Page 70 of Kings of Sherwood

“Shit,” she whispers. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“What?” Taylor says, and follows Grace’s nod. “Ohhhh. Shit.”

“Maren,” I say, thinking quickly. “Weren’t you saying you were going to the bathroom?”

“Hmm?” Maren looks up from the menu. “I didn’t—”

“Youdid,” I say, sternly—and sternly enough to make her jump.

“Oh.” She flicks a glance over her shoulder. Sees what I see. “Um. Right. Be right back.”

She darts away, to the inside of the restaurant, and I lock eyes with her just long enough to telegraph, hopefully,wait ’til the coast is clear.

“Shit,” Grace whispers again. I frown, trying to keep calm.

“What’s wrong?”

Grace eyes her two friends, and the three of them have a brisk, wordless conversation.

“She has a fake,” Mackenzie says. “She’s not twenty-one yet.”

“I’mtwo months away,” Grace says.

“It’s an unjust law anyway,” Taylor says, pulling out a vape. “I think it’s a moral obligation to flout it. On principle.”

I decide I like Taylor. “Don’t worry about it,” I say to Grace. “We won’t let them bother you.”

“Afternoon, ladies—and gent.” The deputies step up to our table, and I nod, trying to act as normal as possible given that I do not actually know these women, and the one woman I do know, very well, is hiding inside due to her technically being a very high-profile missing person. “Everything okay here?”

“Do you have a warrant?” Taylor demands.

“They don’t need one in public,” I whisper. “No reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Taylor narrows her eyes, considers, and realizes I’m right. “Withdrawn,” she says.

“We’re just...making sure everything’s okay,” says the shorter of the two. “Got a call about a public nuisance out here. Gotta investigate to the fullest extent of the law, you know?”

“Of course,” Mackenzie says, overly graciously, if you ask me. Grace just nods, her fingers locked on her illegal margarita.

“Everything all right here, then?” the second one says. He stares at each of them in turn—and me.

And I don’t like that stare.

He pivots to Grace, who’s now shaking a little. “Miss?”

“I’m...great,” she says. “Thank you.”

The first deputy leans in, a little too closely, and at a little too convenient of an angle given where he’s standing and the specific cut of Grace’s blouse. “You sure about that?”

“She said she’s fine,” I say.

He glares at me. “I was asking the lady.”

“Right,” I say, firm but not disagreeable. “You asked, she answered.”

He shifts his weight, eyes his buddy. “You know, where I come from, men let women speak for themselves.”

He puts a hand on her shoulder—herbareshoulder. Grace quivers.

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