Page 46 of Kings of Sherwood

“Okay?” I shrug. “And?”

“And they’re only broke and desperate becausewe’renot doing our job.” He scrubs his face with his hand. “Ever since Maren almost hit me with her damn car and broke down off the forest road for you and LJ to find, we’ve been reacting. Covering our own asses, running interference around Guy and Wheatley and John and trying to keep Maren safe. And I don’t think that was the wrong choice, now,” he adds, seeing my mouth already open to counter him. “But things are different now. A little more settled, at least. We’ve recovered. We gotta get back to the damn prime directive.”

I let my eyes flutter closed.No, I think.No, because that is the exactoppositeof what I am trying to convince you of. We could be lying on a beach in Mexico eating shrimp cocktail and taking turns doing body shots off our smoking hot girlfriend, but no. No, you have to have it this way.

But I say none of that. Because I know I’m a self-indulgent, self-pitying dipshit.

And I know he’s probably right.

“We start helping people again, proper-like, then what good is a bounty?” He explodes his fingers in the air with a littlepfftsound. “No one’s gonna take stupid risks for money they don’t need. Honestly, you could argue we brought this on ourselves.”

I work my jaw. Youcould,I suppose, butIwon’t. Still, I hold my tongue. Take another sip of bourbon, then another. Let my head fall back against the wall.

“You really believe in this shit, don’t you?” I say, without opening my eyes.

“Like you don’t?”

I lean back to look at him.

Rob nods, gesturing with his glass. “I mean, you’re here, aren’t you?”

“I believe inyou,” I correct sharply. “Though sometimes I wonder why.”

Rob just sips his whiskey. Stares and stares at nothing and everything. Then fixes me with those damn green eyes of his.

“Get some rest, Scarlet.”

Fuck you, I think.

Because he’s won the argument and we both know it.

“I’m serious,” he says, when I do nothing but scowl. He looks it, too. “Running on adrenaline’s gonna do you no good. Go sleep.”

“Geez, buy me dinner before you start bossing me around,” I grumble. But I get to my feet.

“Attaboy.” He nods approvingly. “Tomorrow we’re back in the field.”

I groan.

Fieldwork is hard. The shit we do is hard—it’s retail politics, it’s large-scaleandpetty larceny, it’s money laundering, it’s tax fraud, it’s occasional assault in the name of self-defense. It’s exhausting, and it takes atleastfour of us. And Protestant work ethic be damned—I’mlazy, and I know myself enough to admit it. Plus, Rob’s right: it’s been so long since we’ve actually done our standard operating procedure that I’m going to have to shake off the rust to even remember what to do.

But at the same time...

Well, it’s the whole reason I’m here. Here, with Rob, and here, in Sherwood.

So fuck it.

“Aye aye, captain.” But I roll my eyes and flip him off. He just grins.

“See you in the morning.”

He gives me a salute, and I pull the door shut, trying and failing to imagine how I’m going to start up all this shit again.

Chapter Eleven

Maren

It’s hard to wake up the next morning. Hard because I’m tired, and hard because I feel...guilty, I guess is the word.

---