“
You asked me who I’d been seeing? The mystery guy?”
“Ohhhhhh.” Emily’s eyes lit up at the promise of early morning gossip. “Why, yes. I do remember that.” Emily rested her chin on her hands, settling in for my story.
“I don’t think you need me for this.” Simon threw up defensive hands and went into the kitchen in search of coffee. I gave him a thin smile of appreciation that he didn’t see, then I turned back to Emily and, for the first time, spilled the whole story. Of being so lonely I couldn’t handle it anymore. Of drinking one glass of wine too many and sending that first message to Dex. His response. Our emails. Texts. And realizing last night that it had all been a lie.
“So . . .” While I’d been talking Emily refilled our coffee mugs, and now she sat down again, staring hard at my laptop. “All this time you thought it was Dex, but it was Daniel writing to you instead?”
“Exactly.” I nodded emphatically.
“Are you kidding me?” I jumped at Simon’s voice, harsher, angrier than I was used to hearing him. He was back, leaning against the archway again, his own mug of coffee in his hands. “What kind of Cyrano de Bergerac bullshit is that?”
Emily clucked her tongue and turned in her chair. “I don’t know about that,” she said.
“Of course it is!” He gestured to my laptop. “Look, I’ve known the Dueling Kilts for years. They’ve played the Faire since . . . well, I think since the first year we started hiring outside acts. And they’re great guys. But there’s no way that Dex MacLean could string together a coherent sentence, much less an elaborate email.”
“Hey.” I felt a lick of defensive anger for the hottie I’d hooked up with. But then I thought about it and, well, Simon wasn’t wrong. Hadn’t I thought something similar when I’d first started hearing from Dex? Daniel? Who-the-hell-ever? “Okay, yeah,” I said. “That’s fair.”
Simon’s smile wasn’t unkind as he finished his point. “Which means he got Daniel to write those emails for him. And that’s classic Cyrano.”
“Yeah, but what about the texts?” Emily picked up my phone and waved it at him. “Daniel was using his own phone number. You think Dex was standing over his shoulder, telling him what to say?”
“He could have been.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, in the original play, Cyrano and Christian were both in love with Roxane, but Cyrano sacrificed his chance to be with her because he thought she loved Christian more. But we don’t know if that’s the case here. Maybe Daniel . . .”
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” I closed my laptop with a snap and took my phone back from Emily. “You’re both nerds, you know that? In this century we don’t go straight for a Cyrano reference. We call it catfishing.”
Simon snorted, and Emily bit down on her bottom lip, but amusement danced in her eyes. “Well, yeah. That’s true. But Simon does have a point.”
“Of course I do.” He blew across the top of his mug before taking a sip.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t you have sets to finish painting?
”
”