Emma the Tavern Wench missed Captain Blackthorne greatly. She wanted him to come by the tavern he’d been neglecting lately, because she thrilled to see him and lived for those moments where his attention was like the sun. But Emily the Regular Person wanted to give Simon a good shake and ask him what his problem was.

A little before two thirty Stacey and I left the tavern in the more-than-capable hands of our volunteers and trooped across the field to the chess match. Mitch greeted us with a large grin and a wave of his ridiculously large sword, and I couldn’t help but smile back. The man was infectious.

“You’re here!”

In response I dropped into a low curtsy, reflecting that even his Scottish brogue didn’t do it for me as much as a pirate’s quiet innuendo. What was wrong with me? “As requested,” I said through my smile as I straightened back up.

He threw his head back and laughed. “I canna believe that worked! I should have plied you lasses with guilt long before this!”

Stacey giggled, and I joined in because why not? He bowed over each of our hands in turn, and it would be an absolute lie to say I didn’t enjoy the attention. We needed to get out of our tavern more often; this was the fun part of Faire. I spied Simon on the other end of the chessboard, but he didn’t come over to say hello or even look in my direction. Fine. Whatever.

The match was the same as it ever was. We’d seen it several times by now, but we cheered and reacted as though it was brand-new to us. At several points during the match my attention wandered to Simon, who always looked away when our eyes met. Finally it was down to him and Mitch, like always, and before he moved to the center of the board he circled the edge, coming toward us until he was in front of Stacey and me.

“A kiss for luck, darling?” He held out a hand toward me. I narrowed my eyes at him a little, but Emma the Wench missed her pirate, and I felt that side of me taking over. So my frown melted into a knowing smile and I slipped my hand into his. Instead of bowing and bestowing the kiss I expected, though, he grasped it tight and pulled, tugging me forward and stepping closer. Before I knew what was happening he was kissing me, not hard, not passionately, but a sweet brush of his mouth on mine. He took my startled gasp into his mouth like a prize he could claim and as the cast and audience whooped around us he grinned against my lips.

Two could play at that. As he started to lean away I reached for him, threading my other hand through his hair and pulling his head back down to mine for a better kiss. A real kiss. Talk to me, my kiss said. I’m tired of playing. Is this real? How can we make this real?

The whoops continued around us, and when the kiss reached its natural conclusion he pulled away and I let him go, looking up at him with searching eyes. I was breaking character in front of a crowd of people, but I didn’t care. He looked back at me with a shaken expression, and I felt a jolt of guilt. He had to fight, a highly complex, choreographed routine with weapons. Maybe telegraphing my confusion at our relationship via a kiss in front of a crowd wasn’t the best plan at that exact moment.

“You ready, then, Blackthorne?” Mitch’s easygoing demeanor had vanished into his warrior persona again, and his question was loaded with foreboding.

Simon cleared his throat and turned an easy smile in Mitch’s direction. “Of course. Had to get a good-luck kiss from my girl first, you know.”

“Your girl? Is that what she is?” Mitch raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”

Simon looked over his shoulder back at me, and his smile slipped a fraction. But he forced it on again for the performance. “Of course. You were there when we were bound, remember?”

Mitch shrugged. “And yet she came to watch the fighting at my request. Not yours.” He twirled the claymore in his hand, the broad steel flashing in the sunlight, and Simon scoffed in response.

“That matters not, she came to see me.”

Mitch pointed his sword directly at Simon. “I could take her from you without a thought.”

Simon drew his own sword and slapped it against the claymore. “You are welcome to try.”

I sucked in a breath; I didn’t like the turn this had taken. My heart sank in my chest as they started their choreographed fight. I knew how it ended. Simon lost every time. That was the way they rehearsed it, the way they performed it. But now they’d added me to this fight, like a prize to be won. I watched the two men circle each other and tried to interpret Simon’s expression. He said he was fighting for me, but he would lose. He knew that I knew that. Was there a deeper meaning there? Was he giving me the answer I’d asked for with my kiss? None of this is real. I don’t want you. Mitch can have you. I don’t care.

I knew every move of this fight, every step of it like a dance. But as I watched it this time, goose bumps rose on my arms despite the heat of the afternoon. Simon’s face was ominous, angry. He’d completely abandoned the facade of the easygoing, rule-breaking pirate, and his attacks were harder than I’d ever seen. Mitch . . . well, Mitch was still built like a brick wall, so he moved through the steps of the fight like he always did. Except when Simon flipped him, he landed a little harder than he usually did, dropping to his knees instead of landing easily on his feet. He hopped up again in a smooth motion, but the fact that he had to do so at all bothered me. These guys knew what they were doing. Why hadn’t that flip been timed right?

The rest of the fight went much the same way, especially as they fought unarmed. Simon’s swings seemed wilder, a little more out of control than they needed to be. I was almost relieved when it ended and Simon was defeated without either of them being injured. He knelt in the grass, chest heaving with exertion, Mitch’s knife at his throat. Fight over, Mitch stowed his knife and reached down a hand to help Simon up, like he did every time. But this time, instead of taking it, Simon slapped it away and got to his feet on his own. Then he stalked off the field, without a word or look to me, Mitch, or anyone else.

Mitch looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes wide, and I’m sure I looked exactly the same way. Then Mitch slipped back into character, and the chess match concluded. Simon didn’t return to the field. He didn’t come out for the curtain call. I wanted to look for him, make sure he was okay. But I had a feeling he didn’t want to see me. Not then, and maybe not ever.

Stacey and I walked back to our tavern in an odd silence until I couldn’t stand it anymore. “What the hell was that about?”

She looked back over her shoulder at the chess field, like she could see an answer there. But she shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him act like that in years. Since . . .”

“Since . . . ?” I was well and truly sick of this. What tragic backstory was I missing here? Would I ever catch up, and stop feeling like the new girl?

She shook her head like I’d woken her from a trance. “Oh, nothing. The two of them weren’t exactly best friends in high school. Mitch was, well, Mitch.” She waved a hand, illustrating height, breadth, and I got the picture.

“So they fought over girls a lot?”

“No.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “They didn’t have to. Girls liked Mitch, you know. Varsity football and all that. All he had to do was wink and he had a new girlfriend. Simon . . . wasn’t like that.”

I sighed heavily. “Okay. But this isn’t high school anymore, right?”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” With one last shake of her head, Stacey walked a little ahead of me to the tavern, while I turned to look back at the chess field. The audience had emptied out, and a few cast members still milled around. I didn’t see either Simon or Mitch. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go back to my tavern, where it was safe.

* * *

• • •

The end of the day couldn’t come soon enough. Once the last patron was gone, I yanked at the strings of my bodice and tore it off before unpinning and stepping out of the overskirt. The white underdress was stuck to my torso and I peeled it away as I collected Caitlin. As we trudged to the back of the parking lot, she loosened the front laces on her bodice as she walked, while I fished my phone out of my basket. By the time we got to the Jeep we both looked pretty bedraggled, but this had become our daily post-Faire routine. We dumped our baskets and extraneous costume pieces into the back, I swapped out my boots and hose for flip-flops, and we hopped in for the drive home.

We were barely out of the parking lot when April called. I put her on speakerphone and handed my phone back to Cait.

“Hey, I called in Chinese food if you can pick it up on the way home.”

“Umm . . .” I thought fast. I didn’t have a change of clothes in the Jeep, and I was currently wearing basically a nightgown with no bra underneath and flip-flops. The people at the take-out place were gonna love me. But the thought of not having to wait for dinner won out over a little temporary embarrassment. “No problem. That sounds great.”

“You got sweet-and-sour, right?” Caitlin always asked the important questions. She also yelled a little too loudly into the phone, and I winced on behalf of April’s eardrum.

“Of course I did. I’m your mother, aren’t I?”

It was a testament to how much this whole town knew about and supported the Renaissance faire when no one seemed to notice how I was dressed when I waltzed in to pick up our order. They’d probably seen worse.