I grip harder.
The song ends. The next one starts. We don't stop moving.
But eventually the band packs up. The fairy lights click off in sections, darkness eating the lawn from the edges inward. My sister throws her bouquet into a crowd of tipsy aunts and it smacks Aunt Geraldine directly in the face. The groom carries his bride across the threshold of the honeymoon suite while my mother dabs her eyes with a cocktail napkin and my father pretends his allergies are acting up.
And then it's over.
The wedding is over.
We walk back to the tiny room in silence. The hallway carpet is burgundy with gold fleur-de-lis and I count them. One, two, three, four. Twelve fleur-de-lis between the elevator and our door. I know because I count them twice.
Dash unlocks the door. The knob looks like a thimble in his hand.
Inside, the room is exactly as we left it. The bed is wrecked. The sheets are a tangled geography of last night and this morning and every moment in between. My suitcase sits open on the luggage rack with its contents exploded outward. His bag, a battered leather rucksack that has seen more combat zones than most generals, leans against the wall next to his broadsword.
I grab the suitcase and dump the whole thing onto the bed.
Shirts. Cardigans. The backup bridesmaid dress I never needed because the primary one is currently drying on a hanger, stiff with fountain water and regret. Emergency baking supplies. Two romance novels with shirtless Orcs on the covers that I shove immediately to the bottom, spine-down, suffocated by a wool sweater.
Dash moves to the other side of the room.
He picks up the broadsword first. Always the broadsword first. He slides it into a leather scabbard with a sound like a long exhale. Then the throwing axes. Three of them, each one nestled into a custom loop on the rucksack's exterior. His movements are mechanical. Practiced. He has packed this bag ten thousand times in ten thousand rooms and the routine requires exactly zero thought.
I fold a sundress. Crease it sharp. Shove it down.
He rolls a pair of socks with one hand and drops them into the rucksack without looking.
The zipper on my toiletry bag sticks. I yank it. The teeth separate and lip gloss rolls across the bed. Three tubes. They scatter like fleeing animals. I catch two. The third drops behind the nightstand.
Leave it.
I leave it.
Dash pulls his dress shirt from the back of the chair. The one I unbuttoned last night. The one with the strawberry coulis and the ash and the small tear near the collar where my fingers gotimpatient and just pulled. He folds it. Precise corners. Military edges. He places it into the rucksack like he's laying something to rest.
The room shrinks. The walls press closer with every item that disappears into a bag. Every shirt folded is a minute subtracted. Every buckle clasped is a step toward the door.
I grab my shoes from under the bed. The mud-caked flats from the boar hunt. The heels I sprinted down the aisle in. The sandals I wore to breakfast yesterday when he poured my coffee without asking and added exactly the right amount of cream because of course he knew. Of course he catalogued that too.
I drop all three pairs into the suitcase. They land with a heavy, graceless thump.
Across the room, Dash straps a leather bracer onto his forearm. Then the other one. The buckles click. Click. Click. Each one a small, final sound. He's reassembling himself. Putting the mercenary back on piece by piece, covering the man who danced with me under fairy lights.
My hands close around the vintage cardigan I wore the first night. The green one. The one he said matched his skin and I laughed so hard I spilled wine on the bedspread. The stain is still there. Burgundy on white. Evidence.
I fold the cardigan. My fingers press the wool flat.
His armor goes on next. Not the full spiked set, just the chest piece. Matte black leather studded with iron rivets. He shrugs into it and the straps groan against the width of his shoulders. The tuxedo Dash is gone. The mercenary stands in his place, armed and plated and built for a world that does not include tiny hotel rooms and ruined wedding cakes.
I zip my suitcase. The sound is obscene in the quiet.
He buckles his rucksack. Heaves it onto one shoulder. The leather creaks.
We stand on opposite sides of the bed.
The sheets are still tangled. The pillow still holds the impression of his head. A single flour handprint marks the headboard from this morning. Mine. Left there when he pressed me against the wood and whispered something in Orcish that he refused to translate.
The room is packed. The bags are full. There is nothing left to fold or shove or strap down.
