“Fine.” I plucked my pen back out of my purse and scribbled the word “wench” down on the form, then thrust the paper back into his hands. “Here.”
“Thank you,” he said automatically, as though he hadn’t admonished me like a child thirty seconds before.
Gah. What a dick.
As I headed up the aisle toward the back of the auditorium, it didn’t take me long to spot Caitlin a couple rows away, talking to her friends. A smirk took over my face, and I scooted down the row in front of her, maneuvering around the folded-up seats.
“Hey.” I gave her a mock punch on the shoulder to get her attention. “You know you need an adult to volunteer with you, right?”
“I do?” Her eyes widened, and she looked down toward Simon with alarm, as though he was about to throw her out of the auditorium. Well, he’d have to go through me first.
“Yep. So guess who agreed to be a tavern wench this summer. How much do you love me?” I held my breath. Most teens wouldn’t want to be caught dead with a parental figure within a five-mile radius, much less want to spend the summer hanging out with them. But Caitlin was a good kid, and we’d developed a rapport since I’d stepped in as her Adult In Charge. Maybe she’d be cool with it.
Her look of alarm turned to surprised joy. “Really?” The word was a squeak coming out of her mouth. “So we both get to do the Faire?”
“Looks like it,” I replied. “You owe me one, kiddo.”
Her response was more squeal than words, but the way she threw her arms around my neck in an awkward hug over the row of seats told me everything. Maybe that was the advantage to being a cool aunt as opposed to a mom. This new family dynamic took some getting used to, but I was already starting to like it.
“We talked you into it, huh?” Mitch was waiting for me at the end of the row when I scooted back down to the aisle.
I shrugged. “It’s not like I have much of a choice.” I looked over my shoulder at Caitlin, giggling with her friends over something on their phones. “Doing this means a lot to her, so here I am.”
“You’re a good person, Emily.” He squinted. “It was Emily, right?”
I nodded. “Emily Parker.” I moved to offer a handshake, but he came back with a fist bump instead, and what kind of idiot would I be to not accept that?
“Good to meet you, Park. But trust me. You’re gonna have a great time at Faire.”
I blinked at the immediate nickname, but decided to roll with it. “Well, I have been promised that there are kilts involved, so . . .” I did my best to let my eyes linger on him without being some kind of creep about it. But Mitch didn’t seem like the type of guy to mind a little ogling. In fact, he seemed to encourage it.
“Oh, yeah.” A grin crawled up his face, and his eyes lingered right back. A flush crept up the back of my neck. If I’d known this was going to be a mutual-ogling kind of day, I would have done more this morning than wash my face and put on some lip gloss. “Believe me,” he said. “You’ll have a great summer. I’ll make sure of it.”
I laughed. “I’ll hold you to that.” An easy promise to make, since I was already enjoying myself. I headed back up the aisle and plopped into my vacated seat in the last row. Down at the front, Simon collected more forms, probably criticizing applicants’ handwriting while he did so. He glanced up at one point like he could feel my eyes on him, and his brows drew together in a frown. God, he was really holding a grudge about that form, wasn’t he?
At the other side of the auditorium, Mitch high-fived a student and offered a fist bump to Caitlin, who looked at him like he hung the moon. I knew which of these two guys I was looking forward to getting to know better this summer, and it wasn’t the Ren Faire Killjoy.
* * *
• • •
I’d always been a little in awe of my older sister. Married young and divorced young from a man who’d had little interest in being a father, April had raised Caitlin on her own with an independence that bordered on intimidating. We’d never been particularly close—a twelve-year age difference will do that, when April was off to college right around the time that I was starting to become interesting—but I’d always thought of her as someone to emulate.
Which was why it was so hard to see her in her current condition.
When we got home from auditions, I opened the front door to find a crutch in the middle of the living room floor. I followed the line of the crutch, which pointed directly at my big sister on the couch. She looked like a dog who’d been caught going through the trash.
“You tried to get up while we were gone, didn’t you?” I crossed my arms and stared her down. It was hard to look threatening when you were barely five foot three, but I managed pretty well.
“Yeah.” April sighed. “That didn’t go well.”
Caitlin didn’t notice our little standoff. “Hey, Mom!” She dropped a kiss in the vicinity of April’s cheek before running off to her room. She could text more efficiently in there, probably.
I picked up the fallen crutch and propped it against the arm of the couch next to the other one. “BLTs okay for lunch?”
“Sure. Everything go okay?” April craned her neck to the side and tossed the question over her shoulder as I went into the kitchen to get the bacon started. “Did Caitlin get signed up for the cast?” Shifting noises on the couch, punctuated by some swearing under her breath. Yeah, she was definitely cutting back on the pain medication. The next few days would be bumpy.
“Everything went fine. They said they can’t take everyone, but they’re sending out an email next week to everyone who made the cast.”
“Next week? Oof. I don’t know if I can live with her long enough for her to find out if she’s in.”
“She’ll get in.” I punched down the bread in the toaster and started slicing tomatoes. “If they don’t let her in, they don’t get me. Thanks for that, by the way. You totally set me up.”
“What? No, I didn’t. I told you not to go in there. All you were supposed to do was drop her off.”
“Yeah, well.” I got down three plates and started assembling sandwiches. “Caitlin can’t be in the cast without a parent volunteering. They said you were going to volunteer, you know, before . . .” There was no good way to end that sentence.
“What?” April was repeating herself now, and it had nothing to do with meds. “I . . . oh.” Yep. There it was. She remembered now. “Shit.” I glanced through the pass-through to see her sag against the back of the couch. “I did set you up. I completely forgot.”