Page 5 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

“Let us journey forth,” announced Trinity, her purple gown fluttering in the breeze as she turned and ran toward the woods.

Ufnar and Sir Reginald followed, weapons raised in the air as they jogged into the trees. Reginald’s horned helmet fell off and he chased after it for a few steps, stumbling as he ran.

Meg looked at Kyle. “You sure you’re okay with this? It’s a little weird.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“I guess so.”

“Matt would die, wouldn’t he?” Kyle grimaced. “God, that just slipped out.”

“It’s okay. You’re right though. He’d think this was nuts.”

“So we owe it to his memory to sally forth and join the quest.”

Meg nodded. “Agreed.”

They jogged after the others, catching up to them easily since Trinity had stopped to strum her harp and sing a few lines about a porcupine and a golden spoon. Sir Reginald was whacking at some dense shrubbery with his foam sword, while Ufnar plodded along growling.

“Hark!” Sir Reginald yelled, throwing his arm to the side. “Someone approaches.”

Meg stopped, but not quickly enough. She ran smack dab into the back of Kyle, her cheek colliding with the solid plane of his shoulder blade. He turned and caught her by the shoulders, his palms curving around them. “Is my lady harmed?”

“Nay,” she said, feeling herself blush. “Your lady is just clumsy.”

“I remember that about you,” Kyle murmured. He hadn’t dropped his hands from her shoulders yet, and something about it felt comforting. “I’ll never forget the time you fell off that standup paddleboard, conked your head with the paddle, and lost your bikini top.”

Meg laughed and felt her blush deepen. “God, I’d almost forgotten that. It got caught under that Jet Ski and Matt had to chase the guy down to get it back. Then he put his swim trunks on his head and did the chicken dance so I’d stop being embarrassed about flashing a bunch of strangers.”

“He always knew how to get someone laughing again.”

A wave of nostalgia nearly knocked her backward, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She was spared from doing either when Sir Reginald shouted again.

“Who goes there? I command thee to name thyself.”

Meg looked up to see six strangers emerging from the trees in medieval armor made of cardboard. They stepped forward shoulder-to-shoulder, raising weapons that looked like foam pool noodles painted silver.

Ufnar raised his ax. Sir Reginald lifted his sword. Kyle reached into his bag of marshmallows.

“Prepare to do battle!” Trinity screamed, pulling a plastic dagger from a sheath on her thigh.

Kyle looked at Meg. “Does Fallopian attack on command?”

“Of course.” Meg loosened her grip on the imaginary leash. “Sic ’em, boy!”

Kyle plucked a marshmallow from his bag and drew it back like the world’s tiniest baseball.

“Charge!” shouted Sir Reginald, lurching forward with his foam sword flying. A man carrying a giant sledgehammer made of foam bopped him on the side of the head, but Reginald kept fighting while Ufnar lunged at another man with his axe.

“Lightning bolt,” Kyle said, tossing the marshmallow at a man in a gray cape.

The man screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his chest. He began to writhe and gasp, putting on an impressive display of fake death while Trinity ran circles around him chanting a spell in some language Meg thought sounded vaguely like Pig Latin.

“Poison gas!” Kyle shouted as he tossed another marshmallow, clocking a tall man in the forehead before pivoting to chuck one at another attacker. “Really sharp arrow.”

Meg grabbed the reins on her imaginary dragon. “Commence fire-breathing,” she shouted, aiming the dragon’s snout at a man charging Reginald.

Kyle made a sound like a cappuccino maker, and it took Meg a moment to realize that was his interpretation of a dragon breathing fire. Meg palmed the marshmallow he’d given her and chucked it at a woman locked in fierce combat with Trinity.

“Lightning bolt!” Meg shouted.

“I already used the lightning bolt,” Kyle reminded her.

“You don’t have more than one?”

“Lightning bolts are a limited commodity.”

“Uh—rotten egg.”

“Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”

The woman she’d tossed the marshmallow at jumped to the side, then took another swipe at Trinity with a dagger made of tinfoil.

Kyle handed Meg another marshmallow. “Try again.”

“Heat-seeking missile!” Meg shouted, hurling her marshmallow at a man charging her from the left. The man raised a foam shield and the marshmallow bounced off. Kyle leapt forward, stretching with his palm out.

“Got it!” He caught the marshmallow in one hand, throwing his body in front of Meg as he took aim and hurled the weapon again. “Tell your dragon to cover me!”

“Fallopian—sic balls.”

“Aaaargh!” Their newest attacker fell to the ground in front of them, pantomiming a hideous and painful death.

To Meg’s right, Ufnar screamed and clutched his shoulder. “My arm! I’ve lost my arm! Do something!”

Meg and Trinity rushed toward him, then dropped to their knees in the dirt as Ufnar fell to the ground. “Can you reattach limbs, Empress Cattywampus?”

Meg nodded, trying to remember what she’d learned watching the TV special about LARPing. Trinity pulled a ribbon from a small silk pouch around her neck and handed it to Meg. “Take mine.”

“Thank you.” Meg laid the ribbon on Ufnar’s shoulder, hoping this was more or less how things were supposed to go. “By the power granted to me by The Great Spatula and Lord Kumquat, I command thee to heal thine limb and be made whole again.”

Ufnar blinked, then looked from Meg to Trinity and back to Meg again. “My lady, you have saved me. I owe you my very life.”

“’Tis nothing,” Meg assured him. “You would do the same for me.”

“That’s it, run away!” Sir Reginald shouted, and Meg looked up to see the last of their attackers fleeing the way they’d come.

Behind her, a shrill chime echoed through the trees. At first, Meg thought it was somehow connected to the game, but she turned to see Kyle pulling his phone from a pocket. He scowled at the screen and muttered something under his breath.

Ufnar sat up and frowned. “Sir Tonsillectomy Xanthan Gum—you have broken the cardinal rule of technology.”

Kyle turned away, putting a hand over his left ear as he raised the phone to his right and said, “Hi, Mom.”

Ufnar began to protest, but Meg shushed him. “His brother just died,” Meg whispered as Kyle walked into the trees murmuring into the phone. “It probably has to do with funeral arrangements or a memorial service or?—”

“You’re reviewing the will now ?” Kyle growled, and Meg looked up to see him scowling with the phone to his ear.

“Or a will,” Trinity whispered.

“Or that,” Meg whispered back.

“Mom, I don’t really think now’s the best time to get into—right. I know. I get it.” Kyle fell silent again, his scowl deepening as he listened to whatever his mother was shouting. Meg could hear Sylvia’s voice from fifteen feet away, though she couldn’t make out the words.

Kyle shook his head, then looked up from the tree branch he’d been stripping of its needles.

His gaze locked with Meg’s, and she started to look away, but something stopped her.

Something in the intensity of his expression, or maybe the fact that she was almost sure she heard the word Meg from the other end of the line.

“I’m with her right now, actually,” Kyle said, his eyes never leaving Meg’s. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”