asked.

“I forgot about her. It’s only been four. And he’s dated two of mine.”

Dad shook his head. “You two have a weird friendship. I worry that you two will fall for the same woman and end up in some strange man harem.”

My brothers and I laughed.

I grinned at Peter. “I can totally see you with like three brother husbands.”

Peter laughed harder. “Three make it six that way we can have our own basketball team with a substitute.”

“Or seven, so you can all have a day of the week,” Simon said.

“No. Six brother husbands are fine. Sunday is entirely devoted to football. Whoever wants to give up football can take Sunday, but they have to keep her distracted.”

Dad shook his head. “I’ve got one son who had to be given a wife. Another who is going to join a cult. Simon, you’re my last chance at having a normal child.”

Simon looked him in the eye. “You know those Kilocksin women are kind of hot.” He couldn’t keep a straight face and burst out laughing.

Dad sighed with mock seriousness. “Why am I not surprised?”

***

I knew every beach and every bay in my new country. Its entire terrain had been uploaded to my head. In my opinion, this was the most beautiful. Palm trees surrounded by large fronds grew near the white sand shores, leading into crystal clear water that didn’t go deeper than my shoulders for almost a hundred yards. It sat there without a single ripple on the surface, untouched by waves. Beyond the still lagoon was a coral reef that went on for a mile, with a million different nooks and hidden wonders.

The land around the bay was a jungle filled with tropical birds and lizards. There were no dangerous animals, mosquitoes, or annoying sandflies —just endless paradise.

I unrolled the blanket across the sand a few yards from the water and then dusted off the picnic basket and cooler, placing them on top.

Melody looked at them and sighed. “I’m not complaining, but a cooler doesn’t exactly fit the romantic vibe of a picnic on a tropical island.”

She wore a simple yellow dress and a wide-brimmed hat. The material for her dress was too thick to be practical with this heat, even though it made her look fabulous.

I smiled at her. “You’ve never been to a tropical island, have you?”

“I’ve never technically been anywhere,” she said before sitting on the blanket. “But no. None of my life before coming here involved tropical islands. However, every picnic in every romance movie I’ve ever seen didn’t have a cooler.”

I took a seat beside her and smiled. “Did those movies ever have a picnic on a tropical island?”

“No, but I’m not sure why that would matter?”

“Are you feeling a little too warm in that dress?”

She smirked. “Is that your way of asking me to take it off?”

“No. It’s just a question.”

She stopped smirking. “Um, I am a little warm in it now that you mention it.”

“The dress is lovely, but the material is too thick for the weather. In ten minutes, you’re going to overheat. In thirty, you are going to feel like you want to faint. In such a scenario, a cooler full of ice-cold beer is very romantic.”

She chuckled. “You’re just trying to justify it.”

I chuckled with her. “You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Fine. No beer for you until you admit the cooler is romantic.”

She scoffed at me while she smiled “Is this your idea of flirting?”

“Maybe I just have hurt feelings? I mean, what did my poor loyal cooler ever do to you to be called unromantic.”

The humour left her face, and she sighed. “You’re not comfortable with our marriage, are you?”

I could have lied, but I didn’t. Marriage had to be built on honesty. My parents had taught me that. “No.”

“Why did you agree to marry me then?”

“Earth needs your abilities. My choice was to marry you or lose what you can do. Monarchs marry all the time for state reasons, and despite wanting to meet someone and fall in love, I knew that marrying you would save many people a great deal of heartache. I don’t regret my decision if that makes you feel better.”

“I didn’t expect you to tell me the truth.”

“Would you prefer I lied?”

Melody frowned for a moment. “Maybe. It’s not easy to hear that someone you love doesn’t love you back.”

I realised I was looming over her and took a seat. “How do you know you love me? We only met a few days ago?”

She adjusted her hat. “That’s a bit of a personal story with a long answer. I’m not sure we have the time. I only rescheduled three hours for this.”

I smiled. “How very unromantic of you?”

She smirked at me, trying to see if I was messing with her. “How is that unromantic?”

“Good dates can go for much longer than you ever intended them to. It’s common courtesy to leave the rest of your day free in case that should happen.”

She paused. “I suppose you’re right about that. Every romance movie has a date that goes on longer than intended.”

She seemed to put far too much faith in movie romances. “You’ve never dated, I take it?”

“No. I have. And I’ve had sex, too, in case you were wondering. But my dating life has not exactly been filled with a great deal of romance because I’ve been busy and had a bit of an unhealthy infatuation with a certain celebrity.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as she stared out to sea. “Have you ever dated someone you knew you weren’t planning to be with long term? The relationship was fun, and the sex was great, but you knew that you two weren’t right for each other, only right for right now?”

“Once in college,” I admitted. “Kathy was going to do her masters in the UK, and I was going to move back home to Portland at the end of the year. We both knew I had no intention of going with her, and she had no intention of staying. We liked each other, but not enough to change our plans, and we didn’t ask each other to.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.”

“Well, neither do I.”

“I feel like we are straying from the topic.”

“I wasn’t avoiding the question. I was going to segue back to it. I was born on Mars. Not the Mars that exists now, but the Mars that could exist two hundred years from now.”

I felt my eyebrows rise as my surprise made itself apparent. “That’s different to what I expected. What was it like?”

She smiled. “The Mars I grew up in was a beautiful place. The people who lived there had devoted themselves to her. They fought for her in the Game, making any sacrifice that was necessary. They lived good lives in and outside, and their families prospered because of her. The whole human race prospered because of her.”

Melody lost herself to her story as she told me of places and people that didn’t exist anywhere but in her memory. She talked about a hundred different wonders and things that had been done, slowly sweating more and more with each passing minute. When she looked like she was about to break and admit defeat, I opened the cooler and passed her an ice-cold beer. She took it gratefully but didn’t admit that the cooler was romantic, continuing with her story.

I lost track of time as she talked about the wonders of her world. The art, music, and monuments all sounded wonderful. It sounded like an amazing place. Every so often, she would start glancing at the cooler, and when she looked like she was about to cave, I’d hand her another beer, letting her go back to her story. She told me about universities and military training schools, about farms that went on for a thousand miles. She talked about holidaying at crystal clear lakes and a hundred other things.

She talked like someone who had lost something precious to her. Something she cared about. She didn’t talk about her life directly, not the people she had met, only the places she had seen and the things she loved about them. She loved her home, and she wanted me to understand that.

I did.

The Mars she had grown up in was a part of who she was. It was the great love of her life. She didn’t try to hide or lessen her affection. She openly expressed it so I could understand her and what she had lost.

She let me in, showing her vulnerability.

“It must have been hard to come here and find out your home didn’t exist,” I said hours later when I finally understood.

Melody swallowed and reached for a napkin. “That was the hardest part. Where I grew up, everyone knew you and the story of your first wife.”

“I don’t follow.”

“You were our king. You were the shepard who saw humanity through the early days of the Game until we could find our feet. You made every sacrifice that was necessary, gathering humanity together in and outside the Game, healing the world and forging us into a true faction, even accepting a wife you didn’t love because it was the only way you could receive an administrator to create the Mars that I knew and cared for. I grew up knowing the story of you and your first wife, everyone on Mars did. We loved her just as much as we loved you because she was the one who made Mars what it was inside and outside the Game. I grew up wanting to be like her, wanting to immolate her. Her inner aides were the most skilled negotiators, most business savvy, and most politically minded individuals humanity had to offer. They were what made Mars the red jewel of humanity, and I was told all my life that I was born to become one of her aides. I worked for years working my way up until I stood at the very top.”

So that was what they had done to her. “When did you find out the truth?”

Melody didn’t seem to hear me as she looked out to sea. “On the day I became an inner aide, I was expecting to be told I was ready to join her staff and come to the outside world. Instead, she took me aside and broke my heart. She told me the Mars I loved with all my soul didn’t exist. That in the outside world, the beautiful paradise I had grown up in was just a barren rock and that the history I knew and loved was just a glimpse at a possibility. When her face transformed into mine, I realised the truth. I was her, and she was me. The stories I had grown up with all my life were my stories that had yet to come. It almost broke me. Do you know why it didn’t?”

“Because you got to marry me,” I said quietly.

She nodded with fresh tears in her eyes. “Because I got to have you. The schoolgirl crush that never went away and the reason I couldn’t have proper relationships. I always fantasised about becoming your next wife. You’d quite a few over the years. I didn’t mind that I might eventually lose you if I could just have you for a while.”

“You know that wasn’t me, right?”

Melody shrugged. “Well, you certainly aren’t as handsome yet, but it was you that I fell in love with. They didn’t embellish who you are. To Mars, to me, you were just a gamer who got a lucky break and did the right thing. You helped others. It was you agreeing to marry the queen that made me love you. Someone who would give up their chance at love for helping to create the world I loved is apparently my weakness. You aren’t some larger-than-life person to me. I don’t worship the ground you walk on, but I am incredibly attracted to you, even though you aren’t as handsome.”

“You mentioned the handsome thing twice. What’s up with that?”

Her eyes crinkled for a second. “In my world, the first queen convinced you to have a few minor alterations to your face. It made you look more regal and less gamer accountant. It was a face people respected. It was the face of a leader.”

“Is that why you look like a tiara wouldn’t be out of place on your head?”

Melody nodded. “Yes. It’s also why they didn’t make my boobs bigger.”

I choked on my beer. “What?”

Melody gave me a deadpan look. “Well, you can’t have a queen looking like Dolly Parton, can you?” She glanced down. “I always hated my chest growing up, but now I understand it’s hard to get men to take you seriously when they can’t stop staring. These are diplomatic boobs. Respect worthy boobs. Not oh damn boobs.”

I lost it, falling back and howling with laughter. “Diplomatic boobs, oh damn, that’s funny.”

She laughed softly. “I figure I should lighten the mood a bit.”

As I slowly settled down, I glanced at her. She was smiling, but for once, it didn’t reach her eyes. “You know you don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Lighten the mood. You’re allowed to tell a sad story and let it be sad. You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. And don’t tell me it doesn’t. Don’t tell me you’re over it. Because there are somethings that you don’t get over, and losing something or someone you love is one of them.”

Her smile fell away. “How did you?” She didn’t finish the question as her words faded, and she stopped to stare at me.

She was looking for an answer, and it surprised me that it wasn’t obvious to her. “Melody, I haven’t known you long, but you wear your emotions like a bright dress. Your happiness lights up the world around you, and when you smile, and you mean it, you make the whole world want to smile with you.”

Melody leaned forward and kissed me. It wasn’t long and passionate, just a brief touch of our lips, but it hit like sticking a fork in the toaster. She leaned back and smiled at me. It was the sort of smile that made me want to smile with her. “You are rather good at romantic gestures for a man who brings a cooler to a picnic.”

“Still not willing to admit the cooler was a romantic necessity, huh?”

She smirked.