Page 32 of The Deals We Make

“Duchess,” King warns. “They’ll taste great.”

She smiles at that. “Could you get me a glass of wine from the bar, please?”

King looks around, and I’m sure it’s to see if there’s a prospect lingering around. When he sees there is no one else here, he gets up. “You want a beer?” he asks.

“Do I ever.” My plan is to get so hammered that I fall asleep whether I want to or not. I might even grab some of the sleeping pills Switch keeps in the medical room for me.

I hate them because I can’t wake up if I’m needed in the middle of the night for something. Twice when I’ve taken them, I’ve missed important shit.

I missed a fucking snowstorm once when I finally fell asleep after being awake for three days. Meant Rae was stranded in King’s cabin without the most basic heat.

“You doing okay?” Rae asks as she slices the hot chicken breast.

I find Rae easy to speak to usually. But I’m struggling with the ache of tiredness in my body. I’m also struggling to reconcile the untruths. The explanation as to how I became an Outlaw has shifted over time. It’s suited me to never correct it because it supported the story I always intended to join.

“Narrative’s weird, isn’t it?” I say.

“Now that’s an interesting question. In what context?”

I shrug. “You know, like, how memory drifts. How facts shift. How people describe events over time.”

Rae nods. “I listened to this podcast once about how famous people have gotten found out for lying. But, as you listen to the stories, you start to see how it happens. A minor embellishment yields personal reward. Everything from a personal dopamine hit to suddenly campaigning on a political platform based on a military history you just don’t have. Things snowball. And suddenly, even if you’re conscious of it, you can’t unwind it.”

I follow a scouring pattern on the stainless steel with my fingertip. “Yeah, I guess, over time, you forget what the actual truth is. Suppose you see that when there’s a major incident. People see what they want to see and start sharing their perspective right away. And then you get this polarization of what the truth is.”

A beer bottle gets placed next to me. “Those sound like deep thoughts.”

I look up at King and grin. “It’s your old lady. She levels up my conversation game. She’s the smartest person in this place.”

Reminds me of Calista.

King hands Rae a glass of white wine and something sweet passes between them unspoken. He holds her gaze, like he’s proud of her. She looks at him like she knows he’ll go to the ends of the earth for her.

I want to know what that feels like in the marrow of my bones.

“Help me make her understand why Valentine’s Day would be the perfect date to marry me,” King says. “She wants to wait until summer because the flowers will be cheaper.”

“Because they’ll be in bloom, not because they’ll be cheaper.” Rae grins. “Also, because it will be sunny. Not cold. Not snowy.”

“Far be it from me to end up in the middle of a pre-marital spat between my Prez and his old lady, but she does have some good points. Let me hear yours, Prez.”

King groans and looks up at the ceiling. “Because she’s already made me wait nearly a year. Didn’t want to marry me last summer because it was too soon. Told me she wanted to be engaged for at least a year. I just want to fucking marry her, because Mrs. Hills sounds so much better than Miss Miller. I want my fucking wife more than I want flowers or sunshine.”

Both Rae and I look at King with our mouths open.

“What?” he says before necking half his bottle of beer.

“Fine,” Rae says. The word is filled with unspoken emotion. “February fourteenth it is.”

King grins, his bottle of beer to his lips. “Good.”

“I’m impressed, Prez,” I say. “You almost had me believing in romance for a second.”

King glances my way. “Far be it from me to gossip, but Saint says you and some chick got into it when you ran that errand together for me.” He glances for a millisecond in Rae’s direction while she busies herself finding something in the fridge. I catch his drift. The girls don’t know Saint bought a ring for Briar. Probably a good idea, seeing they have a group chat and are a bunch of gossips.

“Old news,” I say, and take a swig of beer.

“Old news that needed yours and Switch’s help today?” King asks.