Tattooed

Some Light Teasing

"Seriously, this was one of the best dinner theaters I've ever been to!" Crowmaster laughs as the group walks out of the building and towards the parking lot. "And who would have known that lady who visited the shop the other day was the same one playing a knight and practically flirting with Gren!"

"She wasn't flirting with me!" The poor man in question protests as his cheeks burn red with embarrassment. "Just because she threw a flower at me doesn't mean she was flirting!"

"She threw three flowers at you and crowned you the "queen of love and beauty", that's definitely flirting!" Corvus laughs, pointing at the small plastic tiara and silky lilac sash Gren was wearing and the three pale pink carnations he was gripping in his hands. "I get it that you don't want to interfere with someone who is possibly some else's soulmate, but there's a big chance that she hasn't even found them yet. Or who knows, maybe she is actually meant for you."

"She's just a friend..." Gren mumbled quietly. A friend he sometimes stayed up texting with and sending adorable pictures of his dog to brighten her day. A friend he looked forward to seeing enter his bookstore with a big and warm smile on her face. A friend he was really starting to actually like but wasn't sure if what he was feeling was alright. And a friend who repeatedly threw flowers at him tonight and actually walked into the stands to give him a sash and small crown after she won the tourney and gave him such a warm smile it made his heart beat a little faster.

"Right, "just a friend"."

🔹🔹🔹

"Oww...man you really need to be careful where you swing that sword." Sarai heard Kasef groan as he was dismounting his horse and looked up to see him rubbing his side while glaring at Soren. "Especially since Amaya already smacked me there more than once during practice."

"Not my fault you weren't guarding that area." His co-worker responds as he started to unsaddle his horse. "Also you know a lot of our fights are scripted right? And I had to make it look like I actually cut you in the side."

"But not that hard! My girlfriend is really gonna give me an earful when she sees this!"

"Alright calm down you two." Sarai interrupts, getting between the two boys and pushing them apart. "No need to get worked up over this. And can't you wait until you get to your apartment to argue?"

"Please, no one likes your bickering." Peter adds as he walks by with his horse. "Stop butting heads like a pair of goats."

"We will if you stop winking at every one of the audience members." Soren shoots back, earning himself a glare from the actor.

"And speaking of flirting with audience members, look who's here." Sarai chuckles as her sister enters the stables leading her horse and a small smile on her lips. The three men stopped their bickering, their annoyed expressions turning into large smiles as their fellow knight approaches with Janai and her horse.

[Why are you all staring, is there mud on my cheeks or something?] Amaya signs at them when she approaches.

[You wouldn't stop being flirty with that guy in the first row of the blue tables.] Sarai signs with a small smirk. [Kasef noticed you kept flinging flowers at him.]

[He's the guy from the bookstore, he's a friend.] Amaya signs back, which Sarai translates for the others to hear. [What, I can't give friends flowers?]

"Friends don't throw three flowers and crown them the queen of love and beauty in one night." Soren laughs. "I mean if he was your soulmate that would have been funnier, but we haven't even seen your mark change at all in the past month."

"Hey this job was how I met my soulmate, he could very much be the one but he hasn't said the words yet!" Kasef laughs as he dismounts his horse. "Remember the other week when I was the overall winner of the tourney and I got to give someone in my table area the sash and tiara?"

"You mean the tall girl with the fluffy hair sitting next to the tall beefy guy?" Peter asks and his co-worker nods.

"The second my hand brushed against her when I put the sash around her and said "for you, milady", there was a line of words on her arms that turned into a trail of birds. I was so freaked out I nearly fell back into the row behind me!"

"I thought it was because the man next to her was glaring at you." Janai laughs and Sarai gave a laugh.

"So that's who you've been texting all month and freaked out every time someone touched your phone." She says, earning a small blush from the boy. "Hey that's how I met my husband, in this very arena when Amaya and I were hired by his dad to train the horses."

[He's not my soulmate! We're just friends!] Amaya signs and makes a face.

"Ooooh she's blushing!" Soren yells. "She's actually blushing!"

"Now Soren, stop teasing my poor roommate." Janai chuckles, slinging an arm around her friend's shoulders. "Kazi and I give her enough hell at home for staying up all night texting someone."

"And that someone is the bookstore guy Sarai mentioned?" Kasef asks and Janai nods.

"He keeps sending her adorable pictures of his dog, she's shown them to me."

[You are all just being annoying now.] Amaya signs with a friend before removing Janai's arm from her and tugging on the reins to lead her horse away.

🔹🔹🔹

"Oh Ginger, tonight was either the best night ever or the worst!" Gren groans as he buries his face into a pillow. "I wanna say it was the best because I finally saw Amaya outside of work, but also the worst because everyone won't stop teasing me about it!"

At the moment he honestly wanted to text Amaya, tell her what had happened but wasn't sure if she would be off of work at the moment or she was too busy preparing for the next show. Maybe ranting to Ginger would help for now, since she was never one to talk back and criticize him, and he always felt better after ranting to her for whatever was on his mind. The corgi was busy chewing on her newest plastic toy, a little rubber crocodile toy that made the loudest squeaks Gren had ever heard, but her ears were turned towards him and her little warm brown eyes kept glancing at him as well so he knew she was listening.

"The boys have been teasing me relentlessly after Amaya kept throwing flowers at me and even crowned me when she won, I keep telling them she's a friend but even I'm having a hard time believing to myself now!" Gren says as he lifts his face from the pillow. Ginger stopped her chewing to abandon her toy, sensing her owner's destress to gently nudge him so he was laying on his side and buried herself against his chest. Gren gave a small sigh as he carefully wraps one arm around the corgi before carefully shifting her up so her chin was resting on his shoulder and his face was buried into hers.

"I really like her Ginger, I really do but I...I'm just scared, you know?" He says and hears Ginger give a small whine before lifting her up so she was staring down at him with a concerned look. "You probably wouldn't understand how soulmates work, and I envy that you dogs and animals don't have to conform to it. You can love whoever you want and don't have to worry about being with someone who is already bound to someone else."

Ginger gave a little bark and wagged her tail as Gren lowered her back down to his chest and snuggled into his shoulder. As a dog, she really didn't understand many human things, like why it was so bad to bark at the annoying squirrels at two in the morning or start howling good morning to the other two dogs living upstairs. But one thing she could understand that when Gren was sad, he needed her, whether it was to hug her to his chest and cry into her fur or feel her soft fur, she could always make him feel better. Whoever this Amaya was, she had to know why she was causing Gren all these sad feelings.