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Dimension Clash
Chapter 40 - A Walk Through Worlds

Chapter 40 - A Walk Through Worlds

“That is a lot of R2-D2s.” I commented while we looked into a Star Wars meet that Faith was in the middle of. “Is there a kit or something?”

“I don’t think so, but they are a popular character so there’s blueprints and a ton of resources around at least.” Anna answered with a shrug.

We were waiting for Faith rather than moving on as she said she wasn’t planning to be there for the whole thing, just the group shots and to say hi to some friends. I spent a while just asking questions about how various props would have been made and ended up getting a million different answers from Anna and her friends. Foam, fiberglass, 3D printed, modified toys, machined, sculpted, anything and everything seemed viable depending on what you were looking to achieve, the time available, and your budget. Wood for something large might not be considered viable for weight reasons, Stuart pointed out with a wry smile.

Eventually, we moved out into the stores again once an apologetic Faith rejoined us, the stalls were a bewildering array of options, from T-shirts to manga, comics, materials, or even completed props. We paused outside one that seemed to have a collection of comics in plastic cases when one of a trio of teenagers asked Stuart for a picture with them.

“I would be happy to.” He said when asked, then turned to us seriously. “Don’t do anything stupid until I come back.” Getting a serious nod from Luke. His whole delivery and tone were completely different to normal, he even walked differently when while he kept pace with the guy who asked back to his friends. He unslung his shield from his ack without interrupting his brisk confident brisk pace. I couldn’t really hear what he said to them over the sounds around us, but you could tell from his body language that it would have been in a similarly authoritative voice.

“Do people often act in character like that? I never really thought about it before.” I asked Anna as he returned.

“Varies a lot, I often don’t but some of that is that I usually do characters off appearance rather than knowing them that well.” She answered, then got a sheepish grin. “I usually intend to but just don’t leave enough time to learn or practice a character and I’m not that great a actor.”

“You can usually get away with being able to do like a handful of lines and some simple poses.” Stuart commented having guessed the subject as we started moving again. “You probably only get a handful of pictures in a single encounter with someone, so people won’t really get a chance to notice if it’s the same each time. I think you implied that you hadn’t intended to replicate any particular character right?” He asked, and I nodded. “Well, that can give you more creative freedom, would you have any ideas for how the image you are projecting would respond?”

“Uh, yeah kinda. But it’s just generic anime maid or something really, I don’t think that’s particularly interesting.”

“Someone might get a good kick out of it anyway, it’s cool when you can pretend you’re interacting with the actual character right?” He said with a smile. “No one will judge you if you flub a line either, it happens, and people enjoy the attempt more often than you would think.”

“Although sometimes the characters people are imitating make me cringe out of existence.” Emily interjected. “There are some real goofy Jokers out there.”

“Emily.” Stuart said flatly.

“It’s true though!”

He sighed, then looked back at me. “Obviously not gonna make you do it, but it can be fun to act in character too.”

“I guess I could give it a try, if someone asks for a picture that is.” I responded uncertainly.

“When!” Anna declared cheerfully giving my hand a squeeze.

I ended up getting an opportunity somewhere around fifeteen minutes later when the others were looking through a shirt stall. “Holy shit you look cool!” A girl maybe a few inches taller than me suddenly said from beside me. “Would you mind if I got a shot with you?”

I blinked then tried to respond in character. “Why thank you,” I said with a slight bow. “This one would be more than happy to serve in such a way.”

I have no idea if that is the right response, but she seemed excited nonetheless. She nabbed some random passerby to take the picture for her, I wasn’t quite sure how to pose, so I just went for what I hoped looked like a proper stance with the cannon held in a ready state pointing down with my expression flat and serious. It seemed like this was what she was looking for given her face when checking the picture.

“Thank you!” She said.

“It was a pleasure, my lady.” I said doing what I think was a proper, if one-handed courtesy, weird how easy it is for me to do that. She excitedly waved back at me as she vanished into the crowd.

A grinning Anna came over from where she had been watching. “See, I told you it would happen!”

“You were right of course Master.” I answered with a sigh, she gave me a funny look but the rest of the group started moving so we followed.

A frankly surprising number of people seemed to ask me for pictures, if anything it seemed to increase as we approached lunch.

“Of course, my lord. Unfortunately, this one must not hold up this one’s companions any further so we must part ways for now.” I said with an apologetic bow to the person I had just taken a picture with, then moved swiftly to catch up to the others.

“-really gets into the role wouldn’t you say?” Stuart was saying with a grin.

“Apologies for the delay.” I said while bobbing my head.

“No worries.” Luke said with a smile to his voice, Stuart’s question remained unanswered as we started moving.

I slipped my arm around Anna’s, and she looked at me with a quizzical look and hesitated for a moment before asking. “How are you doing Sam?”

“Most excellently Master, although this one will admit to having not paid as much attention to the offerings as they might have warranted.” She still had a funny look but didn’t say anything further.

“Hey Anna!” A voice said, looking over there was a guy with a professional-looking camera waving.

“Hi John, any good shots?” Anna responded with a smile.

“For sure! I was hoping to get some with you if you’re free, and your… girlfriend? Too, if she’s fine with that.” He stumbled a little when looking at me, and Anna glanced down at me.

“Of course, it would be a pleasure.”

Somehow the guy found us a plain black backdrop without many people around in a couple of moments, he started by having Anna do a bunch of action poses. I wasn’t going to comment but her form wasn’t exactly realistic given my experience with Molly, but that’s fine, it’s for fun and all.

“Any preferences for pose?” I asked when it came to be my turn.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.” He said with a smile

“Very well,” I said with a nod.

I went through some simple ready-state ones, those are kinda cheating as it’s just things Mary taught me when I was at the range with her. Then a few sort of silly ones like if I had landed after a jump with the cannon braced under one arm or stepping forward with the gun up.

After a few of those, he asked about some poses that made use of the blade, which stumped me for a bit as I hadn’t really planned anything. I wasn’t quite sure what would work, as I hadn’t done any training with blades or polearms, so I couldn’t fall back on doing something realistic.

While I thought I idly spun the gun in my hand, I was holding it by the upper handle rather than the pistol grip so I could just do that without it touching the floor if I held the hand up a bit. I heard his camera click a few times while the blade whooshed by my head, not sure what to do next I tried to turn it into an intentional if basic sword-held-out sort of pose that got some more clicks. I then did a spinning slash knowing the skirt would twist out a bit doing that, which would hopefully look neat and was the first thing I thought might actually be cool rather than me being a dork.

He grinned at me after that and then checked his smartwatch. “Ah shit, I have a paid job soon, later you two. Thanks for accommodating me!” He said while dashing off with a wave behind him, we waved back then went to catch up with the others where they were at an overwatch meet-up according to an interchange on Anna’s phone.

“John’s a friend from high school. I wish I could commission him to do fancy shots at his studio, but I can’t really afford that, and I don’t want to let him do it for free.” Anna explained on the way, then grimaced. “He always offers to though, and now I feel bad for accepting River’s offer.”

“River was at least partially to try to connect with you,” I commented. “They like you and are offering to meet around a mutual interest. They quite enjoy working with their brother on photography, it’s something of an off and on hobby for them.”

“Really?” She asked perking up a bit. “It’s really not imposing or something? I was worried they were just trying to accommodate me before.”

“Of course not Master, although that is merely this one’s understanding. This one would encourage you to talk to them about it, they are quite approachable on even difficult topics.” She was giving me a funny look again and started to open her mouth but whatever she was going to say was interrupted when we were cheerfully greeted by Luke.

We were on the way to the meeting room Anna’s friends seemed to have domain over after the others had picked up their lunch when we were interrupted by some people asking for pictures, a few of us together than individually. “It was no issue my lady.” I said with a crisp bow as the last left, and I looked up to see Emily with a hand on the bottom of her mask speculatively.

“You called her lady, eh?”

“That is correct Emily.” I said with a curt nod before I tilted my head while looking at her. “Why?”

“Hmm, let me check something. Hey Anna get over here!” She shouted, it was a bit muffled by the mask as usual.

“What’s up?” Anna asked a moment later.

“Now Sam, how would you refer to Anna?” The voice had some mischievous note to it.

“As Master of course.” I said with a frown, something that seemed to cause Anna’s face to roll through a series of expressions.

“Most in-ter-est-ing.” Emily said stretching out each part of the word, causing me to look at her confused about what she was getting at for a second, then something jumped out of gear in my head as I realized what I had said.

--------

“I hate you all.” I declared from my place under the corner table in the meeting room.

“Come on Sam, it’s not that bad. It’s kind of endearing actually.” Zoey commented from nearby.

“Hate. You. All.” I repeated.

Anna crouched down to meet my gaze. “How much time do you have left?” She asked softly.

I looked away still too embarrassed to face her but answered anyway. “Fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Ok, I’m going to find your lunch, give me a minute.” She said standing up again.

“Till what?” Emily asked, presumably to Anna, because I wasn’t going to respond.

“She runs out of fuel and shuts down.” Anna responded a bit tersely.

“Wait what? That’s a thing?” She asked.

“Yes, in case you hadn’t noticed I am a fucking robot and if I run out of power, I stop! I don’t have convenient things like fat stores or flexible stomach capacity.” I shouted out at her. “Or apparently the ability to notice when I get into a fucking maid persona too much!” I huffed in anger for a few moments, the clouds of steam drifting out from my corner. I realized my voice had gone flat towards the end of my exclamation, lifting my arm revealed my motions were less smooth too. I huffed in anger again, the sound like the chuff of a steam engine was accompanied by another cloud of steam.

Other than footsteps approaching, which I assumed were Anna’s, the room was as quiet as it could be with all the activity outside. Anna crawled under the table to join me and an arm slid around me, the other offering a drinking container I knew contained oil.

“Thanks Anna.” I said while taking it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, I should have said something earlier.” She said as I drank. “It just seemed like you were enjoying it.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“I was,” I admitted quietly after pulling the container away from my lips, still looking away. “But I’m weird, and now my roommates are going to get here in like five minutes and learn how weird I was.”

“I doubt they will judge you for it.”

“Probably not…” I admitted then dropped my head down. “But still, then they will fucking know!”

The door clattered open with the roar of the crowd outside. “Is this the right room? I don’t see Sam or Anna.” I heard River say to someone loudly to be heard.

I groaned, too late they are already here.

“I think it is!” Mike’s voice filtered over, presumably having heard my rather distinctive groan. “Hi Sam!”

“Hi.” I acknowledged him as he stuck his grinning face under the table.

“Oh, hey there Anna! Leah texted us that Sam is big on the insta for the event, people are talking about the neat robot maid that responds in character!” He said the grin getting suspiciously wide while he looked from her to me. “There’s even a video of you and Anna, and my oh my are you two cute. It’s impressive how you stay in character with her too.”

I groaned, long and low for a few seconds then flopped over hoping the skirt was long enough that I would stay decent doing so. I felt Anna place a hand on my hip in sympathy.

It’s over, I’m done.

There’s no recovery from such a mortal strike.

“Don’t tease her Mike!” River chided, interrupting their introduction to the others.

“I’m being honest!” He said standing up again so I couldn’t see his face. “They are cute together, I will admit the master thing is very funny though.”

“Have you two already had lunch yet?” Jake asked clearly changing the topic while standing far enough away that he just needed to tilt a bit to see us both. “I can see the others haven’t started yet, but are you going to join us?”

“Ugh, fine give me a moment.” I grumbled. Anna was already extracting herself from under the table while I lay there a moment longer before I carefully crawled out to avoid damaging anything I was wearing. After straightening the dress, I fetched the oil container I had left behind and then went towards my backpack to grab something else to go with it.

“Um, sorry Sam.” Emily said while I was opening my backpack, and I looked up. “I’ve been a bit insensitive, towards your… condition?”

I sighed. “Look I’m not human nor biological and while I am comfortable with that, I don’t exactly like being a show and tell exhibit about it. And I really really don’t like learning about another one of my… quirks like that.”

“Ah er, right.” She acknowledged a guilty look on her face. “I’ll try not to bug you about it.”

“Sure.” I answered going back to pulling the rest of my lunch out, she was still standing awkwardly when I stood up. “I should probably be better aware of what I’m doing too, and it’s not like you can’t ask questions or anything just ease off a little I guess.”

She nodded and followed me when I returned to the selected table, The others were laying out their assortment of different lunches as we arrived. There were some curious glances at my plastic tub of coal and woodchips while I was settling into the chair next to Anna, but I mostly ignored them as I took my gloves off before laying them in my lap to avoid being dirtied by the coal dust.

Crunch

There’s still something neat about how similar this is to granola bars, it’s almost enough to distract me as I intensely consider the piece of coal rather than anything that had been happening in the immediate past.

“Jesus.” Zoey swore, and I glanced up from the half I had been considering in my hand. “Did you just chew on that?” I nodded then swallowed, Emily looked itching to ask a question but went back to her own lunch instead.

“My diet is distinct.” Was all I offered.

I was saved from further questions on the subject by Luke injecting himself into the conversation. “This was your first time doing a costume right?” I nodded, still chewing with a hand over my mouth, he winced a bit at the sound but powered through anyway. “Was there something that drew you to doing what you are wearing?”

Aw dammit.

“It’s what I am, technically.” I admitted with a sigh. “I’m a Battle-Maid synthetic, I have a manufacturer’s plate stating what model I am and everything. As for why It seemed like it could be fun to lean into it.” I finished with a shrug.

“Seems like as good a reason as any.” He agreed with a smile, somehow not even expressing surprise at what I had just said. “Do you plan to do more?”

He waited patiently while I drank some oil before continuing. “For sure, I have at least one idea for something, but I don’t have anything set in stone.” Anna’s arm appeared around my waist, and she was almost vibrating with excitement when I glanced over at her while speaking. “Dunno if I could pull it off but I had Hawkeye from FMA in my head a few weeks ago.”

“Doesn’t really matter if you can ‘pull it off’” Stuart was making air quotes with his interjection, his shawarma temporarily forgotten in its Styrofoam container. “If you want to do it, then go for it. Fuck the haters.” I raised an eyebrow at him, which prompted a continuation. “The idea of people not being ‘allowed’ to do a character they want or being told they have the wrong body shape or fitness level is just gross bullshit. Let people have their fun.”

“Ah, makes sense.” I agreed, then addressed Luke again. “Honestly between school, work, and this costume I haven’t put that much thought into other options. I kinda never really thought I’d do something like this, so I never had a reason to think of characters to do.”

He smiled. “There’s no rush to, most people aren’t like Anna where they roll up with a brand-new costume for every con.”

“And that’s on top of making us stuff for way too cheap.” Zoey piped up gesturing with a fry at the scythe on a table nearby, then grinned at me in an almost threatening way. “I totally have ideas for stuff you could do if you don’t mind.”

I kinda felt like I should still be annoyed at basically everyone at the table, but no one seemed to be actively judging me and I had been enjoying myself up this point. Maybe it’s okay to not actually be upset about it? Realizing I had paused for maybe a moment too long without responding I tried to smile and answer Zoey. “Go for it.”

She didn’t seem to have been bothered by the delay in my response. “Ok, so this might make Stuart mad at me but between you already have a dress thing going on and your skin color you could totally pull off that one vampire from Overlord, something tear blood something. Or use your hair to do Raven, that could be awesome.”

“Zoey.” Stuart said ever so slightly threateningly even as Mike and Jake started into some discussion of the game demos they had seen at the end of the table.

“It’s fine I don’t mind!” I said dismissively. “I can’t say I considered either of them, but I will keep them in mind.” A random thought zipped by and deciding to indulge it I leaned into Anna and looked up at her with a grin. “I think I actually have a source for ideas.” I stretched up to whisper in her ear directly. “Got any sexy robots lined up for me yet?”

She started squeaking and started trying to push me back into my chair as her face turned red. “I take it you do?” I teased as she covered her face, she mumbled something unidentifiable, and I took it as an excuse to continue at her. “Oh, you want it that small, eh? Well, I am sure we can arrange it, I can’t imagine less fabric is more expensive.”

Fortunately for Anna’s dignity, most of the others had gotten distracted by smaller conversations while I had been teasing her. Probably intentionally from the hint of a smile on Luke’s face when he glanced over for a moment, leaving just a smiling River as her source of embarrassment when she uncovered her face to glower at me while beet red. “Sam.” She hissed. “Please.”

Giggling I gave her a hug while I was already close to her. “Alright, alright. But seriously, I am interested to hear what you would like to see me in.” I said after I had settled down again. “I’m sure you could think of something really cool!”

“Sure, I’ll think about it.” She said a smile starting to return as I started back into my lunch.

----------------------------------------

“How do you plan to handle the afternoon?” Anna asked after we finished eating, I was taking the opportunity to cuddle against her while Faith needed to fix some damage to her costume.

“Probably just like the morning, I guess.“ I answer with a sigh. “May as well keep at it if like half the people here expect me to be in that persona anyway.”

“You don’t have to you know? You can just turn people’s requests down.”

“Yeah, but it was fun.” I admitted quietly. “Seeing people get excited to encounter me instead of just like staring at me on a bus or something is nice.”

“Heh, well…” She then leaned her head close to my ear to whisper. “I expect compensation tonight, it’s kinda difficult to hear you calling me master all day and not be able to do anything.”

“Oh.” I blinked, then grinned while turning back to her. “That I am sure we can manage.”

The delay in leaving ended up giving Jake’s brother Roger a chance to find our room, when he entered a wearing a big suit of white armor with a one-horned helmet, I am pretty sure they are a character from destiny which was confirmed Jake emitted an ’oh’ of shock. Turns out he had been the one Jake had seen on the way to the conference center this morning, although there’s no way he could have known at the time having not been given any spoilers. It seems that while Roger had left Jake out on what was new with him, Jake must have primed him about me because he didn’t really seem all that surprised when he saw me.

I had met him a few times when he helped Jake move out for the summer or the occasional drop-in, but I won’t claim to know him that well. He was friendly enough, but I didn’t get much of a chance to talk with him before we headed back out into the throng of the convention. Luke and Stuart remained behind to prep for the workshop, so our number was already down a bit before River broke off from us. They mentioned that Leah was still planning to join us, but with how well she was doing it would certainly be after the tournament finished up in a few hours.

Most of the afternoon went similarly to the morning, exploring the con, looking into meet-ups, and a lot of pictures with other attendees. Those of us that remained as a group shrunk over time as people drifted off for panels, workshops, or signings until it was just Anna, Mike, and me.

Fuck there were a lot of pictures as the day went on, if anything I seemed to get more attention when it was just Anna and me in costume as we didn’t have the others to distract from me, I guess. I noticed that there even seemed to have been a couple of repeats where someone I had seen before came back with a friend or similar, thanks to the persona I was… wearing it wasn’t actually that difficult to interact in unique ways anyway. Being aware of what I was doing sometimes made me cringe internally, but people seemed happy with it, so I just tried to not mind it. The fact I didn’t even break persona with my roommates is going to mean that this will be one hell of an embarrassing memory though.

At least I used their names instead of something really cringy.

I don’t think I could have survived if I called Mike ‘my lord’ or something, he would never, ever, forget that.

When the day was starting to wind down, we stopped by the workshop to pick up our bags and then went to collect Leah and River before Anna rushed us off to a contest she was participating in as part of a cap-off event. It was basically for the quality and accuracy of replicating characters from what I could derive in the first few beginner-level rounds as I drank from one of the spare bottles of kerosene I had brought.

I sort of recall talking about this with Anna a while ago, but since I wasn’t trying to replicate a specific character, I wouldn’t have qualified for it. This is fine by me as I was getting pretty worn out mentally by this point, my vision was starting to smudge at the edges and my senses were getting a little vague in general. I’ve felt this way a few times like that first day or at the end of long days, but this was probably the earliest I had encountered it.

I dragged my attention back to the contest as I had started to get lost in my thoughts, it was a pretty enjoyable show so I might as well make use of the opportunity. The structure was straightforward, a few minutes showing off for each person in front of the audience on the stage, then they would go to the side where a panel of judges was waiting. There seemed to be a documentation/process element to it, as there would be pictures of work-in-progress shots up on a projector screen above the judge’s heads. They had a commentator talking about each person’s work too, very upbeat and positive, I didn’t hear a single bad thing about anyone’s stuff even when it was clearly the work of someone very new. I liked it, it was making me wonder if I should try to participate in such a thing at some point, it could be fun.

Anna was about mid-way through the final round, it seems they saved the expert crafters and professionals for last. I returned the wave and grin she gave me almost immediately after she started looking into the crowd while walking up onto the stage, that’s one advantage to being distinct. I didn’t really pay attention to the commentary other than to note how positive they were, I knew most of what they were saying anyway as I had been there for almost the whole build and my attention was laser-focused on Anna.

It was kind of neat to see her from a distance in the costume, if I hadn’t been with her all day and been with her while she worked on it, I wouldn’t have even known it was her besides by studying her face. Even then, with the makeup, wig, and how the shiny foil drew the eye, it wasn’t obviously Anna. She looked cool as hell up there, I might have paid too much attention to her motions as she went through a series of moves that were probably something associated with Alita. Once she reached the judge panel the relative quiet let her snake gun prop track which judge was talking to her accurately, so it looked like that feature worked.

“You’ll get her back you know?” Mike’s voice suddenly said beside me, causing me to jerk a bit while I tried to get my thoughts on track enough to pay attention to him despite my exhaustion.

“Sorry?” I asked blinking at him.

“You were making longing sighs.” He answered grinning. “They are only gonna keep her from you a bit longer.”

I steamed up and buried my face in my hands but peeked out between them to watch Anna while Mike quietly laughed beside me. She ended up getting third after some ridiculously overwrought destiny costume that had animatronic extra limbs and wild electronic effects and a Zaku of all things, it looked really weird next to people as all the details were to scale and everything, but it was impressive. I was a bit disappointed that she didn’t end up higher, but it made sense with how much time would have gone into them, Anna seemed more than pleased when she rejoined us after getting a bunch of pictures taken though.

I was glad she seemed buzzed on the walk back to Union station as I basically just let her hand in mine guide me, I didn’t even try to keep track of the others assuming they could probably manage it on their own. Walking through a crowd with my vision narrowing into a tunnel was a strange experience as exhaustion really set in, I could see Anna and the sidewalk ahead of my feet, but the rest was just a swirl of meaningless color. I was very glad when we found ourselves on the comparatively quiet train, without quite so much going my vision broadened a bit and I was able to recognize the others as being there visually without looking around too much. Anna had tried talking to me during the walk, but she seemed to realize how out of it I was at that point, so she was just sitting quietly next to me smiling while looking over at me with my hand in hers.

When the train slid into motion, I had the thought that she was right there, and it would be a while till we got back so maybe it would be OK if I just lay my head against her for a second.

-----

“Do you think we need to carry her out?” A voice said.

“I think she’s still awake or at least not actually asleep, she’s breathing, and I can hear her burners.” Another said from close to me, must be Anna. “She’s been holding her weight up too.”

I tried to pull my eyes open with great effort to see what was happening, but my pressure was pretty low, I yawned drawing air in through the gaps in my face to get more air to my flaring burners to get myself able to move. After blinking a few more times while the others talked around me, I realized the train was stopped and that my vision was mostly normal, I guess whatever I had just been gave me enough rest to see properly again.

I dragged my head off Anna’s torso and looked around blearily, noting that it was dark outside the windows.

“Hey Sam, we’re back. You ready to go?” River asked gently from the aisle.

“Sure…” I mumbled and started to get up a little unsteadily, after a little help from Anna I was able to get my backpack on and grab the cannon. I followed them out into the lights of the station, still yawning occasionally.

I insisted on going back to Anna’s place, but I had to assure them I could stay awake for the ride at the very least. Their bus arrived earlier than ours, so we bid them bye, then I took a second to see if I missed any important messages. Nothing too big a deal that I could see, the main thing was that Molly said Mary would be busy tomorrow morning, so I needn’t bother coming in before noon. There were a ton of others but nothing I needed to deal with immediately, so I tossed the phone back in my bag and then snuggled up against Anna while we waited.

She showed me a few things her friends were sending her, mostly pictures or videos of the two of us while we had been wandering around. “Wait was I moving that differently? I don’t remember being quite so, uh, precise.” I mumbled while steaming with embarrassment.

“Yeah, it was really cool actually.” Anna said beaming. “It felt like I was escorting some fancy lady from a movie or something having your arm around mine, I’ve never seen someone move so deliberately.” She then got a grin. “Maybe we could do like a themed couple cosplay, have you as a lady and I could go as some dashing hero.”

I suddenly pictured her in some grand armor like Luke or Roger had been wearing while I was at her side in some regal dress, I was almost drawn out of reality by that concept, the idea was made even better when I imagined her looking down at me with that cocky smirk she had back on our last date.

“Oh yes, I would like that.” I said a bit huskily while drawing myself closer to her.

She blinked down at me a bit bewildered then her grin returned, only wider, while it wasn’t the smirk it was still wonderful to see.

“I can see your imagination is going wild already.”