Well Met(19)

But today, when I laid eyes on him, every negative thought about the guy flew out of my head. Because today, Mitch wasn’t Mitch. Today, Marcus MacGregor had come to play. Mitch was wearing the Kilt.

The Kilt. The kilt I’d been promised when I’d agreed to this whole shebang in the first place. It had slipped my mind with everything else going on in my life. But suddenly, volunteering for this Faire was the best damn idea I ever had.

Don’t ask me what clan the tartan was, I didn’t care. That wasn’t important. What was important? Those legs. In a kilt, Mitch transformed from goofy jock-douche to a man. A man who didn’t skip leg day. A man with calves that could have been carved from marble. There were muscle and power in those legs, and I’d never wanted to touch a guy’s legs the way I wanted to put my hands on Mitch’s.

But then he strutted over in our direction, his eyes focused about six inches south of my chin, and I bit back a sigh. Yes, the boy was hot. But, much to my libido’s chagrin, looks weren’t everything.

“Thanks.” I straightened my chemise a little, even though I’d just finished doing that. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” I gestured to his kilt. “So this is the famous kilt, huh? You wear that every year?”

“Sure do. The kilt’s been a thing for a while now,” he said to my tits.

“Oh, it haaaaaas.” Stacey turned to me with a grin. “I’m telling you, Em, this is my favorite part of rehearsals. I like to think of it as Kilt Day.”

I snorted, a little awkwardly in the costume, while Mitch dragged his eyes upward; he shrugged and tried to look self-deprecating, but he was far too pleased with himself to pull it off. The guy practically preened. “The girls love it.”

“I’m sure we do. Er, they do. I’m sure they do.” But there was no saving it. I flushed bright red while Mitch laughed. And when the man laughed, he laughed. Loud. And long. Heads turned in our direction, and most of them turned away again with a bemused smile at Mitch being Mitch. But Simon, standing at the lip of the stage, frowned before shaking his head and going back to whatever he was saying to Chris, turning a black hat with a giant red feather around and around in his hands.

“Good job,” I said. “Because the boss isn’t mad at me enough.”

“Who?” Mitch followed my gaze and scoffed. “Oh, the Captain? How’d you piss him off?”

Mitch had a nickname for everyone, apparently; even the head of this whole operation. “Captain” was probably a better nickname than “Dickhead.” “Who knows? Showing emotion? Having a good time?”

“I’m telling you,” Mitch said. “That guy seriously needs to get laid.”

I choked. “Ugh. Who the hell would volunteer for that?” I couldn’t imagine a worse way to spend a night. And I’d worked closing shift in a bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

“You’d be surprised,” Stacey said. “There was that one girl, remember, Mitch? A couple summers back? She was what, a dancer? Something? I remember her being . . . limber.”

Mitch snorted. “Fight crew. They lasted all of a minute.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t count.”

“Well, yeah, but that was . . .” Stacey trailed off like she was looking for the right word. “It was a couple years ago. His head wasn’t in the game.”

“Is it ever? The guy’s been like a monk ever since Sean’s been gone.”

I blinked. What did his brother leaving town have to do with Simon having a girlfriend? It must have made sense to Stacey, though, since she tsked at him. “Can you blame him? It’s not really fair to . . .” She trailed off again. Why couldn’t she find the words when it came to Simon?

But Mitch must have understood; part of that small-town shorthand that I wasn’t privy to yet. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He sighed. “Still think it would be good for him.” With another exaggerated eye roll, he wandered off down the aisle, giving out more fist bumps and posing, basically working the kilt as much as he worked the room.

Stacey shook her head as we watched Mitch go. “Y’all really should be nicer to Simon. He’ll grow on you, I promise.”

I snorted again. It was easier to do this time, but being strapped in took getting used to. It was rigid. Even though my body moved inside it, the bodice itself had steel bones running through it so it didn’t bend much. It was like a cage around my torso. I’d adjusted to surviving on sips of air, but I already felt like I hadn’t taken a good deep breath in years. Now that it was on my mind, panic rose in my lungs. I was suffocating. I wanted to tear off the fabric and metal cage around my ribs and breathe.

By force of will I calmed myself down. I wasn’t suffocating. I was wearing a tight bodice. That was all.

Stacey noticed my distress. “Hey. You’re okay. I know, it’s weird at first, but don’t worry. It gets easier. How about we go outside and watch the fighting? You need to move around some, and get used to wearing it.”

“So Mitch is fighting? While wearing that kilt?” That would be enough to distract me from this suffocating death trap I was wearing.

“Oh, yeah. Why do you think I keep coming back every year?”

She didn’t have to ask a second time.

Outside, the heat of the late-June morning had started to kick in. I followed Stacey out of the auditorium, past the singers harmonizing in the foyer, then out the double doors and around the side of the building. There was a pavilion about fifty yards away with picnic tables, probably a popular place for students to eat lunch when the weather was nice. Some of the picnic tables had been commandeered by the tech crew, where they cut and sanded various lengths of lumber, while others were busy with paintbrushes.