Out on stage they’d done a couple verses of “Drunken Sailor,” and Dex started a brand new one:

Chuck him backstage with a blonde-haired wench

“Oh my God,” Daniel said, breaking our kiss. He looked over his shoulder toward the stage, and I burst into laughter, holding on to him more tightly.

Chuck him backstage with a blonde-haired wench

Chuck him backstage with a blonde-haired wench

Early in the morning

“Tell me,” I insisted. My smile felt enormous on my face, and this time it was all genuine.

“Oh, Stacey.” His kiss told me everything I needed to know, but my heart still soared when he drew back to whisper in my ear. “Anastasia. I love you.”

“I love you,” I whispered back, but the words were lost in the music and in his kiss.

So, yes, Daniel and I declared our love for each other while his cousins sang a traditional sea shanty roughly eight feet away from us, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Epilogue

You’re kidding, right?” Emily looked skeptical.

I shook my head and adjusted my grip on my phone. Dropping her while we were on a video call would be rude. “I am not kidding.”

“Yeah, but . . . barf?”

“BARF.” My voice was deadpan. “It stands for Bay Area Renaissance Festival. It’s one of the bigger ones here in Florida.”

Emily covered her mouth with her hand, and her giggle was so strong it made her eyes almost disappear. “That’s amazing. I love it. That’s so much better than our acronym. WCRF just sounds like a bad radio station.”

I grinned. “How’s everything back home? Cold?” To my left on the tiny counter, the coffeemaker started making its death-gasp burble, letting me know the pot was finished brewing. I balanced my phone against the dish rack so I could still see Emily while I reached up to the cupboard above my head for the coffee mugs. Space was at a premium in this little motorhome, so there were only two mugs in there. But we only needed two.

“Very.” Emily gave a mock shudder. “I’m so jealous that you’re down there in Florida in February.”

“It’s pretty great, I’m not going to lie.” I wasn’t just talking about the weather. “It’s nice to be on the road again, too.” I poured milk into the mugs and added sugar to mine before pouring the coffee. I eyed them both before adding more milk to Daniel’s mug. One of these days I’d get the proportions right on the first try.

“Yeah? Did you two get hives staying in one place for so long over the holidays?”

“It wasn’t too bad.” I wasn’t lying. We were just coming off the Kilts’ downtime, which Daniel and I had split between his family and mine. I’d shared a drink with Uncle Morty on New Year’s Eve, and then we’d spent a couple weeks in my garage apartment, which my parents had left available for us whenever we wanted it.

But I didn’t want it. Not much. Life on the road agreed with me, more than I’d ever thought it would. Even though every city was different, the festivals themselves felt like coming home every time, and now the days when I didn’t have to put on a bodice and long skirts felt weird. Throwing on a pair of jeans to go to Starbucks made me feel like I was going out half-dressed.

“Mom still doing okay?” She’d looked great when I’d been home, but that had been a few weeks ago, and worrying about her was my default state. I couldn’t help it. I was glad that I had my bestie there to keep an eye on her, under the guise of book club.

“Oh, yeah,” Emily said. “She’s great. She misses you, though, I think. She’s had Simon and me over for dinner a couple times this month.”

I winced. “I’m sorry. You want me to tell her to knock it off?”

“No, not at all.” Emily shrugged. “It’s actually kind of nice.”

The screen door to the RV squeaked open, and Daniel ducked through the doorway. “Truck’s gassed up, we should . . . Oh, hey, Emily.” He waved at her image on the screen, and she waved back.

“Morning, Daniel! You being good to my girl here?”

“Doing my best.” He stepped all the way inside and curled an arm around my waist before dropping a kiss on top of my head. “But I need to steal her back. It’s about that time.”

“I just finished making coffee,” I said with a huff. “That’s why I called Emily this early. We were going to have coffee together.” He was right, though; my intentions had been good but the timing hadn’t worked out today.

“We did.” Emily hefted her coffee mug with a smile. “And it’s okay. I need to get moving too; the bookstore’s not going to open itself.”

Daniel nodded. “Thanks for the help with the website, by the way. It looks great.”

“Yes!” I said. “Thank you. Did you see that I updated it last week?” I may have been social media savvy, but I was useless when it came to coding. Thank God for Emily; she’d built an actual website for the Dueling Kilts over the winter, so they didn’t have to rely on just a social media page anymore. The group’s reach expanded exponentially as a result, and Daniel had been able to book lots more gigs for the guys between festivals.

“I saw!” Emily said. “I’m very proud of you. You need to send me one of those hoodies.”

I grinned. “It’s already in the mail.” Daniel had given me free rein, and I’d poured everything I’d learned in college about fashion merchandising into running the merchandise side of things for the band. Until now, they’d just been selling a couple CDs and a single T-shirt. It didn’t take me long to add tank tops and hoodies, as well as souvenirs like beer koozies with the band’s logo on them. Then Emily helped me set up the online store, so merchandise could be purchased there as well as at the shows. I rotated the physical merch that we brought with us depending on the location. Hoodies didn’t move too fast in Florida, for example. The whole situation worked out well for all of us. Daniel had never enjoyed running the merch; now he was able to concentrate more on booking the band for more gigs in the downtime between Faire weekends.

“Okay. Finish cinching up your boobs and have a great time.” Emily shook her head. “Better you than me.”

With a laugh, we disconnected the call, and then I did a quick check of the Kilts’ business email account. I sighed in relief at the shipping notification waiting for me there. I hadn’t ordered enough tank tops, and it was unseasonably warm, even for Florida in February. But now we’d be restocked by next weekend.

“Everything okay?” Daniel reached for his coffee, blowing across the top for absolutely no reason since all that milk made it practically room-temperature.

“Yep, we’re good,” I said as he took his first sip of coffee and closed his eyes in pleasure. That was one of my favorites of his smiles: that reaction as the caffeine hit his system. It was a sleepy, small smile, and it was all mine.

“Perfect.” He sighed and leaned against the counter, downing half the mug in another gulp. “Marry me.”

He said that almost every morning while we had our coffee. One of these days I was going to say yes. But today I reached for his hand and he tangled our fingers together. One last moment of peace and quiet before the chaos of the day.

I glanced up at the clock on the microwave. We really did need to get going. “Ready to herd cats?”

Daniel nodded and tossed back the last of his coffee before putting the mug in the sink. “I’ll get the baby.” But he stopped to give me one more lingering, coffee-flavored, good-morning kiss, pressing me against the counter and making me wish we didn’t have to be somewhere really, really soon.

I finished my own coffee and washed out our mugs, leaving them out to dry. Tonight I’d put them back in the cabinet, and we’d do it all over again tomorrow. I laced up my bodice loosely and strapped the wide leather belt around my waist. Everything was loose for now; I still had to ride in the truck to the festival site, and I wasn’t doing that in a tight costume. Daniel’s voice, a low and indistinct murmur, floated back from the sleeping compartment, and my heart swelled. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe he was mine. That this whole life was mine.

I heard a zip, and I turned to see Daniel make his way back to the front of the RV, cat carrier slung over his shoulder by the strap. I bent down.

“You okay in there, Benedick?”

The sound of his name woke him up, and the fat tuxedo cat stretched with a squeak.

Daniel chuckled. “I don’t think he even woke up while I was putting him in there.”

“Of course not,” I said. “He’s a professional.”

Benedick loved life on the road. After finding Daniel at the Maryland Ren Fest, it hadn’t taken me long to go home, quit my job, and pack up my things to meet back up with him to start our life together. I’d brought Benedick with me on a trial basis, hoping he could cope but also resigned to bringing him back to stay with my parents when I went to live on the road for good. To my shock he turned out to be a cat that was born to travel. He slept most of the time as we traveled from place to place, and the first time I tentatively put a harness on him, he took to it immediately. So we rolled with it. At the next Faire I bought him a little pair of dragon’s wings, and he became our little leashed dragon-cat mascot. He hung out with me during the day while I tended the merch booth, chasing bugs and butterflies when he wasn’t napping in the sun, and our audiences seemed to love him. I’d already sketched out a couple different logos with a little dragon-Benedick on them to sell in the future alongside the official band merchandise.