Whaaa-aaaat!
Not losing a tail like your tail,Briana told her goat as patiently as she could.Like losing someone who's following you.
The goat settled down, relieved, but Doll seized Briana's elbow for the second time that afternoon and again bustled her off to behind the smithy, where she could say, "Youmethim? And then youdumpedhim?"
"I sure tried, anyway. God, he's full of himself. He just sauntered up and was like 'I'll go with you to the ends of the earth, my lady.'"
Dahlia, the great betrayer, said, "Aww," and then, hastily, as she saw Bree's expression, said, "I mean, eww! What'd you say?"
"I told him to go away, obviously. That I wasn't interested."
"You have a heart of stone, complimentary," Doll said. "I think I'd be prepared to forgive him many, many sins just for that pretty face and hot body."
Bree said, "Grrr," out loud, which wasn't a very goat-like thing to say, but felt appropriate.
If only Doll wasn't soright. The Torben brothers in general were very attractive, and had all been stamped from the same mold. But Laurie, who Briana knew was the youngest, was also thehottest, like the mold had been refined and modified slightly as the years went along. He had a slightly older brother, Jon, who looked a great deal like him, but Laurie was blonder and a bit shorter.
'Shorter,' though, didn't mean 'short'. He was still comfortably over six feet tall, at least five inches taller than Briana herself, and she might think he spent way too much time flexing and showing off to the women and at the fights, but hoo boy, did he have the bod to back it up. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, and on one hand, Briana thought she could probably crush those narrow hips with her own mighty thighs. On the other hand, she'd kind of love to try.
On theotherother hand, that was exactly the kind of thought she'd been trying to avoid for the past two years. She didn'twantto imagine sifting her hands through his long, thick, straight hair, or braiding it into some of the intricate Viking-style braids he often wore. She didn'twantto think about how strong his hands were from sword fighting and pulling beers. She didn't want to imagine the grace he showed both on the battlefield andin swerving around people at the tavern being used inany other circumstances.She didn't want to think about how extremely well-fitted his leather jerkin or blousy trousers were, either.
So she had obviously spent far too much time thinking about all of those things, of course. And about his dark,darkbrown eyes, and his admittedly charming smile, and?—
"Nope," she said, aloud again. "Not going there. Not doing that. I don't want an overgrown teenage horndog for a partner. I want an actual functional thoughtful adult male who doesn't require taking care of."
"I'll take care of him," Doll said with a leer that made Briana laugh.
"God, I wish I could just transfer fate over to you. We need to find you a mate of your own!"
"It doesn't work that way, either," Dahlia said with a dramatic sigh. "Even if it did, you're not wrong, he's kind of a…"
"Player," Briana said, since that's the word she'd used straight to his face. "Like, not aloser, I actually don't think he is, but god, he's a player."
"Yeah, no, not a loser. He seems to be good at whatever he actuallydoes. But he kind of skates by, doesn't he? Like he doesn't take anything seriously, or put any effort in to…"
"Being a grown-up," Bree finished. "Like I said, overgrown adolescent. I don't have time for that, even if fate thinks there's something there. He can step up, if he wants to deserve me." She tossed her hair, half-joking, half-defiant, all serious, and Doll put her now-empty lemonade mug aside to applaud.
"Damn straight he can! What's that look like?"
"No clue. Figuring it out is his problem, not mine."
"I love this attitude for you. But let's make it all about me: does this mean you'll finally go to the tavern with me again? Since he now, y'know,knows?"
Briana made a face at the evening sky, which was slowly turning dusty blue with dusk. "I don't know. I don't want him to think I'm hanging around so he can earn my favor, you know?"
Doll's face fell. "That's an annoyingly good point. But we can at leastgothere now, right? Get drinks and leave?"
"Yeah." Briana smiled at her friend. "Yeah, that's fine, and honestly, it'll be nice. But I might have to send you in ahead to scout if we want to actually hang out."
"Fair! Yeah, legit. Also I still can't believe you didn'ttellme he was your mate fortwo entire years."
"Again, you would have spent the past two Faires trying to set us up, if I had."
"Yes, but still!"
Bree snickered and slid down against the smithy's back wall, which was made of cut logs treated to be fireproof, and one of the limited numbers of permanent structures in the fairgrounds. The Thunder Bear Tavern up the way was another, spaced more or less evenly with the smithy and the other permanent buildings. Between them stood tents, temporary wooden buildings, walkways, and not quite enough trees to shade the thousands of faire-goers who filtered through every day. Eyes closed, she sipped her lemonade and said, "He is hot, though. Okay, but no, I'm not thinking about Laurie Torben anymore. How were sales today?"
Doll slid down beside her and wriggled like she was scratching her back against the wooden wall. "Good. If we have four or five more days like this we'll be able to keep the fires burning over the winter."
