Page 80 of Goldilocks
“Alright. And how do I pay them?”
Goldilocks’s eyes flicked from Jasper to him. His top lip twitched.
Sam eyed the merman right back because he saw the start of a snarl on Goldilocks’s lip. It flattened without raising.
“I provide, not you,” Goldilocks said, his tone distinctly irritated. He reached up and tilted Sam’s face towards him with curled knuckles nudging his chin. And this time, his top lip did curl back. “Your energies have been spent fulfilling a role that is not yours. Perhaps that is why you are confused about your dominance?”
“I don’t think those are in any way connected,” Sam said.
He tried to tilt his warming face away from Goldilocks but a tap at his chin, a very clear correction not to, had him keep still and remain facing Goldilocks as he blushed red. All these remarks about dominance and such – or anything at all referencing bedroom activities – left him squirming. Though Sam should pay attention to the fact that this dynamic Goldilocks seemed to be expecting them to follow clearly extended beyond the bedroom.
“Your energies need only be spent on your nest and your personal pursuits,” Goldilocks stated. “I possess more riches than even The Brothers who govern the city, and you are my mate. You will not toil nor want for anything.”
Sam blinked in surprise. He’d figured that Goldilocks was well-off, but the whole providing-for-him thing was stalling out his mind. Sam did enjoy getting spoiled with the bathing and the meals, but sensibility – be that simple human sensibility or perhaps his need for independence and self-sufficiency – rebuked the notion outright. Having such an offer come from a creature whose relationship Sam hadn’t quite wrapped his head around yet wasn’t going to find a listening ear. Not that Sam would have indulged the idea had it been a human saying it either.
“I can take care of myself.”
Goldilocks’s twitching lip turned up as displeasure rumbled from his chest. “We are mates,” he said, his voice holding somewhat of a growl in it.
“We’re dating,” Sam said, phrasing it in a way he could make sense of. “And that clearly means something different in our species.”
“The dominant partner provides in every species,” Goldilocks rebuked.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Just making things up now, are we?”
That growl was in Goldilocks’s throat, and unlike a person might, he didn’t avert his eyes from Sam’s. Sam studied that beautiful gold and loosed a long sigh. In his own way, Goldilocks was being very earnest. Sam shouldn’t poke fun. “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was a kid. And all I’ve wanted for the longest time isn’t to be rich or famous, or even recognised, but to get by. To be independent and to do my own thing without having to answer to anybody else or to depend on anybody else.” It was the reason Sam had never given up fishing, never swallowed his pride and accepted the fact that literally any other job in the village would pay more than what he earned holding on to this boat and the minuscule euros he could squeeze from it. The boat was his. The skills and knowledge he needed to go out and fish were his. He didn’t answer to anybody out on the water; he simply kept up to date with fishing rules and worked within them. “Sorry to disappoint, but I have no interest in letting someone else provide for me,” Sam finished. Because what would happen if he did what Goldilocks wanted, let him provide, and then two weeks later, he decided he didn’t want to date a human and Sam was left high and dry? That wasn’t the impression Sam got from Goldilocks, but how was he to know? People had been hurting Sam for as long as he could remember, and he didn’t think Goldilocks really understood that he was asking Sam to let him stand at his vulnerable back, poised to thrust a dagger in deeper than anyone else had managed to before.
The growl ceased as Sam spoke, and as he finished, Goldilocks studied him at length.
“You do not trust me,” Goldilocks finally said. He spoke without anger or irritation, but instead with a note of understanding.
“That isn’t it.”
“I will show you,” Goldilocks promised. “That you can depend on me, and that I will treat you well.”
“That isn’t it,” Sam insisted. “It’s not a ‘you’ thing at all.”
“I can see that,” Goldilocks said.
Sam scowled. “You—”
“Are you sure I can’t stay?” Laurence’s voice chimed in a second before he hopped on board from the pier. “Bee said there are tons of cool things to check out.”
Sam turned from Goldilocks, making an internal note to revisit and finish this conversation later. “I don’t want Trevor upset with me.”
“He won’t be upset with you,” Laurence argued, though without any real vehemence in his tone. From the way he spoke, Sam could tell he had already given up on being left behind and was chancing his arm. “Dad doesn’t do upset, more…silent disapproval.”
“I’d rather not be on the receiving end of that,” Sam said. Without fail, Trevor was always nice to Sam. Besides, given that Laurence was seventeen and had Bee and Dew as guides – who were total troublemakers – Sam wouldn’t leave him alone even if he wasn’t worried about Trevor’s reaction.
Goldilocks stood as Jasper untied them from the pier, shrugged off his shirt, and then revealed even more skin as he shucked off his trousers. Sam averted his eyes and saw that Laurence had turned around and had his face buried in his hands. “You’re as bad as Adonis!” Laurence said, a squeak in his voice. “Mermen have no concept of privacy.”
Sam chuckled, the splash of Goldilocks diving into the water sounding at the same time. “They swim around naked in their other form. I don’t think they care about that kind of thing.”
“I guess…” Laurence twisted his head to see that there was no longer a naked man standing on the boat. “Still though.”
***
The evening glow lit a pacing figure at the end of the pier. Sam recognised Fionn’s buff shoulders clothed in his jarringly red polo from a distance and saw the exact moment he was spotted as Fionn turned about and started striding toward him.