Well Played (Well Met #2)(39)
“Of course it is!” He gestured to my laptop. “Look, I’ve known the Dueling Kilts for years. They’ve played the Faire since . . . well, I think since the first year we started hiring outside acts. And they’re great guys. But there’s no way that Dex MacLean could string together a coherent sentence, much less an elaborate email.”
“Hey.” I felt a lick of defensive anger for the hottie I’d hooked up with. But then I thought about it and, well, Simon wasn’t wrong. Hadn’t I thought something similar when I’d first started hearing from Dex? Daniel? Who-the-hell-ever? “Okay, yeah,” I said. “That’s fair.”
Simon’s smile wasn’t unkind as he finished his point. “Which means he got Daniel to write those emails for him. And that’s classic Cyrano.”
“Yeah, but what about the texts?” Emily picked up my phone and waved it at him. “Daniel was using his own phone number. You think Dex was standing over his shoulder, telling him what to say?”
“He could have been.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, in the original play, Cyrano and Christian were both in love with Roxane, but Cyrano sacrificed his chance to be with her because he thought she loved Christian more. But we don’t know if that’s the case here. Maybe Daniel . . .”
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” I closed my laptop with a snap and took my phone back from Emily. “You’re both nerds, you know that? In this century we don’t go straight for a Cyrano reference. We call it catfishing.”
Simon snorted, and Emily bit down on her bottom lip, but amusement danced in her eyes. “Well, yeah. That’s true. But Simon does have a point.”
“Of course I do.” He blew across the top of his mug before taking a sip.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t you have sets to finish painting?”
His eyes flew up to the clock on the microwave. “Shit.” He set down the mug and headed back to the bedroom.
“You’re fine!” Emily called after him. “You don’t have to be there for a half hour at least.” Then she turned back to me, continuing as though we hadn’t been interrupted. “I guess it could be a Cyrano situation if it happened the way Simon suggested. If Dex enlisted Daniel to be his mouthpiece, and if Daniel is also interested in you. Do you think he is?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.” All these months I’d been thinking about Dex, but now I let myself remember his cousin. Daniel, long and lean, those bright green eyes, his red hair caught back in that black baseball cap he always wore backward. Calm and steady where Dex was brash and bold. He’d always sought me out to say hi during Faire. He noticed when I got a new necklace. He wanted to make sure Dex wasn’t breaking my heart. Now that I thought about it, thought about Daniel, his personality matched our communications better than Dex’s ever did. How could I have missed it? But then again, how could I have known that my previous interactions with Daniel had led to the kinds of feelings he’d expressed over the past few months, those words I’d taken into my heart as I read them snuggled in bed under the fairy lights?
“But if he isn’t into you, maybe he was just helping Dex express how he really felt?” Emily drummed her fingernails against the side of her mug while she thought. “So the real question is, whose heart is in the words you’ve been getting? No.” She snapped her fingers. “Which one do you want it to be? That’s the real question. Because then you’ll know what to do when you find out which one it really is.”
“Yeah.” I sighed and let my head drop onto the table. The more I talked about it, the worse I felt. Who did I want to be behind the words?
“Should I call Daniel?” I looked up to see Simon coming out of the bedroom again, dressed in old clothes suitable for painting and carrying a pair of battered running shoes.
“What?” The thought horrified me. “No. Why?”
He sat down on the couch and started putting his shoes on. “We can revoke their contract. Tell him we don’t need them this year. I don’t like that they were jerking you around like that.” His voice was casual, but the way he kept his eyes down, focused hard on his shoelaces, told me what a hard thing this was for him to offer. This Faire was one of the most important things in Simon’s life, and the Dueling Kilts was a long-term act. Firing them for no reason wouldn’t go over well; word traveled fast on the Faire circuit. But Simon was willing to risk our Faire’s reputation for the sake of standing up to someone who had broken my heart. I’d known Simon for most of my life, and he’d always been a friend, but it wasn’t until this moment that I realized just how good a friend he was.
“No,” I said. My heart wasn’t broken. It was just a little bruised. I wasn’t down for the count yet. “It’s okay.” I took my laptop back and snapped it closed. “I can handle this.”
“You sure?” Emily raised her eyebrows.
“Yep. I have a plan.”
Twelve
Having a plan, I soon realized, and implementing said plan were two different things. I didn’t want to tip my hand too early, so once I got home from Emily’s I sent Dex—Daniel, whoever—a quick text. Sorry. Faire prep in overdrive around here, so I’m crazy busy. Talk to you soon! I even included a smiley-face emoji so he wouldn’t get suspicious. His answer came back relatively quickly—I can only imagine! Hope they’re not overworking you!—and was easy enough to respond to with a couple happy-looking emojis without saying too much.