Chapter Four
In lieu of Taco Bell, there will be bad decisions.
Ceres
I’ll be honest.
I fully expected Taco Bell.
Even with how little I leave my house, I know for a fact that Mars Rogue has an unhealthy attachment to two types of food. First, carrot cake. Second, Taco Bell.
Given that I maintain a perfectly modest garden—which absolutely does not flourish both inside and outside of my house, overwhelming my yard and bookshelves with flowers, herbs, vegetables, ivies, and succulents…
—I often see him frosting tiny carrots onto cake through his kitchen window, which faces my house, and I also often find myself outside when Mars drives up with his Taco Bell.
Taco Bell is, seemingly, the only place he doesn’t go on his bike. Or, perhaps, whenever he opts to take his charcoal grey Honda Civic out for a spin instead of pop onto his brilliant copper bicycle, he inevitably also retrieves Taco Bell.
Who knows?
It’s not like I’m the one with an incurable tendency to locate him whenever I exit my abode…
Let’s just say I have lost count of the number of times I have caught the man frozen on his sidewalk, eyes locked on me.
Catching him staring is great because when I smile at him, his face explodes red before he crushes whatever burritos he has going cold in his Taco Bell bag and darts inside his house.
Despite belonging to half the ultimate terror duo of Bandera, Mars’s insecurities are obvious and aplenty, even from afar.
Needless to say, they’re ever more obvious and aplenty when they’re about three feet in front of me, just past a linen tablecloth and a spattering of tall, lit candles.
Stressed, he spins a card between his fingers while his eyes hold to the flickering firelight.
During the drive out of town to the nearest city and this swanky restaurant, our conversation consisted of him handing me a couple hundred dollars as assurance he wouldn’t stick me with the bill, me asking if they were counterfeit, and him laughing.
Now, he’s been quiet ever since we’ve been seated, giving me ample moments to appreciate the atmosphere.
It’s been three years since I’ve been outside Bandera with all it’s everyone knows everyone and pretends to know you energy.
Here, I’m free to be quiet, because being quiet and concise is what service workers just trying to do their jobs prefer.
The hostess did not strike up small talk when she sat us.
She only coldly smiled. And I bet once our waiter gets here, they will follow a precise script—drink, meal, anything else?
—instead of discussing how many calves their neighbor’s cow birthed last spring.
When I first moved into Bandera, it was because I could afford the cost of living and I wanted to fade into the nothingness, away from the millions of people in the city where I grew up.
I never expected that fewer people meant more harrowing cow birthing stories sprung upon me during dinner.
Not to say I wasn’t perfectly content to fizzle back to my house and take up a lifestyle of never leaving again …but…
I don’t know.
It’s nice to be here and not scared out of my mind that I’m about to say something to someone that opens a steaming can of trauma.
“Maybe I should move back into the city,” I murmur.
Mars’s eyes snap off the flames. “Because of me?”
No, not even a little bit. I stare at him, then poke the bundle of nerves that seems to make him up. “Yes.”
His card stops spinning. “Surely the crime in the city is worse.”
“Maybe, but it’s never once been in my living room before today.” I rest my chin in my palm and swipe my fingers through the fire. “I value that in a municipality.”
Mars’s throat bobs, eyes fixated on my fingers as they dance over the wicks. He takes in a hard breath. “No, I don’t like this plan.”
“Strange how that puts another pin under the pros for it, then, huh?”
“Ceres—”
“It’s just so… peoplely in Bandera. In the city, I could get my groceries delivered to my door and not have to open it until the delivery people are gone.
” My love of nature really plotted against me here.
I thought it would be fabulous to live somewhere with more of a property line, a yard bordered only by trees, and no HOA telling me that I have too many pots on my porch. Silly me.
Mars states, “That somehow seems unhealthy.”
“Who made you an authority on the subject of healthy behavior ?”
His mouth opens and closes in the same second. Dragging his attention off my fingers, he mumbles, “I’m allowed to be a self-aware hypocrite.”
“Aren’t hypocrites the most revolting of people?”
“Aren’t all people hypocrites?”
As he collides with the point, I arch a brow and say, “Yes.”
His mouth does another open and close, then his eye twitches.
And this time I didn’t even need to mention his brother’s government name.
Heh.
I don’t know what it is about this man. My usual default of pleasing has reversed into antagonism . It’s refreshing.
“You’re not moving,” Mars says, with finality. “You’re helping me plan a Flag Day festival for the deprived people of Bandera, who have never before witnessed the full delight of flags.”
I remove my phone from my skirt pocket, place it on the table, and begin a lazy scroll on Zillow.
“Ceres.”
“Yeesh. Nine hundred dollars a month to an HOA? I thought I checked the absolutely not box.”
“ Ceres .”
Jutting my lip, I glance at Mars as though I am not having the time of my life.
He reiterates, “You’re not moving. You’re helping me plan my Flag Day festival.”
“Your delusion is nearly admirable.” I lock my phone. “Okay, fine. I’m curious enough to humor this conversation further—why Flag Day?”
A sliver of amusement touches the corner of his mouth. “Because. Flag Day is the most romantic holiday of the year.”
“Are you mistaking Flag Day for Valentine’s Day next week?”
He closes his fingers together beside his napkin-wrapped silverware. “No. They’re entirely different holidays celebrated in entirely different months.”
“So your delusion is actually admirable.”
“I don’t make the rules.”
“Right, yeah. You just break them.”
His teeth flash in a chilling smile that sends a shiver tracing down my spine.
While I’m busy shuddering, Mars orders our drinks and an appetizer, sparing me the need to communicate with the waiter. Once our drinks arrive, I reach for my straw and cave into yet more curiosity. “Give me one good reason why I should do this.”
“You won’t have to put all four of your tires back on.”
“Free flowers make that worth it. Try again.”
“You’d be sharing the magic of Flag Day with the cold hearts of the poor people of Bandera.”
My eyes roll. “I wish those people’s hearts were colder. Maybe then I’d know less about the miracle of cow birth.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
“It actually isn’t. Try again.”
“I can pay you.”
I hum and take a sip of my soda. “Bribery. I’d have expected threat of bodily harm to come first. How much are you offering for this project managing position?”
“How much would be effective?”
He and his brother live in a modest home right next to mine.
I don’t see either of them leave for work, but then again with modern society that doesn’t mean they aren’t working online just like I do.
How much is a reasonable wage for a few months as a project manager?
And how much extra would I require to make it worth my while… ?
And, wait a second, I don’t actually need money. At all.
There’s…absolutely nothing that I want, is there? Nothing I’m interested in. Nowhere I want to go. Nothing I want to do.
I live to read. I read for work. I decorate my home in plants and bookcases, creating a hovel for a book hermit. There is nothing that Mars can offer me that I can’t find within the wonderful realm of stories.
There is absolutely no reason for me to exit my comfort zone in an attempt to aid a known lunatic, who likely is only plotting a Flag Day festival as a diversion for some other insane plot.
Because while Jove slashes tires and exacts odd justices all over town, Mars—Amelia tells me—has always schemed bigger.
He’s set government property on fire, for reasons unknown.
He’s stolen animals from the pound, forcibly rehomed them, then vanished into the ether.
Apparently, he was loaded in high school because he had half a dozen side hustles, including tutoring, which Amelia says may or may not have involved breaking into offices and studying the tests beforehand.
He’d make people do the work, but he’d tutor specifically to the content to make sure the product he offered was relevant—which is nuts.
Almost as nuts as the fact he’d turn in all his tests with surplus information in the margins three times as difficult or complex as the actual questions.
Whenever teachers tried to address him on the subject of cheating , he’d ask for a verbal quiz right then and there and get all the answers right (going so far as to break open the source content and correct the teachers whenever they misremembered something) before walking away.
Once—and probably the reason Amelia knows any of this—Brian went to bat for him and said that anyone Mars tutors absolutely wouldn’t be cheating, because Mars’s methods were the equivalent of scoring knowledge into your very soul.
You’d pass the class, and carry the trauma for the rest of your life.
That’s Mars.
A brilliant mastermind who knows exactly how to utilize the tools around him to his advantage.
All this said, I am not the most obvious tool for whatever he’s up to currently if he just needs someone to be the face of his operation.
That reasoning is weak. You don’t get someone who barely displays having any social skills to do this job.
I also don’t think for a second that he’s just trying to do something nice for his brother .
The manipulative angle dawns on me, and realization seems to show on my face, because Mars says, “Have you calculated your price?”
“You’re using my curiosity to manipulate me into agreeing.”
His gaze skids . “I would never .”
“And you’re feeding me because people are more relaxed and open while eating.”
He braces his chin in his hand, rests his elbow on the fine dining table, and peers at me through the fire. “What? No. Absolutely not. This is a date.”
Yeah, sure. A date . “I cannot become an accessory to a crime. I’m not certain there are enough books for me in prison.”
“There is no crime, but if there were, I haven’t faced the repercussions of being caught in three thousand four hundred twenty-four days, so I’d say you’re in good hands.”
“Three thousand four hundred twenty-four days? Do you keep tally marks on your bedroom walls?”
“No, I keep jokers on my bedroom walls, and a Days Since Incident marker on my desk.”
“Posh.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not interested in money.”
“What are you interested in, little goddess?” His fingers thread before his lips as he adjusts his position. “What can I do to make your wildest dreams come true?”
It is lunacy. It is truly, truly madness, but it is what comes out of my mouth, without logical reasoning or any real forethought.
Because, dang it all, curiosity killed the Ceres.
“Pick up my grocery orders for me for as long as I live in Bandera, so that after this year’s Flag Day passes, I will never have to leave my property again. ”
With like lunacy and absence of thought, Mars says, “Done,” and the waiter returns to take our orders.