Page 44 of Trickster King

“It’s the picture of you and Jessica jousting,” Randy informed me. “Much to the anguish of the entire RPS.”

I lifted my head with wide eyes. It had taken a miracle to convince them to let us joust. For the first run, we’d been armored, there’d been a ridiculous amount of padding under the armor, we’d both been wearing helmets, airweavers had been on guard to redirect lances if needed, and the lances had been made of stiff foam meant to break apart upon impact. Once the lances had been confirmed to work as intended, we’d been allowed to ditch the armor although we’d both been wearing special protective sunglasses to safeguard our eyes on the subsequent runs.

We’d spent hours charging at each other with foam lances, and once we’d gotten tired of that, we’d battled each other with padded swords until we’d worn ourselves out to the point we’d barely been able to return to our suite.

Someone had captured a picture of us charging each other, lances set, the moment before impact. I had a copy of the photograph in our suite, and it was one of my favorite memories.

“They’re putting that picture on the ones?”

“Yes, they are.”

I couldn’t complain, so I shrugged and replied, “If they want to put one of the best pictures of us together on the money, I have zero problem with this. I actually look like a regal cowboy king and she’s a fierce rodeo queen in that picture. And our horses were in great form.”

The brother stallions had loved every minute spent charging down the field at each other.

Randy snickered. “And exactly nobody won that bet, Geoff.”

“What bet?” I asked.

“Everyone had an ongoing pool regarding how you would react to the new bills. Nobody had bet you would be pleased with the chosen picture,” Randy informed me.

“Why wouldn’t I be pleased? That’s my favorite photograph of us together. I mean, it’s a little weird it’ll be on the money, but please ask the nice people at the mint if we can leave that picture intact for longer than normal to spare everyone the hassle of changing it.” As I had a habit of keeping cash but rarely checked the bills, I dug out my wallet to check my ones. All of them were the old bills, which featured Jessica’s parents. “Are they out yet?”

“They released three weeks ago. Your wife asked us to stay quiet about the bills as she wanted to see how long she could hoodwink you.”

I would enjoy making my wife pay for her cunning. “Have the tens been done yet?”

“Yes,” Randy admitted.

I narrowed my eyes. “And what picture is on those bills?”

“It’s one of the parade pictures. You happened to be riding Baby while dressed in a suit, wearing the crown you utterly abhor and wish you could burn but without the mantle you tried to hide in your closet so you wouldn’t have to deal with it again.”

I considered the picture, and if it hadn’t been for the damned crown, I would have liked it. I’d been keeping an eye on Deidre, who’d been toddling around with a pony on a lead line as she hadn’t been old enough to reliably ride yet. Unbeknownst to me, I’d drawn a great deal of attention. I’d been so focused on my child and her pony that I’d lowered my general guard.

When I lowered my general guard, I tended to come across as disgustingly regal.

Jessica always laughed when I complained I couldn’t do regal on purpose and that it took keeping a child out of trouble to make me look even remotely kingly.

Five minutes after the picture had been taken, I’d needed to get off my horse to comfort pony and child, as a loud noise had startled them. Rather than ride my horse and maintain my kingly appearance during the short parade, I’d ended a temper tantrum by walking beside Deidre while she rode her pony. That had resulted in Jessica also walking rather than riding.

There were a ridiculous number of pictures of us escorting our daughter on her pony and acting more like the parents we were than royalty on display for our kingdom.

“It could have been worse,” I conceded. “A lot worse. They could have used one of the ones where I was sitting on that damned throne.”

That got Geoff and Randy laughing, and the head of my detail shrugged. “Your wife was trying to be as inoffensive as possible for a change. She was going quite crazy trying to pick the perfect picture. I may have suggested she pick the pictures you liked enough to keep in your suite.”

Both of those pictures were in our suite, although I’d put the one of me on Baby out for Jessica because she liked it. “That’s actually a really good idea. I really appreciate that, Randy. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Just try to remember that this restaurant will only benefit from your presence tonight. They don’t have any reservations, they have plenty of space, and as I am aware of your concerns for stocking, they had plenty of warning for the size of our group to stock their kitchen at their local butchers. Everything will be fine. If you make it through dinner without any issues, you can even have a glass of port with dessert.”

Damn. Randy meant business when he dangled such a prize; if I were to develop an issue with alcohol, it would be with ports, as I found them to be delectable, sweet treats. As a result, I collected port bottles and drank very little, limiting to no more than twice a week, and that was only if I forewent any other alcohols.

Other kings would have bristled about the restrictions, but I understood their wisdom.

The few times I’d gotten drunk, I became a cheerful, laughing mess of a man who could be lured off into doing whatever anyone wanted as long as they were nice to my wife and children. If they weren’t, I got mean in a hurry.

Fortunately for me, the experiments had been done when the children hadn’t been present, and the RPS had ruthlessly used my wife to contain me until I’d sobered up.

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