Well Played (Well Met #2)(43)

I had to snort at his description. “No. No, it’s really not.” Certainly not now that I knew that Dex hadn’t been anywhere near a computer or a cell phone to compose any of those messages I’d read in my nest of a bed under the soft fairy lights.

“I hoped not,” he said. “Not just for my sake, but . . .” He cleared his throat, shifted on his barstool. “I saw you that night last summer. Here at the hotel, at the ice machine.”

“Yeah. I saw you too.” My face heated with remembered embarrassment. The ice bucket had been cold in my hands, and my instinct had been to duck behind the rough stucco pillar so that Daniel wouldn’t see me. It was as though I’d known even then that Dex wasn’t the one I wanted to be with, and that Daniel’s good opinion was one worth keeping. Why hadn’t I listened to my instincts? I should have chucked that ice bucket and gone home that night.

Silence settled over us as we sipped our drinks.

“I knew it wouldn’t last,” Daniel finally said, and I could barely hear him over the general noise of the bar. “You said ‘Happy New Year, Dex.’” He shook his head. “Dex. By then we’d talked so much, and shared so much, that I’d let myself forget that you thought you were talking to him, and not me. I didn’t know what to say.”

“You could have started with ‘By the way, this isn’t Dex.’ That might have been a good beginning.”

“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows. “And how would that conversation have gone, both of us slightly drunk at one in the morning on New Year’s Day?”

Anger still blazed through me, but I had to admit he had a point. “There were plenty of sober opportunities to set me straight. You should have told me.”

“I know.” He tilted his head back, draining the last of his beer, and pushed the glass away. “I should have done a lot of things. For what it’s worth, Stacey, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” He reached for me, his hand halfway to my arm, but something in my eyes must have made him halt the movement.

“No.” I put my hands up. This was all confusing enough. If he touched me it would only be worse. He’d hurt me, but he was also the one I wanted to comfort me. “I trusted you.” Tears sprang to my eyes, but I blinked them back. They weren’t part of this conversation. “I told you things that . . .” I bit down hard on my bottom lip. “Do you have any idea how much you meant to me? How much it meant to have someone to talk to? Really talk to for a change? You were . . .” I swallowed hard. Those damn tears weren’t going away, and that made me angrier. Which made me tear up more. I hated this.

“I know,” he said again, his eyes large and sorrowful. “I wish I could fix this.”

I shook my head. Most of my anger at him had burned away with my tears, leaving me frustrated and not a little bit sad. “I wish you could too.”

“Yeah.” I thought he was going to say something else, but instead he stood up, his barstool making a scraping noise as he pushed it back. He took his wallet out of his back pocket and laid a couple bills on the bar in between us, placing his empty glass on top. “I’m so sorry,” he said again. But his eyes weren’t sorry. They ate me up again, and this time I was the main course and dessert all wrapped into one. His eyes were gorging themselves on me, as though he knew he’d never get this chance again, and I didn’t like the way that made me feel.

Before I could say anything else he was gone, threading his way through the Friday night crowd that had formed while we’d been talking at the bar. And that’s when his eyes made sense. He hadn’t just been saying sorry. He’d been saying goodbye.

Well, crap.

At first I just stared at the empty space he left behind. The empty beer glass, my mostly full wineglass, the cash to pay for both. The air between us was clear, but there would be no kissing tonight. Maybe not ever.

So much for my plan.





Thirteen




The Willow Creek Renaissance Faire had been a part of me—and I’d been part of it—for a decade now, and from the beginning the first day of Faire felt like magic. It was opening night of a play, the first day of school, and the beginning of the best summer vacation all rolled into one. The grounds were ready. The performers were in town, and vendors were set up with otherworldly wares. And while every year brought some new faces into the mix, for the most part the performers and vendors were the same each time, so it was like a reunion of familiar faces.

But on this opening day I woke up without that same sense of joy I always experienced. I tried to push away my frustration, remind myself that Faire was my happy place. My happy time. But would it still be, knowing that Daniel would be there too? Were we about to start four weekends of elaborately avoiding each other? Faire wasn’t that big.

The sun had just crested the trees when I parked my car in our grassy lot in the back of the Faire grounds. I didn’t get out right away; instead I watched the early morning sunlight through the trees. I’d thought about texting Daniel a couple times last night, and at least three times this morning, but I hadn’t known what to say. He hadn’t texted me either.

“Ugh, enough,” I finally chastised myself. I locked my phone in my glove compartment. I wasn’t going to need it for a while. I’d put on most of my costume at home: the underdress and overskirt of my wench’s outfit, along with my new boots; all I had to do was get wrangled into my corset, pull back my hair, and put on my necklace. As I tripped my way down to the Hollow that first early morning to finish getting ready, I passed the leathersmith’s booth and she flagged me down.