Page 4 of My Faire Lady

We order two meads, and the barmaid turns her back to us, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She plucks two metal cups from a shelf and flips a lever on a keg.

Kelsey leans against the raised counter. “Is it usually this quiet? I haven’t been here in a few years, but it was always packed.”

The barmaid slides the tankards our way, and the mead spills over the top, dripping down the sides of the cups.

She sucks in a cheek and scans the space above our heads, out into the faire. “It’s the quietest opening weekend we’ve had. Usually, I have a hard time keeping up with orders, and we run out of mead early in the evening, but something is different this year.”

“I’m sure it’ll pick up,” I say.

The barmaid pulls the rag from her shoulder and rubs it around the rim of a glass. “Let’s hope so.”

Kelsey gives me a sideways glance and raises a brow as the woman disappears through the swinging doors to the back.

I wrap my hand around my mead and lift it from the counter, ignoring the way it sticks to the wood. “To your twenty-first birthday.”

Kelsey smiles, tapping hers against mine. “And to one last summer together.”

Something deep within my chest crumples, but I hide it with the same practiced smile I’ve perfected since the first time she told me she accepted her dream job as a journalist in Los Angeles. I’m happy for her. I really am. She chased her dreams while I cared for grandma.

I take a long pull from my cup, and the liquid spreads over my tongue, cooling the heat creeping down the back of my corset.

Kelsey wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “What do you think?”

I purse my lips. “I kind of like it?”

We share a smile, genuine this time—as if we’re little again, only agreeing to dares if the other promises to do it, too. During the long stretches she’s away at school and I’m here, working at the fabric store, I’m worried she’ll come back a stranger, like she’ll have discovered some secret to life. But each time she returns, I’m reminded that physical distance can’t pry us apart.

A horn blows in the distance, and Kelsey’s eyes widen as she scans the schedule on the back of the map. “Hurry! Or we’ll miss the jackalope race!”

She whirls, and I follow, turning on my heel.

I slam into a wall of metal.

My grip on the tankard falters, and mead spills onto my corset—soaking through to the chemise. I stumble, and my foot catches a tree root, pitching me forward as my metal cup clatters to the ground.

The world tilts sideways, but an arm wraps around my waist and yanks me upright, pulling me against a metal breastplate.

“Are you okay?”

I blink hard and suck in a deep breath as my vision focuses on the armored knight. My fingers tangle in chainmail, palm pressed against steel. I tilt my head up and meet a set of wide hazel eyes. The air in my lungs falters, pulse skittering as a strand of auburn hair falls from the messy braid trailing over her shoulder.

A callused hand cups my cheek, and she leans forward, narrowing her eyes as she studies my face. “Hello? Are you okay?”

My mouth goes dry, and I lurch back. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was—” My gaze falls to my corset and the brown stain spreading over my chemise. The space behind my sternum twists. “It’s ruined.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman says, reaching out a hand. She decides otherwise and folds it into a fist, dropping it to her side. “I can find you a replacement.”

I shake my head. “No, you can’t. I stitched this by hand with fabric my grandmother brought me from France.”

The knight lifts her brows. “Then maybe you shouldn’t be wearing it here in the first place.”

My lips part, and Kelsey snatches a basket of paper napkins from the bar counter, shoving them against my chest. She drops to a knee and wrings out the skirt of my chemise, grimacing as mead drips onto the packed dirt.

A man sidles up beside the knight, studying me. The pointed arches of his ears poke through a tangle of chestnut curls, and his lips pull back into a smile, the white of his teeth bright against his brown skin. He gestures to my outfit. “You made this? With your own hands?”

I level him with a stare. “No, I made it with my feet.”

His smile disappears, and the knight raises a brow, smirking. The act presses a single dimple into the swell of her cheek, and a ray of sunshine cuts through the dappled leaves, tossing tiny flecks of light across her face.