Now, the three of us got in Daniel’s truck. I secured the cat carrier in between us while Daniel called his cousins.

“Please tell me you’re awake.”

Dex’s laugh came through the speakerphone. “Dude, we’re already here, where are you?”

“On the way.” He handed me the phone before clicking his seatbelt and starting the truck. “And don’t forget, we get the hotel room next weekend.”

“Oh, finally.” I let my head fall back against the headrest in imagined bliss. I loved the little RV, but there was something to be said for a long, hot shower in a real bathroom, and starfishing on a king-size bed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dex said. “We’ll make the switch during the week. We still have to flip for it to see who has to give up the room. I’ll try to make Freddy do it, though. You know how staying in the RV throws me off my game. Chicks don’t dig ’em.”

“God forbid we throw you off your game,” Daniel said dryly. Dex was who he was: the same manwhore he’d always been. But he and I had settled into an okay relationship, and sometimes I genuinely forgot that we’d slept together once upon a time. It was a different Stacey who had done that.

“Hey,” I interjected. “I dig it just fine.”

Dex’s snort was loud and clear despite the cell phone connection. “You don’t count.”

I gasped and turned to Daniel, my mouth hanging open in mock outrage, but he just laughed. “Okay, we’re turning in now. See you in a few.” I disconnected the call as the truck bumped over the field where the entertainers parked. After setting the brake, Daniel came around to open my door and help me jump down—trucks like this weren’t built for shorter people, and my mobility was already a little limited in this outfit.

“You all set if I run on ahead?”

I waved an unconcerned hand. “I’ll text if I need you.” I gathered the front of his T-shirt in my fist and pulled him toward me for one more kiss. He smiled against my mouth and nipped my bottom lip with his teeth.

“See you there.” He traced the wings of the dragonfly pendant I wore around my neck with his fingertips, and with one more kiss he was off, striding across the lot with those long legs of his. I leaned against the truck and watched him go, already wishing I’d grabbed one more kiss. Oh well, plenty of time later. I set to work cinching everything up: tightening my bodice, settling the leather belt a little more tightly around my waist, and gathering my overskirt up with the skirt hikes I’d bought a couple Faires ago. Much more period appropriate than the safety pins I’d used in Willow Creek all these years.

One last check of the belt pouch at my waist, and I felt a jolt: my phone. I’d left it on the counter in the RV after talking to Emily. Whoops. But I didn’t feel the panic I used to feel at the prospect of time without my phone.

I’d realized, sometime around November, that I didn’t check my social media all that much anymore. Sure, I did my yearly Pumpkin Spice Latte Count, made more interesting by the multiple Starbucks in multiple cities as we traveled. (This year’s count: seventeen. This was getting ridiculous. But it wasn’t all my fault; PSL season seemed to start earlier and earlier every year.) While my online addiction had reached a fever pitch last year, it had never been about the screens at all. It had been about searching for a life of my own, which I now had. And it had been about the man behind those screens. And I knew exactly where he was.

All cinched in, I picked up Benedick’s carrier and set off in the direction Daniel had gone, toward the Faire and the Kilts’ stage.

Everything I owned these days could fit in two suitcases and a cat carrier. Sometimes I slept in hotels, sometimes in a giant tin can. Sometimes I camped out with my boyfriend, his cousins, and a few dozen rennies. Home was the RV, Daniel’s beat-up, rust-red pickup truck, my tuxedo cat wearing a pair of dragon’s wings, the smile in Daniel’s eyes when he looked at me, and his arms around me when we went to sleep at night.

I couldn’t imagine a better home. Or a better life.