Page 52 of Maverick Mogul

“Wait, we’re supposed to participate?” I ask Grace.

“It’s a pub sing!” the girl beside us yells, too loud and tipsy.

Grace grins, looking amused. “It’s a pub sing.”

Well, too late now. Next thing I know, I’m trying to learn lyrics about erstwhile loves and ships in the mist. There are certainly some drunk dudes in the crowd trying to be funny, but most people around us seem to be loving this wholeheartedly. Grace and I play along, stumbling over the lyrics, and maybe it’s the ale or Grace’s enthusiasm, but by the end of it, I’m fully yell-singing about merry companions and a good lass at home.

At the last lines of the song, the drunk girl beside us gives a final, decisive swing of her stein. The amber liquid slops over the rim in one long arch, whipping out to cover Grace and me in a foamy lash.

“What the fuck?” I blurt. The man before us scowls. “I mean, curse the ale-master,” I correct myself, but the sentiment is the same.

We’re both totally soaked.

Grace has beer dripping down the front of her dress, and I’m fairly sure I could lick ale off my face.

“Ohmygosh, sorry!” the girl next to us slurs. “Was that me?”

“You’re a disaster, Meg,” someone yells, and she replies, “Youare!”

“I guess it’s a good thing we were about to change,” I say, guiding Grace out of the tent.

“I don’t think I have time for a shower.” She winces. “So, you’ll just have a wedding date who reeks of beer.”

“Back at you,” I say, glancing at my watch. Grace is right: We’ll need to hurry if we want to catch the start of the ceremony.

A costumed woman stops before us, and all I can think is: Okay, that’s enough. No more goofy playing-along. We’ve got to get back to change, and my tank is on empty for the performances here.

“Och, no,” she says, in a Scottish brogue. She’s surveying our clothes. “Let me guess. The pub sing.”

“Good guess,” Grace says.

“Yer not the first, lass,” she says, sympathetic. “Follow me.”

“Thank you, but we have to get back,” I tell her. “We’re attending a wedding in just a—”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves us on, behind one of the stands. There, she reaches for a green garden hose, which was plugged into something in the back. “Like I said. Not the first, though yer takin’ it in better humor than some. Just twist it back in when yer done.”

“Thank you.” Grace takes the hose from the woman, who salutes as she continues to wherever she was going. Grace hands it to me and stands with her arms out. “Go ‘head.”

I stand there for a moment before I realize she means for me to turn the hose on her. “You’re serious.”

She grins. “No time for a shower, and I don’t want to be sticky before putting on the costume. This dress will dry.”

So, I stand in the middle of a Renaissance festival and aim a hose straight at her. If you’d told me when we left New York that I’d wind up here, I would have broken every speed limit on our trip.

“Wait,” Grace says. She reaches up, sweeping her hair away from the splash zone. The motion lifts her breasts, and I grip onto the hose, cursing my life. She smiles. “Okay, go.”

It only takes a few seconds to spray her down, but it also only takes a few seconds to have the sight of her indelibly imprinted in my mind. Water flowing over her curves, the fabric of her dress plastered to her skin…

I’m fairly sure I’ve paid premium subscription prices for this kind of show, and here I am getting it for free with the woman I absolutely need to not touch.

Talk about torture.

“Your turn.”

Grace takes the hose from me and returns the favor, smirking with delight. And what do you know? The cold shower is exactly what I need to combat my, ahem, excitement. I shake my head, totally a drowned rat now.

“So, this is what I get for listening to Olivia. I’m soaking wet in public, at a Renaissance Faire.”

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