Page 52 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

She liked these moments before everybody woke up, when hers were the first footsteps in the dew; it was almost like she didn’t exist yet, because nobody had seen her. Later she’d put on her traveling clothes, and then her armor, and as each piece was strapped to her body it would feel like she was coming alive as an entirely different creature.

She’d always loved that. The transformation. Her body had once been scrawny and lean; it had filled out now, after many years of effort and enormous dinners, but back then putting on armor had been the only thing that turned her into a shape that made sense. The wide sweep of pauldrons, strengtheningthe lines of her shoulders; the breastplate, making her flat and broad; the gauntlets, giving her bigger, clumsier hands, not made for delicate work. She walked differently with it on—out of necessity, as everybody did—but she liked that too. The anonymity of it, the warrior’s silhouette, genderless and solid.

There was a smoky blue haze over the camp as she looped the perimeter, the fires burning low, the dark sky cracked at the horizon to reveal the orange yolk of the rising sun. Bridget breathed in wet soil and trampled grass and burning wood, that morning-camp smell, and then as she approached the tents again she noticed that Arthur was now sitting on a chest outside, a cup of something steaming in his hand.

He didn’t look up as she approached, and just said, “Gwen snores.”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Love,” he said sadly, “has deluded your ears. It’s not a big snore, it’s more of a delicate, ladylike whistle, but it’s bloody annoying when you’re trying to get back to sleep.”

Bridget sat down, and they were quiet for a while until he got up and returned with another cup of something bitterly dark, and handed it to her. “It’s coffee. It was incredibly expensive and I don’t have much of it because someone has to carry it across land and sea all the way from Ethiopia, so if you don’t like how I’ve made it, just spit it back out and I’ll drink it. It’s probably the only thing keeping me alive.”

Bridget took a sip. It was bracing. She needed to be braced today. “It’s good.”

“I know it’s good,” Arthur said, his voice heavy with exhaustion. “I’m regretting being nice and giving it to you already.”

The next person to awake was Sir Bowen. He came out ofhis tent looking well-rested and ready for the day, bid them a polite good morning, then went to find food. He returned with Sir Leonard, who looked like he’d slept under the wheels of a carriage. Between the four of them, they created a makeshift breakfast table out of luggage.

“Wait,” Leonard said, trying to untangle his hair with one hand and eat grapes with the other. “Delacey, do you have coffee? Give it. Now.”

“No. It’s mine. And that was the last of it. And I don’t like you.”

“Oh, how helies,” Sir Leonard hissed. “You’re besotted with me, little lordling.”

Arthur smiled sweetly at him. “Visiting with the elderly is just one of my charitable endeavors.”

Leonard, who was elusive about his age but couldn’t have been much more than thirty, narrowed his eyes, abandoning his detangling to point at Arthur accusingly. “Nasty. Wretched. Take it away.”

“I wish the two of you had never met,” said Sir Bowen.

They continued to trade insults over breakfast, but later, when everybody was beginning to pack up, Bridget walked past Arthur’s tent and saw that he was combing out and braiding Sir Leonard’s hair for him while Sir Leonard drank some of his coffee, so apparently all was forgiven.

Gwen was gone from the temporary infirmary, and when Bridget saw her again, it was apparent she’d found somewhere to bathe. She looked well-scrubbed and pink, the ends of her partially braided hair damp. Handsome. Vital. Bridget wondered if she smelled like herself, or like river water. Probably a little of both.

“Feeling better?” Gwen asked, as she hefted some of herown things onto the wagon, much to the dismay of the page behind her, who mimicked the motion with his empty hands like he was trying to help from a few feet away.

Bridget leaned against the wagon bed, partially out of necessity, partially because it brought her into closer proximity to Gwen, who glanced over at the page and smiled. “Thank you, I’m fine here. Go and help Sir Arthur with his kitten, I’m sure he needs it.”

“The, er, kitten is being sent back to Master Torres at Camelot,” the page said, with some relief. “I believe it has already departed.”

He went to assist someone else anyway. Without him there, they were functionally alone, hidden from view by small mountain ranges of trunks.

“You came to see me,” Bridget said, leaning closer. “In my sickbed.”

“You were asleep,” Gwen said apologetically. “I thought I’d just sit down for a moment and see if you woke up, but…”

“Instead you slept there,” Bridget finished for her. “At my bedside. Like I was dying.”

“It was an accident!”

Bridget let her weight slide, so her shoulder bumped gently into Gwen’s. “Very dramatic.”

Gwen glanced around, shrewd eyes taking in the precise location of everybody in their makeshift courtyard, then kissed Bridget quick and hard on the mouth, pulling away before Bridget was ready and leaving her still leaning into empty space.

“I don’t necessarily think it’s a good idea for you to throw yourself at any threat that crosses our path,” Gwen said, “but unfortunately I also find it very attractive. Some failing of my morality, I’m sure. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Mmm.” Bridget was still leaning in. She wanted more of this. Less thinking. More kissing. “Yeah?”