Page 13 of Red Flag, Green Light (Red Flags and Rogue Brothers #1)

In lieu of bad decisions, there will be Taco Bell.

Ceres

Top one hundred in the Amazon store.

That’s my girl.

“Are you paying attention?” Mars, who is not my girl, interrupts my usual after-launch stalking tendencies. Rouge just had her Valentine’s Day book explode onto the charts, taking the universe by storm, and all I really want to do is refresh the Amazon sale page every few hours.

But, alas, life had other plans.

Dragging my attention off my phone—even as I hit the refresh button again—I stare at my unwelcome, yet persistent, guest. And, well, as of today, boss . He has set up a corkboard in my living room. He has brought tiny red flags, an array of pictures, and yarn.

I don’t know what I’m looking at, because I stopped paying attention roughly three seconds after whatever he was creating began to look like a chaotic dumpster fire. I ask, “Why are the flags red?”

He blinks. “Pardon?”

“This festival is for Flag Day, a holiday celebrating the adoption of the American flag. Shouldn’t there be…” I scan the display of criss-crossing yarn, pictures, and tiny red tacks. “…a single American flag up there?”

“Red ones are my favorite.”

Wow. I guess we have something in common.

“Also, we’re not focusing on the patriotic side of Flag Day.”

I’m sorry. What? We’re not focusing on the only side of Flag Day? It’s a patriotic holiday. That’s the beginning and end of the holiday.

He faces his mess of a corkboard and steeples his fingers. “We’re focusing on the romance .”

“The…romance?”

“Yes.”

“Of Flag Day?”

“Correct.”

I glance at my phone, just to make sure that Rouge’s book rank hasn’t changed within the past five seconds, then I lock it and set it beside me on the couch. “I do not understand.”

Mars fixes me with a chillingly sharp smile. “That is because you haven’t been paying attention, or listening, to me, at all.” Heaving a sigh, he slaps his hand to the board like a deranged character in a cartoon, and declares, “Flag Day! Most romantic holiday of the year.” He murmurs, “Allegedly.”

“Allegedly?” I ask.

“Hush. I’m educating you.”

I can actively feel myself losing brain cells.

I hope I still know how to fix a dangling participle after this.

He plows on, little regard for me or my career. “Valentine’s Day occurs in two days, on the fourteenth , doesn’t it?”

I lace my fingers together against my skirt. “Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir .” He stabs a reprimanding finger my way. “Now, what date is Flag Day ?”

My attention drifts, and it occurs to me I do not know. I put negative effort into this, probably because I have negative clue what it even means to have a Flag Day festival. No one celebrates Flag Day except, possibly, Sheldon Cooper.

I had expected this morning’s orientation to be of the clarifying sort—not more proof that my next-door neighbor is nuts.

Mars’s body deflates. “Seriously, Ceres? You don’t know when Flag Day is?”

“Hold on.” I retrieve my phone.

“You aren’t Googling this. Please tell me you aren’t Googling this.”

“I’m not Googling this.”

I’m Safari-ing this.

My results load, and I say, “June 14th.”

Dryly, Mars stares into me, letting long moments pass before he pinches the bridge of his nose. “June 14th . Romantic holidays occur on the fourteenth.”

“Valentine’s Day is the fourteenth because that’s the date some pope established as the day to honor Saint Valentine’s death.

Valentine’s Day is so genuinely a memorial day, and you’ll have to excuse me if I find nothing particularly romantic about neither death…

nor the other harrowing origins that resulted in the papacy’s desire to assimilate the time of year into Christendom, like it did, with basically all other popular holidays. ”

Mars is staring into me again, and his eye twitches. Taking a deep breath, he clears his throat. “I don’t know why you know that and not what date Flag Day is.”

Because Rouge released a Valentine book this year, which made me go, firstly, since when does dark romance have Valentine books? and, secondly, what even is this holiday about? If Rouge releases a Flag Day book, then call me Sheldon Cooper, I’ll celebrate it anti-religiously.

But that won’t happen.

Because I pride Rouge in having a modicum of sense…usually. When she isn’t sending me scripts about shoulder-less shorties.

Mars continues, “Let’s just appreciate that Flag Day isn’t a papacy-assimilated holiday, which—surely—makes it more romantic.”

I’m not getting compensated enough for this.

“Moving on.” Mars presents his chaos once more as though it’s a fully-realized Powerpoint slide. “You will be responsible for the human element of this event. Coordinating the decorations, the food, the everything that involves talking to another human being.”

Ew.

“I’ll be working on advertising and planning.”

“I fear we possess the same strengths, Mars. If I had any idea what was going on, I could have this event planned and marketed in an afternoon.”

“Marketing a real-world event isn’t a single-touch project, Ceres.

Getting someone to know you exist and convincing them to go through the grand many steps that brings their physical person to your event’s actual location takes more than an afternoon.

Even digital products take roughly seven points of visibility before consideration for purchase commences.

Suffice to say: leave the marketing to me if you’re going to talk about it like that. ”

Fair enough. Given that no number of “touches” would convince me to ever, ever, ever leave my house and attend a festival , I suppose I’m the furthest thing from the target audience here and should not be on the marketing crew.

That does not by any means suggest I want to be human relations, though.

Lifting my hand, I wait to be called on.

“Yes, Ceres?” Mars’s chilling smile is slowly becoming something familiar.

“I’m deeply underqualified for all positions associated with this project and would like my participation to be struck from the record.”

He laughs. “Request denied.”

I stand. “In that case, I am going back to bed.”

“So you’re no longer interested in never having to pick up your own groceries again?”

I sit down. And cross my arms. But that’s hardly important to note.

Mars’s smile softens, and he abandons his corkboard display in favor of sitting himself beside me.

I turn my pout squarely in the other direction.

“People aren’t that scary, are they?” he asks.

My chest tightens. “They’re inconvenient. And unpredictable. And why in the world do we need four months to plan this, Mars?”

“Would you prefer it if I gave you ten days?”

“Only ten days of suffering, instead of four months , would be ideal, yes.”

“Placing orders and booking entertainment early leads to fewer issues later. Having enough time to correct any number of problems that might arise is fairly common sense. The sooner you start planning for something, the better your chances of success are.”

Reasons I could never be an author. Planning a story sounds exhausting. I’d be bored out of my mind well before I even start writing.

Speaking about stories and planning and Rouge going off the deep end…

she hasn’t messaged me since I vetoed her nonsense idea about having a modest-shouldered male lead.

I hope I didn’t offend her. I am somewhat known for having a blunt delivery when I’m being myself.

Maybe her partner is modest-shouldered and she’s tall and she wanted to write a book for them.

Which, of course, is weird in its own way, given her genre, but whatever. I’m not here to judge what people find romantic.

Or maybe I am.

Because the man beside me is persistently claiming that Flag Day is peak romantic, and the very fibers of my being chafe at the notion.

I should message Rouge a follow-up and assure her that I’ll support her through whatever book project she wants to write. I can’t block off my entire spring for it, but I can support it. And when she proves me wrong and launches once again into the top one hundred of the store—

Mars touches my hand.

A violent shudder rocks through me as I twist toward him, discover my phone in his grasp, and my finger pressed to the fingerprint scanner.

I lurch away, but it’s too late to save my phone from being unlocked. “What are you doing?”

“Seeing what’s more important than my presentation.”

“Your presentation ? This has been craft time with a maniac.” I stretch for my phone, but he places his full free palm against my face, holding me at bay. “ Mars! ”

“Careful.” His green eyes glint when they cut toward me. “I like the way you yell my name.”

My mouth drops open as heat courses through my veins.

For a solid ten seconds, I forget what’s going on. Was that…flirting? Or joking? Inappropriate joking, surely. Outlandishly inappropriate. But isn’t inappropriate joking, at its very core, flirting ?

“Goodness,” he murmurs, snapping me out of the fit. “How spicy is this?”

He shows me my phone screen, which depicts Rouge’s latest Valentine novel, which is a dark romance with the sort of cover that provides a scandalous aura at a mere glimpse.

Scowling, I say, “Egregiously.”

He swipes down, to the ranking information, pauses a moment, and hums, then he moves on to the reviews.

Bemoaning my shorter reach and limited wherewithal, I watch from my side of the couch as Mars skims the reviews, nose scrunching in response to whatever words he finds there.

When I catch sight of someone claiming the female lead is quirky , Mars locks my phone, tosses it into his corner of the couch, and beams at me. “So,” he declares, “you’re a reader.”

Were this a cartoon or movie, right about now would be when the camera pans out to display the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves I have piled into this room, crammed around the furniture and plants.

There’s no wall space available, because I’ve gone so far as to hang shelves in every available location.

Not a single stud goes unburdened, and one day my home will collapse in on itself due to the weight.

I blink.

I glance off Mars’s eyes, at some overflowing shelves.

I look back at him. “Is that…new information?”

“No.”

Right. “Can you remove your hand from my face? You’re crushing my nose.”

He obliges, with a brief apology, then charges back into his earlier nonsense.

“I have weekly tasks for you, from now until Flag Day. I expect you to report back to me frequently, and I’ve blocked off days for us to review our progress.

Falling behind schedule will not be tolerated.

” He pulls his own phone from his pocket. “What’s your email?”

“Why?”

“So I can send you the schedule.”

Ah. I tell him my personal email, which I rarely ever check these days.

Online, which is the only place I exist, I am known by my business alias, Sara Pond.

I have no personal social media accounts and can only see Brian’s content because he friended me shortly after I friended my second-favorite client, Tempest Rain.

Apparently, they’re mutuals.

I don’t know their connection at all, but I am glad I can go to his source content instead of sifting through the many millions of screenshots Amelia sends me.

It’s a little less overwhelming to scroll through his feed and judge the man’s life choices in order than it is to try and keep up with them while I judge Amelia’s.

Case in point, the schedule Mars has just sent to my personal email is very likely to rot and die there unless I make a concentrated effort to print it out the second he leaves me in peace.

Assuming, of course, that Mars will ever leave me in peace again.

His tendency to walk right into my home as though he owns the place appears to be a recurring affliction, uninhibited by my moving my spare key. Perhaps it’s time for me to get a chain lock…

But, then, that would involve leaving my house more than my allotted singular time a month.

Not that such a burden isn’t already going to be on the horizon with this job, but still…

It’s a matter of principle.

Sometimes, very occasionally, I do wonder if my lifestyle is entirely healthy , but then I remember that I go outside frequently to tend to my plants, resulting in plenty of sunshine.

We will be ignoring the fact it’s about two in the afternoon, and the last thing I ate was the carrot cake Mars brought over yesterday.

Health is measured by sun time.

Everyone knows that.

If you’re getting twenty minutes a day on average, you’re healthy.

“Ceres,” Mars says, drawing me out of my perfectly acceptable thoughts. He searches my eyes a moment, then says, “You will check your email. You will follow your schedule. You will not improve your home security.”

“How did you…”

“It’s written all over your face.” He rises, offers me a hand. “Remember, you agreed to this.”

I take his hand, and he helps me to my feet, inches away from him. “I was bribed.”

“I’m not forcing you to accept my bribe, and my bribe isn’t a necessity. You’re welcome to turn it down, any time.”

A thread of tension rises between us, his fingers warm around mine, which are ice cold. I shift my attention to the corkboard amalgamation in my living room. Flowers. Vendors. Rides. Food stalls. Permits. Charity events. Decorations.

This is going to be a whole thing .

And it’s going to be full of leaving my house.

But maybe, just maybe, I’m tired of being afraid to leave. I want to stay because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, not because I’m scared to go farther than my front lawn. And maybe, just maybe, this external pressure is the exercise I need to get me through the fear.

Side by side with a man who oozes self-assurance despite rioting insecurity, I might be able to rid myself of my own anxiety, once and for all.

“I haven’t eaten today,” I say.

His grip solidifies, and he’s pulling me to the door a moment before I remember my phone is still wedged into the corner of the couch. I pause us in the center of my living room, pull my hand free, and get it.

Then I return.

And offer him my hand again.

Eyes lighting with craze, he asks, “What do you feel like, little goddess? Italian? French? Japanese?”

“Taco Bell.”

He squeezes my hand. “Excellent choice.”