Chapter Eight #4
“Right.” I barely heard her sigh. “Okay. Chess match time.” She blew him one more kiss as we turned to head back to the lane.
Once we hit the main thoroughfare we picked up our pace—Toby striding ahead with a bellowed “make way for the Queen!” We were super late now; we should have already been at the chess field.
But I wasn’t going to deny the Queen her visit to her loved ones.
And from the looks on their faces, the band loved seeing her as Queen. She really was one of their family.
“Y’all are too cute.” I kept my voice down as I didn’t bother with my accent or attempt at character.
“Daniel?” She looked over her shoulder as though she could still see him back at the Marlowe Stage. “He’s my guy,” she said simply, but her eyes twinkled with happiness. “He keeps me in pumpkin spice lattes.”
I laughed at the non sequitur. “And what do you keep him in?”
She blinked, as though she’d never been asked that.
I hadn’t meant for it to be a serious question, but she was silent for a few paces.
“Love,” she finally said. “He’s my person, and I make sure every day that he knows it.
That I chose him to go through life with.
I let him know as often as I can that he’s all I need. ”
“Sounds nice.” The words sounded bitter coming out of my mouth, and I didn’t mean them that way.
Because it did sound nice, and Stacey and Daniel were adorable together.
But I had no idea what that was like. I’d dated a few guys in college, but none of those relationships had been anything serious.
None of them had come home to meet Mom, or anything like that.
How could you plan forever when you were secretly waiting for them to dump you via text on a random Tuesday?
I always found it easier to break up with them first.
Hmm. Maybe I was the problem here.
Anxiety prickled my skin as the players took their places for the human chess match.
There was a big Mitch-shaped hole in the show, and his absence was conspicuous.
Even though I’d watched Simon and Alex rehearse for the better part of the week in my backyard, I was nervous.
This was the first time the chess match had been different since… well, for as long as I could remember.
But I had the cheat sheet, and I slipped it from my pouch now, pressing it into Stacey’s hand. “Oh, that’s right,” she murmured as she consulted it. “All this Queen stuff, I forgot this had changed.”
I nodded. “Lots of changes this year.”
The biggest change was front and center.
Alex jogged onto the chess field, his cheeks flushed and his breath a little ragged; he’d obviously just come from his morning show and was cutting it close.
I could already see the texts between Simon and him later tonight, tweaking the schedule again.
But if they were rattled, neither of them showed it.
Simon handed Alex a sword belt and rapier, and Alex buckled it on as they talked in low tones.
Alex laughed at some joke he’d just made, and Simon’s grin was a quick flash of white teeth against his dark beard.
As they moved into position, Alex stopped suddenly as though just remembering something.
Then he turned on his heel and walked straight in our direction, and I told my heart to stop racing.
He wasn’t here for me; he was paying his respects to the Queen before the match started.
But no. He stopped in front of me. When he stretched his body into a long bow, it was for me.
“Milady.” He straightened up, and suddenly there was a rose in his hand, and he extended it in my direction.
Where had that come from? I exchanged a wide-eyed look with Stacey, then with Toby, who finally nudged me to action.
“Good sir.” My voice was faint as I stepped forward to take the rose. It was from the leatherworker’s stall, where I’d left him this morning. The petals were a deep forest green, the color of the journal I’d been admiring. The color of Alex’s jerkin and breeches.
“A token,” he said. “In the hope that you will consider me your champion on this fine festival day.”
“I…” My mind was wiped blank. I’d never had a conversation in my life. And Alex was still looking at me with an easy smile, rose extended to me, as though he was willing to stand there all day while I tried to figure out what to say.
But Stacey was there to save me. “Good sir, this is most irregular.” Her normally sunny voice was now tempered with the weight of a monarch, as she gestured at me to take the rose from Alex. “It is for the lady to bestow a token upon her champion, not the other way around.”
Alex took a step closer and I did the same.
My fingers brushed his as I took the rose, the heat of his skin reacting against mine like a live wire.
But he didn’t seem fazed as he stepped back and placed a hand over his heart.
“I require no token from her,” he said. “Only permission to bask in her smile.”
Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Yet I couldn’t help the in-character smile that came to my face as he repeated his bow. Ugh. Fine. He could be my champion.
There was something in his face that lit up at the sight of my smile. “I will win this battle for you, my lady.”
“Very well,” I all but wheezed, clinging to my character by my fingernails. This was all uncharted territory for poor Lady Guenevere. She’d never had a champion before.
Come to think of it, neither had I.