When Samuel had said that Lena could pick anything she wanted, he hadn't expected that she would pick Slash Cards. He didn't have anything against the game, he had just expected that she would chose something that was more active based since she came across as someone who didn't like to be sedentary for too long.
In a way it made him happy though because it was something that they had in common- an enjoyment of horror movies.
"Do you enjoy Halloween?" Samuel asked as he helped Lena to set up the game. She took care of shuffling one stack of cards and he did the other.
"If you're asking about trick or treating, dressing up, decorations aside from the movies, then the answer is yes when I was younger." Lena replied as she finished cutting and shuffling the cards. "As you get older though, you can't exactly get away with dressing up on Halloween and decorating the entire mansion using a reasonable excuse that doesn't make you lose face and come across as too childish." "It sounds like this type of lifestyle doesn't allow for fun to be a part of it." Samuel commented frowning slightly. He couldn't really relate to that.
The year prior at his high school, almost everyone had dressed up and threw a party to have fun and take a break from the stress of school. He couldn't imagine someone not being able to do that out of concern of people's opinions.
"I did tell you that fun isn't really a part of my vocabulary. It's part of the tradeoff to living in this type of lifestyle, no fault of family per say considering we've been in line of work and lifestyle for generations before either my father or I were born." She shrugged it off as if it wasn't a big deal while she dealt the cards out, double checking to make sure that she had counted out the right number.
"So you've neve been to a haunted house then?" He asked, his interesting now being peaked.
"When I was younger, I am sure that I probably did. Unless of course it was something that little Leo didn't like. But that would've been over ten years ago." She explained.
"What if we do that this year?" Samuel blurted out without really thinking about it. Lena froze for a second when he asked this question before a small smirk appeared on her face as she her eyes reflected amusement when she focused on him.
"You do realize that October is quite a few months away from now?" She inquired.
"I-I do realize that." He confirmed as he picked up his cards to distract himself from her stare.
"So you're that confident that we'll still be together by that time and that I'll agree to do something that would classified as fun right after this conversation that we had?" She couldn't hid the amusement in her voice.
"I mean, we don't have to still be together per say to do that, do we? We could go as friends." He countered. His intent wasn't to come across as confident that their relationship would have moved forward by then. Just that there was someone he was starting to warm up to who he could do something he enjoyed with.
"Sammy-boy you do realize that there's a reason as to why I guess you could say that I have a very small circle of friends. Mixing in with a normal group of people only puts others at risk. Not for me as much as you." She hadn't had to explain this type of thing to anyone before and thus was struggling to find the right way to do it without causing him to worry.
"But we did it with paintball the other day just fine." Samuel pointed out. He couldn't see how that was any different than the request that he was making now.
"And that was because it was safe due to the limited number of people and the area. In most places where haunted houses are, there are going to be much larger crowds of people and it's not like I'm going to be the only one trying to blend in that wouldn't get noticed." She tried again. "I wouldn't be the target in those situations, they would be looking to pick out anyone that seemed like they were close to me or my family that could prove to be an easy target. If you're my fiancé and we live together-it drops the risk factor. However, as a friend who lives elsewhere, you and your family would be at a higher risk because we don't share the same space."
"So you're saying that the only possibly way for this to work out is if we're still engaged by the time October rolls around? I couldn't convince you otherwise?" The princess wasn't sure at this point if she should be annoyed or further amused by his persistence to try and convince her to do what he wanted.
"It's not a matter of convincing, it's a matter of safety." She replied, shaking her head slightly. "But if you want to frame it that way, then you could say that the answer to that would be yes."
"That takes away the level of fun though, because I wouldn't be able to invite any friends to go with us then." Samuel frowned at this thought. Not that he had many friends who enjoyed haunted houses and Halloween as much as he did, but Roger was always up for having that type of fun.
"Don't overthink about it too much right now. Let's just focus on the game at hand and we can deal with that when October actually comes around." Lena offered. She was interested to see where the conversation would end up going. However, their time to play the game was running short and she wanted get into it before dinner time came around.
She hadn't even thought about how she was going to explain the room situation if her father asked. Unless she could get Clive and some others to put everything away before then.
"Fine, but we have to revisit this conversation after this week." Samuel conceded as he shifted his focus to the game and going over the instructions that were on the box to make sure that he remembered how the game went.
"I don't make any promises, but we'll see what happens." Lena replied with a smirk. She would be surprised that if by then, he actually remembered to bring it up again. Most people she knew didn't have a memory to keep things like that in mind by the end of a long time frame. For now though, she was focused more on seeing how good Samuel actually would be at the game.