He turned immediately at my touch, his eyes registering surprise. He gave a dismissive nod to the person he’d been talking to, then turned his full attention to me.
“Good morrow, milady.” He didn’t look particularly happy to see me. In fact he looked guarded, not like a boyfriend at all. That was my fault, pushing him away the way I had. And while this wasn’t the time to fix it, I had to do something.
“Look happy to see me,” I hissed before stepping closer, a too-wide smile on my face. Instead of doing what he was told, Mitch looked down at me like I’d had a stroke. “Your grandparents are here,” I said through my manic grin, trying to remember how to look like a girlfriend.
“Are they?” His voice was still in character but his eyes widened. They flicked over my head, glancing around before pausing. “Ah. I see them.” When he looked back down at me he’d managed to arrange his face into a pleased expression, not quite boyfriend-like but getting there. We could do this. Hopefully.
“Yep. So we gotta . . .” I touched his arm again, because it was right there and how could I not? I even indulged myself, sliding my palm up his sun-warmed skin, enjoying the way his muscles flexed under my hand. God, he felt good, and for a moment I forgot why I was there. I was touching his skin and his breath had quickened; I knew if I looked up into his electric blue eyes I’d see them dark and wanting. My mind was back in that Virginia hotel room from a while back—hell, my living room floor from a few weeks ago—and I knew that his mind was there too.
“Hey.” He’d dropped the accent, but his voice was so soft that no one else could hear him except me. I didn’t look at him; I stayed focused on my hand on his arm, until his fingertips were under my chin, tilting my head up to meet his eyes. I caught my breath, because there it was. There was that look, the one I’d been expecting. The one I’d been dreading. Now he looked like a boyfriend. “It’s okay.” His voice was little more than breath, and the smile that played around his mouth wasn’t playacting at all. Before I could think about it, he leaned down, brushing a ghost of a kiss across my mouth. “Thanks for coming to save me,” he whispered into my mouth.
“Of course,” I breathed back, fighting the impulse to rise onto my toes to get another kiss. A real kiss. “Quid pro quo, remember?”
“Oh, yeah?” He smiled against my lips. “What do I owe you this time?”
I grinned as we parted. “Consider this one a freebie.”
That made him laugh, a rumbling sound that was for more than just the two of us as he slid back into character. Both as the Scotsman with a sword and as my fake boyfriend. “Too right, my love,” he said, chucking me under the chin, his eyes alight with merriment. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a fight to win.” He picked up the sword and bowed in my direction before turning back to the chess field and his castmates. He walked directly over to Simon, who was buckling on his sword belt. The two men had a quiet, serious conversation, ending with Simon nodding emphatically and Mitch clapping him on the shoulder with a relieved expression before coming back to his side of the field.
My job was done, technically. We’d performed in front of his family, and now I could get the hell out of there. Mitch wouldn’t be caught off guard when they found him after the show. He was prepared now, and could give them some bullshit excuse for me leaving.
But my legs didn’t want to work. They still shook from the force of that barely-there kiss, so instead I sank down onto the bench where his sword had been. My heart fluttered as he got into position, and my breath came short in my chest. Maybe I should just sit here for a few minutes. I could do that. Then I could go home.
“Oh. Em. Gee.” Stacey slid onto the bench behind me, her face suffused with joy. “You two are the cutest!”
I turned to her with a scowl, even though all my nerve endings were still buzzing happily from the feel of Mitch’s skin against mine. “Don’t you have an actual job here? Shouldn’t you be doing that instead of harassing me?”
Stacey shrugged, completely unconcerned in the face of my ire. “We’re between shows. Prime walking-around time. And I’m so glad I did, because I got to see that!” She hugged herself with glee.
“It was nothing,” I insisted, but I didn’t sound as certain as I wanted to. “Nothing,” I repeated. “Just doing him a favor.”
“A favor?” She shook her head. “How so?”
“April! There you are!”
My head whipped around in time to see Mitch’s cousin Lulu, waving at me, shepherding her grandparents in my direction. Because of course she was. I stood up instinctively, ushering Grandma and Grandpa Malone to sit on my front-row bench, while Lulu and I took seats next to Stacey on the bench behind. I made quick introductions, glaring at Stacey from behind Lulu’s back as I did so.
“I met them when I went with Mitch to a family gathering a little while back.” I infused the words with as much meaning as I could, mentally begging Stacey to read between the lines.
“Oh, how nice!” Stacey said, playing along. Thank God for Stacey.
Grandpa Malone turned to look back at me. “I have to say, April, you were right.”
I blinked at him. “I was?” Right about what? I’d hardly spoken two words to him that whole weekend, except to praise his barbecue, which wouldn’t be news to him.
Grandma Malone nodded, joining the conversation. “I had no idea what Mitch does here. I knew that he did this Faire, of course, but I didn’t know what that meant. And I decided that needed to change.”
Grandpa Malone nodded in agreement. “That’s why we came today.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to them. My whole rant at their dining room table had been an embarrassment as far as I was concerned. I’d expected the main takeaway to be that I was unstable.
“Yep.” Lulu nudged my shoulder with hers. “And when they told me they were going to come up, I insisted on coming with. I had to see this whole kilt thing for myself. Between you and me, kilts aren’t really my thing, but . . .” She looked across the field at her cousin with a grin. “You’re right. I bet he’s very popular here.”
“Oh, he is,” I said before I could think about it. Should I sound jealous? What the hell was girlfriend protocol for that kind of conversation? I decided that as Mitch’s girlfriend I would be confident. Willing to share him with the masses. Because honestly, would anyone be able to stop Mitch from being Mitch?
“I don’t understand what we’re watching.” Grandpa Malone shook his head. “What exactly is happening here?” He directed the question to me, which was a terrible idea. Because my answer was “human chess match” with absolutely no clarification.
But thank God for Stacey—she knew this Faire like the back of her hand. “In human chess, that whole field is the board—see the squares? And the people are the pieces.” She pointed. “See, pawns in front, the rest of the pieces in the back. They get directed on where to move, and when a piece takes another piece, it’s a whole fight. Like with swords.”