Page 74 of Kissing for Keeps
I hold my stick-horse mount with my left hand and the plastic lance with the other hand. On the end, the lance has a bulb of foam, as if it being plastic wasn’t enough to make it harmless. Rémy and his friends are doubled over laughing at the sight of us, and even though Troy and I are smiling now, we are also dead serious. This is a fight to the death.
Standing in the middle of the arena, Laurent holds up a flag with a coat of arms on it. I can’t even understand the words he says, but when the flag comes down and he hurries out of the line of fire, I start charging, and so does Troy.
It’s surprisingly difficult to control a hobby horseandkeep a lightweight lance aimed straight while running, but my eye is on the prize: the upper right side of Troy’s chrome spray-painted breastplate.
We collide, his lance hitting me just above the belly button, mine hitting him between the ribs, and both of us stumble, then fall to the ground with our trusty steeds.
Rémy and Jean-Paul are next, then Troy and Vincent. We each go twice, but I don’t get matched up with Troy again. Since the next event is archery, pummeling is out of the question.
But since most of my arrows hit much closer to the bullseye than his do, I’m thede factowinner.
The final event—sword-fighting—arrives, and Troy and I exchange a look that communicates clearly that we intend to fight each other. But Laurent is in charge here, and he pairs me with Jean-Paul. I manage to beat him, barely. I get a breather while Rémy and Troy fight. Rémy has definite skill with plastic swords, though, and he finishes Troy off within less than two minutes.
I clap, but secretly I’m disappointed. Way more disappointed I won’t get to fight Troy with fake swords than any man in plastic knight armor should be.
I beat Vincent, which pits Rémy and me against each other for the final battle.
Rémy beats me handily, raising his sword at the end in victory.
Troy claps offensively loud, while Jean-Paul cries out, “For Madi!”
We head to change out of our armor, and I’m embarrassed by how much I’m sweating beneath my tunic. I’m also trying not to think about how often these things are or are not laundered.
“Your last couple nights as a single man, Rémy,” Vincent says. “How does it feel?”
He chuckles as he pulls off his tunic. “Like I wish it was Thursday already.” The civil ceremony at City Hall is Wednesday, but all the big celebrations and the religious ceremony are on Thursday.
“Really?” Jean-Paul says with surprise. “I cannot imagine feeling so anxious to surrender my liberty to a woman.”
“Me neither,” Vincent says with a laugh.
“How did you know?” I’m too curious to stop myself. “That you wanted to marry her?”
Troy glances at me, and I try to look like I don’t really care whether Rémy answers or not. I’m just making polite conversation, you know?
“She had a boyfriend when you met, no?” Vincent says.
“Yeah,” Rémy says, “she did.”
“The world’s biggest idiot,” I say.
“Really?” Jean-Paul asks, pulling up a sock.
“Yes, really,” Rémy confirms.
“Man,” Troy says, unclipping his breastplate, “must have been hard to see your sister with somebody like that.” He shoots me a glance, still with that same mixture of serious teasing.
Loud and clear, buddy. The fact that he’s comparing me to Josh is more hurtful than he realizes. Idoappreciate Siena. I’ve never met anybody like her, and while she could probably do better than me, I couldn’t do better than her.
That’s a sad thought, since she’s not an option.
“It was bad timing,” Rémy said. “She was just getting out of a long, hard relationship, not to mention the fact that she had a plane ticket home and no plans to come back to Paris. The odds were stacked against us. A lot of people would have thrown the idea out.”
“So why didn’t you?” I avoid Troy’s eye. Circumstances weren’t really in Rémy and Madi’s favor when they first started dating. Yet, here they are, about to get married.
Rémy shrugs as he sets his armor in the closet. “I think both of us were worried about it not working out, but I knew I would always wonder if we didn’t give it a try. So, I told her the truth about how I felt.”
Evidently, the breastplate was doing more than I thought, because now that it’s gone, Rémy’s words hit me like a real lance. I don’t want to live with regret either. I’ve had a taste of that these past seven years, always niggled by the question of what might have been between Siena and me if things had been different. That was after just a couple of hours and one kiss.
