“Do you want to maybe go out somewhere soon?” I said, unable to stop myself from threading my fingers through her curly hair. “Like, out to dinner or just for a drink. We could go to a different bar than the one you work at.”

She lifted her head, and I saw her trying to tamp down the excitement in her eyes. “We don’t have to, Greid. I’m happy spending our evenings doing this.”

“Well maybe I could, I don’t know, take you on a date,” I said awkwardly, my ears fluttering. “Wherever you want.”

Her eyes softened. “I’ve never been on a date.”

I almost told her that they usually sucked—for me at least. I’d always found them awkward and uncomfortable as I frantically tried to think of things to say, at least when dating someone new. But we already knew each other, and I was so comfortable with Beryl. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Besides, we’d done all this in a weird order. We were already living together, and now we were… progressing into a romantic phase in our relationship. While sleeping in separate rooms in the same house. I wanted to ask her to sleep with me in my room, but I didn’t want to freak her out by moving too fast.

Beryl deserved to experience everything—all the things she’d missed out on. I smoothed back her hair, cradling the back of her head as I gazed down at her, hoping I didn’t look too lovesick. “We’ll go on a proper date.”

She grinned with excitement, stretching up to kiss me. “That sounds wonderful, Greid.”

For her, I could withstand an evening out in the city. Because it was her, I wanted to.

After watching a few episodes of Gloom Falls, I realised Beryl had fallen asleep on top of me. Her breaths were deep and even, her lax body a slight, pleasant weight on my chest. I was still playing lazily with her hair, and I would’ve been happy to stay like that until she woke up in the morning, but I remembered her wince as she’d stretched after I’d fallen asleep on top of her earlier. She needed to sleep in a proper bed.

I wished it could be mine, but at least my sheets would still smell like her. I’d probably have to jerk off again when I got into bed, and I would definitely be thinking of Beryl while I did it, just as she’d whispered to me earlier.

“Beryl,” I murmured, giving her back a gentle rub. She stiffened slightly as she started waking up, head shifting on my chest. “You should go to bed.”

“Yeah.” Her voice was hoarse, green eyes tired as she propped herself up and rubbed them. “What did I miss in Gloom Falls? The last thing I remember is Huna arranging to meet up with a hitman to have Marish bumped off.”

“I’m not gonna spoil it. We’ll watch it from there tomorrow.” I turned off the TV and started pulling blankets off her.

She snorted, climbing over my legs to stand up. “I already know they manage to take out Marish.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know how,” I said slyly, then accidentally blurted, “And it’s not through a hitman.”

“Damn. Now I’m intrigued.” She held out a hand to help me up. “We need to find a show you haven’t watched yet so we can be surprised together and you’re not sitting there all smug because you know what’s going to happen.”

“I’m not smug,” I protested, even though she was right. “And I’m really annoying when I watch something new, because I talk all the way through it trying to guess what’s going to happen.”

“That wouldn’t annoy me.” She chuckled, then cocked her head. “Well, maybe it would a little.”

I grinned down at her, giving the back of her head an affectionate scratch with my claws. “We’ll find something new to watch so I can annoy the shit out of you.”

And then maybe you can punish me for being bad.

I coughed awkwardly as the thought popped into my brain. It wasn’t that I wanted to be bad—I wanted to be good for Beryl. So good. But… wondering how she’d reprimand me for not obeying her to the letter was more arousing than it should’ve been.

A loud yawn from Beryl snapped me out of my thoughts before she asked, “Are you going to bed too?”

“Nah, gonna stay up for a while. Might do some work.”

She rested her small hands on my chest, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss me when I ducked my head. “Don’t strain your eyes too much.”

“I won’t.” I gave her another kiss, unable to stop myself. “They feel better.”

“Okay.” She stepped back with another yawn. “Goodnight, Greid.”

“Night, berry,” I teased, hearing her chuckle as she left the room.

I listened to the sound of her padding up the stairs and pausing every few steps to blow out the candles, before stretching and gathering up our dirty dishes from dinner. After carrying them into the kitchen, I’d just placed them on the counter to tug open the dishwasher when a bloodcurdling scream came from upstairs.

I jumped violently, and my socked feet slipped over the floor as I turned to race out of the kitchen, my hearts already pounding with terror for Beryl. I moved faster than I ever had in my life as I sprinted up the stairs, tripping several times in my haste.

I burst into her bedroom out of breath. “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?”

She was standing in the centre of her bed, face pale as she cried, “There’s a huge spider!”

I froze, then sagged in relief as I tried to catch my breath. “What the fuck, Beryl.”

Her face turned bright pink. “I didn’t mean to scream. It shocked me because it—” She shuddered. “—it ran across the floor when I came in here and now I don’t know where it is.”

Shoving my hair back from my face, I looked around. “How big is it?”

She shuddered again, wrapping her arms around herself and not moving from the bed. “Fucking massive, Greid. I won’t be able to sleep in here if we can’t find it.”

“I’ll find it.” I crossed the room to her bed and got down on my knees to peer underneath at the narrow strip between the frame and the floor.

“Aren’t you scared of spiders?” Beryl asked from above.

My mouth twitched. “No, I’m not scared of spiders. I can’t imagine many demiurgus are, given our natural inclination for being underground. Around dirt and nature and stuff. Lots of insects and arachnids underground and in the dirt.”

“I’m fine with everything else,” she blurted a touch defensively. “Like beetles and ants and crickets and stuff. It’s just spiders. I hated working in the underground vineyard at the compound because there was a kind that liked to make their webs in the nightberry vines.”

Not seeing the spider under the bed, I straightened up to grin at her. “Did you worry they’d make teeny swords out of the thorns? Little knightberry spiders. Get it? Knight berry. Like an old-timey knight.”

She glared at me. “Keep making fun of me, buddy, and we’ll see what happens.”

“I’m just saying, if this spider isn’t the size of my fist, you’re going to lose major cool points.” I knee-walked over to the dresser to peer underneath it. “What else are you scared of?”

“What, so you can make fun of me more?” she grumbled.

“I mean, yeah. Depends on what it is, but yes.”

She chuckled, but it still sounded a little tense as she hovered on the bed. “Not much, I don’t think. Clowns kind of freak me out. The one birthday party I went to as a kid when I was, like, six had a clown. He scared me then.”

“God, yeah, clowns are messed up.” I shuffled over to the armchair to look behind it. “I don’t really like heights. Like, I’m okay being in my workshop or in a tall building as long as I don’t look out the windows, but I could never visit the Grand Canyon or whatever.”

“I’m okay with heights.”

Of course she was. She’d had to live up that big hill with the sex cult.

“And cats freak me out,” I admitted, hearing her chuckle.

“Really? I think cats are cute.”