His smile cracked wide open and his eyes crinkled at the corners as he wrapped his arms around my waist, dipped me backwards, and kissed me. The whole world erupted with applause, and I could swear that I could hear our friends cheering louder than anyone else.
By the time I was upright again, everything else had been put right, too.
“Let’s all raise a cheer for the brave Lady Morgana, and Sir Jack Evans!” the Queen cried. The knights and attendants all shouted, “hip, hip!” and the crowd responded with a deafening “huzzah!”
Chapter54
Jack
“Ilove you so much,” Morgan said as I nuzzled into her neck, the delicate chains cold against my cheek.
Hip hip, huzzah!
“I love you, too,” I said in her ear. “And I’m so sorry. But I meant it. You can take the job. No matter where you want to be, what you want to do, I’m there.”
Hip hip, huzzah!
“About that,” she said, and I pulled back to see a huge smile on her face. “I actually got a different job.”
“Oh?” I tried not to soundtoohopeful.
“Simone helped me get a design job at the R escue. So looks like I’ll be sticking around.”
I swallowed hard as I fought back tears. Was this real life?
As the fervour died down around us, I looked up and around and saw the Queen beckoning to us from the balcony. I grabbed Morgan by the hand and climbed the stairs with her, and the Queen presented us to the crowd once more, and they cheered again. Then we were seated, Morgan draped across my lap rather than on her own seat, and the joust began.
“That was hella romantic,” the Queen said, dropping out of her Ren Faire voice and into a deep southern drawl.
“It really was,” I said, turning to Morgan. “You’re my knight in ornamental armour.”
“Damn straight,” Morgan said, sitting up straighter.
The Queen turned back to the joust, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Morgan. She looked more beautiful to me than she ever had, and not just because of the dress, or because of what had just happened. Though sure, that probably had something to do with it.
No, it was because she looked so confident. So completely herself, in a way I’d never seen her. And I hoped I could spend the rest of my life helping her feel that way.
I leaned over towards her, burying my face in her hair by her ear. I felt her shiver in response, and I let myself for a split second think about thelaterI knew would be coming.
“Where will you live?” I asked, fully prepared to ask her then and there to move in with me. But she smiled, and I knew she had it taken care of. Of course she did. She’d thought of everything.
“I’m moving in with Fatima,” she said. Suddenly my conversation from earlier made perfect sense; she’d known Morgan was staying in town, because she was part of it. I’d thought she was the one out of the loop, but it turned out to be me.
“She was already panicking about how she’d afford the place without Jared,” Morgan continued, “so it was a match made in heaven. I’ll have to get rid of a lot of stuff though.”
“I’m very good at moving boxes,” I said, and Morgan laughed.
“Don’t I know it.”
We looked out at the joust for a moment, pretending to be interested in what was happening; we were meant to be presiding over it, after all. But if Morgan’s thoughts were anything like mine, they were far from Sir Maximus and his opponent.
“So, there’s actually more,” Morgan said. I leaned my head back and laughed.
“Of fucking course there is. What now?”
Morgan reached down into a pocket in the side of her dress – sorry, Phil had sewn inpockets?? – and pulled out her phone. She opened it up, and I watched as she squinted at the screen for a moment before chuckling.
“Hah, the Fellowship. That’s funny.”
