Page 53 of Long Live the King

“It was just a joke.”

“I know, and funny too, he did eat my real baked peach flaky round sweet dessert?—”

“I bet he liked your dessert.”

“Very funny, then he went home.”

“No stay over? He seemed like the kind of guy you’d want to nail down. Get it, ‘nail down’?”

“Yeah, and that harassment case just keeps gettingmoreexpensive.”

He shrugged and laughed. “I’ve known you for ten years, if you haven’t started the suit yet, you ain’t going to.”

“Yeah, I’m a lot of talk no action, last night was a perfect example of it.”

“So what happened?”

“He’s like a fighter, come to find out, like MMA and… he said dueling.”

Don’s face screwed up, “Like with guns? How is that even a thing?”

“Swords, and you’ve just blown past the idea that he’s got a streak of violence in him. He said ‘like an MMA fighter.’ What is that even, like fight club? I knew guys who were ‘fight club’ kind of guys, not usually the kind of guys I ought to bring home.”

“He didn’t seem the type.”

“Yeah, but I asked if he had killed someone and he basically admitted it, more than one.”

“Basically admitted it... what do you mean?”

“He just admitted it.”

“Has he been in jail?”

I shook my head.

“That’s weird — he admitted manslaughter in your tiny little kitchen?”

“Yeah… it was weird — MMA is with an audience, right? It’s not to the death — but thenswordfighting?”

“Fencing is a thing you know…”

“Why didn’t he say fencing? Why didn’t he say ‘I fight MMA’? He saidlikeMMA. He said he duels with swords. When I asked if he had killed someone, he gulped and wouldn’t answer?—”

“How did you even get to that? I can’t think ofanyconversation I’ve ever had where I asked, ‘Hey, you ever killed someone?’”

“There was something about the way he was talking about it, indirect, like he was lying.”

“You hate liars.”

“Yeah, just be straight up with me, tell the truth, and it was like he couldn’t be straight, like he had done things he couldn’t tell me about, so I asked.”

“I think you’re blowing it way out of proportion — he’s an MMA fighter. Maybe it’s different in Scotland, different rules, you know? And he fences sometimes. He does things differently because he’s from Scotland. He calls you Mistress Ash. It’s weird, but not criminal. You were in the army, you must know plenty of dudes like that.”

“Yeah, a lot of them were edgy. I just wasn’t prepared for him being edgy in my kitchen…”

Don said, “He’s probably in the Scottish military, probably killed someone — it happens. You know it happens. He just isn’t allowed to talk about it.”

“Has it happened to you, you ever killed anyone?”

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