I Married My Ruthless Boss in a Video Game novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Chapel

Sixty thousand players watch the in-game wedding, Roxie refuses to hand back the ring, and the chat demands a kiss.

The next evening, sixty thousand people watched Lorne Roark and me get married in a game chapel.

We sat side by side on two stools in the studio's stream room, wearing headsets.

Mine was still taped.

He'd been offered a new one, and he'd said, "That one has been through enough," and then looked horrified at himself.

In the game, our avatars stood at the altar of a stone chapel that Gus had built in 2022 with real stained glass.

Mine was a short knight in dented armor named Kettle.

His was Sunder, seven feet tall and black plated, with a scar on one cheek and a very sorry look in his eyes.

"They gave you a sorry look," I said.

"I did not choose it."

"It's good."

"It's the default," he said.

Jessamine ran the camera from the corner and gave me a thumbs up.

She'd brought me lip balm and a coffee with my name spelled right.

"You'll be amazing," she mouthed. "I'm so sorry about the video."

I mouthed back, "It's fine," and meant it.

On the left side of my lens, the chat scrolled by too fast to read.

SUNDERKETTLE, someone had spelled out in capital letters. KETTLEDER. THE AXE AND THE GRAB.

Gus stood at the altar as the priest, in a green robe, with a pointed hat.

"Dearly beloved," Gus said, "we are gathered because Roxie Kettering did not let go."

The chat exploded.

"Do you, Sunder, take Kettle, who may never let go of you?"

"I'm required to," Lorne said, in a flat voice. "Yes."

"Do you, Kettle?"

"I do," I said. "It's in the terms."

"Now the exchange of rings."

An item slot opened in my lens. It was a gold ring with a small ruby, floating in front of me.

On the other side of the chapel, Sunder's hand came out, palm up.

I was supposed to put the ring in it and take his.

I reached out.

My hand stopped one inch from his.

"Roxie," Gus said gently. "Let go."

"I'm letting go."

"You are holding a ring."

"I know I'm holding it. I'm working on it."

The chat spelled out LMAO in a long scroll of capitals.

I tried again.

My fingers opened, and the ring stayed in them.

"It's a very nice ring," I said.

"It's your ring," Lorne said. "I only need to hold it for a moment."

"I know."

"Then give it to me."

"That's what I'm doing."

Gus came over from the altar and took my wrist in both hands.

He held it out in front of me, palm open.

My hand shook.

The ring stayed.

Sixty thousand people were watching a woman hang on to a pixel, my best friend was filming it, and the chat said, SHE WILL NEVER LET GO.

Lorne sighed.

Then he did the thing that ended it.

He reached over, in the real stream room, took my hand in his, and opened my fingers one at a time with his thumb.

He took the ring.

He slid it onto Sunder's finger, and his own ring, a plain steel one, landed in my palm.

I closed my hand around it so hard that my knuckles hurt.

"Done," Lorne said. He kept my hand in his one second longer than the job needed.

It was warm and dry, and it had a callus on the side of the thumb, from a controller.

"Term one," I whispered.

"It's on stream," he whispered. "It doesn't count."

"You wrote it."

"I'm aware I wrote it."

"Now the kiss," Gus announced, and the chat went completely out of its mind.

I'd forgotten about the kiss.

PLEASE. KISS. KISS. KISS. KISS.

"Term two," I said, to the camera, and kept my face perfectly still.

Lorne looked at the chat, and at me, and at sixty thousand people.

He leaned forward, and kissed my forehead.

It was a very short kiss, dry and polite.

The chat sent up a long groan of grief.

"BOOOO," somebody typed. "HE FOREHEADED HER."

"That's the whole ceremony," Lorne said into the microphone. "You may now go away."

The stream ended on our avatars in the chapel, with Gus throwing flour.

In the quiet afterward, Jessamine unplugged her camera and said she needed to make a call.

I sat there with a steel ring in my fist.

My forehead was still warm where he had kissed it.

I was going to say something to him, I swear, but the glass doors of the stream room opened first.

A woman in a camel coat came in with a gold pin on her lapel, shaped like a key.

Her silver hair was in a tight twist.

She walked straight past me and stopped in front of Lorne.

"Mr. Roark," said Margaret VanHoesen. "A word. And bring your wife."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend