Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Juniper held on to her tightly, and then he looked down.
A crowd was gathered below. Fern was surrounded by her three concussion-giving friends. The prince’s toe was being attended to. And people were…cheering?
Juniper’s vision swam. Oh, they were high. They were very, very, very high.
“Junebug?” Bear whimpered.
Juniper’s breath caught at that. Mo’s nickname for him. “It’s all right,” he said quickly.
Maybe this was what parenting was really about: pretending you weren’t white-knuckling for dear life while everything was very, very scary.
“Junebug?” she asked again. “You scared?”
“A little,” he admitted. “It’s okay. I’ll climb. You hold on to me.”
He really hadn’t thought about how difficult it would be to climb one-handed once he’d talked Bear down. If he’d been better at planning—
Well, he wouldn’t have come on this quest to begin with.
Despite the imminent possibility of falling three stories on top of some angry royals, Juniper felt a rush of gratitude that he was here at all.
For once, he would rather be here than anywhere else, because here meant he had stopped pretending to himself that he wasn’t in love with his best friend, and here had brought him a tiny, feral little kid he was horribly fond of, and here meant he was going to find a way to save Mo, too.
He was going to do this. He was going to save Bear, and himself, and then he was going to get—
“Avast,” a familiar voice called.
Juniper froze, clinging to the side of the Nameless Inn. “Ahoy?” he said, leaning a little farther over the edge of the roof to see below.
And there at the bottom, leaning heavily on someone’s arm, battered and bruised and certainly the worse for wear, was Morn Elmthorn.
Juniper would never remember after how he had gotten himself and poor Bear down off that roof. He liked to think he’d looked brave, heroic, even graceful in front of his man, two members of the royal family, and an entire town of adventurers, kingsmen, and terrifying women.
But it was a lot more likely that he’d blacked out and screamed the whole way down, because the very next thing he knew he was standing in front of Mo, Bear still held gently in one arm.
Mo was…flanked on either side by Bill and Phteven, both holding one of Mo’s arms.
“Hey!” Juniper bellowed before it occurred to him that Bill and Phteven could have been the ones to help Mo. “Give me back my husband.”
The gathered crowd drew a collective breath.
“I told you they were married,” Phteven muttered.
“They’re not,” Bill argued. “I’m the only one who does wedding ceremonies in our whole town. I would know.”
“Junebug,” Mo stopped him with a word, just as Juniper was drawing his blade, one-handed.
He could fight and hold a kid in one arm, couldn’t he? He’d saved a dragon and gone on a quest and cut off a prince’s toe, so at this point, Juniper was fairly convinced he could do just about anything.
“What?” Juniper snapped.
“Are you asking me to marry you?” Mo asked.
Juniper didn’t have time for this. “OF COURSE I AM,” he yelled. “IF YOU’LL HAVE ME! AND I’M ALSO APOLOGIZING, BUT I’LL DO MORE OF THAT LATER.”
Bear pinched his arm, hard. “You’re yelling,” she said.
“Unhand him, you—you blithering fools!” Juniper shouted.
“Junebug,” Mo said again. “These two got me out of jail. It’s okay.”
“Oh.”
Of course they had.
Mo stepped forward, still limping heavily, and Phteven and Bill released him. Because they’d been holding him up apparently, not holding him back. “Apology accepted, you fool,” he said. “I—I’ve been a fool, too.”
“Ew,” Bear said. “Put me down if you’re gonna kiss him.”
Juniper obeyed wordlessly.
Bear walked directly to Bill, held up her arms, and said:
“Pick me up.”
Juniper registered Bill’s vaguely fearful look, and then the fact that Bear was also instructing Phteven to give her some snacks, and he looked a little confused but was digging through his pouch, and then Juniper turned back to Mo.
“I’m sorry,” Juniper said. “I’m so sorry, Mo. I didn’t want you to die. And I should have just talked to you and—”
“And I should have listened,” Mo said. “Bill told me what you did. Fighting off both of them, saving Bear, making a deal for our safety. You are good at this quest thing. Even if you hate it.”
“Oh, I hate it,” Juniper said. “But Mo—Mo, I was a fool, but it was because—it was because I was a fool in love with his best friend. And—”
And then he was in Mo’s arms, and Mo was kissing him in front of the entire town, two royals, and even Bill Bronson, and Juniper didn’t know anything else at all.
Mo cupped Juniper’s jaw with one large, calloused hand, tilting Juniper’s face gently and he was saying, “Yes, yes, yes, I will marry you—”
And Juniper O’Reilly was finally, finally home.