Portia wasn’t fond of coding, but tweaking the website’s template herself had been worth it. It had taken way longer than hiring someone, given all the web searches she’d had to do to supplement her knowledge of coding, but it had been free and was something she could use in the future. There’d been an uptick in business since the exhibition and her GirlsWithGlasses post, but she’d carved out time using the to-do list journal she’d started after bingeing on Hot Mess Helper videos. Caridad called it the “Brain Basura” list, though the technique was anything but garbage. Every morning, Portia took five minutes to “empty the trash” rattling around in her head and “sort” it into “bins” in varying levels of priority: SMELLY BROCCOLI—DISPOSE OF NOW; PRETTY GROSS—CHUCK IT ASAP; STARTING TO SMELL WEIRD; and *SNIFF* EH. She also jotted down random thoughts but only reviewed them later in the day when her “check the trash” alarm chimed.
The system had helped keep her on track of multiple projects better than anything else she’d tried. She was a little proud of herself, and maybe she wasn’t just getting a big head. Something had shifted in the way Tavish treated her since the exhibition. It was almost like . . . he respected her? And not even grudgingly.
A vibration on the table beside her slowly broke through her focus, and she grabbed the phone while still skimming the HTML code pane.
“Hello?”
“Hi, honey.”
Portia’s stomach executed an elevator free fall at the subtle Southern twang on the other end of the line, an unfortunate automatic reaction that piled shame on top of her anxiety. She should have been happy to hear this voice, and yet . . .
“Hey, Mom. How are you?”
“You know how it is—well, I guess you wouldn’t—busy with work. So busy! Just had a meeting with some investors and now I’m heading over to Brownsville to check out a site that’s for sale. I managed to scoop everyone on this, so I’m hoping to have it wrapped up before anyone tries to edge us out.”
Her mom could be vicious when it came to work, which was a boon in their profession. Reggie’s innate competitiveness had helped her thrive in the family business before pursuing her own dreams, but Portia hated this kind of work, where one mistake or second-guessing yourself could lose the company serious money.
“I’m pretty busy, too, actually.” Portia was embarrassed by the wheedling defensiveness that surged into her tone. It reminded her of when her parents had come home from parent-teacher night comparing Reggie’s honor roll to Portia’s uneven performance, and she’d point out that she’d gotten an A+ in art. “I’m totally redoing the website for the armory. Trying to get it done as quickly as possible because my marketing plan has really been paying off and—”
“That’s nice. Your father talked to you about the position we want to fill, correct?”
A wave of sadness washed through her, leaving anger when it receded. She wished her mother could even pretend to be interested in what she was working on. Feigned interest was a form of politeness Catharine Hobbs excelled at, but she seemed to reserve that talent for other people. Portia would love to know what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that empty cordiality.
“Dad told me you’re looking to fill the position with someone who will stick around for a while.” Portia picked up a pen and started doodling beside the sketches of the various layouts for the website on the pad next to her laptop, then dropped it in frustration. She was a grown woman, even if talking to her mom made her feel like a moody teen.
Her mother sighed. “Well?”
The pressure in that one word was enough to give Portia the bends. One moment she’d been happily immersed in a project she cared about and now she’d been hooked by her mother’s supposed concern and dragged kicking back to the surface of reality.
“I told Dad I would think about it,” she replied.
“If I recall, you didn’t have to think too long about accepting this silly apprenticeship.” Her mother’s voice was coated in disappointment, like poison on the end of a barb that would stay in Portia’s system long after the chastisement was forgotten. “Good to know you care more about some random Scottish people than your own family.”
That tone had always been enough to make Portia burst into tears, and she swallowed against them now. “It’s not like that, Mom.”
She imagined telling her mother about the ADHD tests she’d taken online, all with the same results, but she wouldn’t have been able to stand it if her mother casually dismissed her discovery.
“Oh, I know,” her mother said. “It’s never like that. You do what you want, skip from one thing to another, but being a Jill of all trades, and master of none, can only get you so far. You need a marketable skill and you can’t even take the one we’re handing you?”
Portia closed the laptop, hoping the last changes had saved but not really caring. The site was just another thing she’d mess up eventually, wasn’t it?
“I have to go,” she said. “I have a meeting.”
“Oh, there’s the woe-is-me voice. I’m not trying to be the bad guy, Portia. I just want you to get your life—”
“Talk to you later, Mom.”
Portia sat for a moment after laying her phone down before shaking her head side to side, as if she could knock loose the unhelpful thought patterns her mother had kick-started in her brain.
Jill of all trades and master of none. Jill of all trades and master of none.
It would be one thing if she could dismiss the words outright, but her mother wasn’t totally wrong . . . still, that didn’t mean that taking a job with her parents was right either.
She tried to remember what Dr. Lewis had told her.
“Just because your parents don’t appreciate what you do doesn’t mean it holds less value. You’re trying to be true to yourself, and not to hurt anyone in the process. What more can you ask of yourself?”
Portia wasn’t sure, but she wished she knew. There had to be something that would please both her and her parents, didn’t there?
She didn’t feel like working on the site anymore, so she gently cracked open the book about guild halls of the seventeenth century Mary had given her. Beating herself up wasn’t useful; research was. She’d seen Dudgeon House listed as one of the earlier names for the building the armory was in, and searched it out in the index.
“Dudgeon House was home to the Mariner’s Guild for one hundred years, after which it was bought by a private owner and converted into Firth Hospital,” she read. She went back to the index, and found the entry for Firth Hospital.
She skimmed again, reading through the various public works done by the hospital. “The hospital was purchased by the Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, who opened a home for the destitute.”
That was the end of the entry, but she at least had a name. She pulled up the web browser on her tablet and set to work searching for the rest of the history of the building. Two long, frustrating hours later, all of her normal internet sources, and about a thousand possible avenues, had come to dead ends. This wasn’t even super important to the site, but not being able to find what she wanted bothered her.
She entered her notes into the document she was compiling in her note-taking app, then stood and stretched to work out the tightness in her back and shoulders. There was a bit of burn from the Defending the Castle class the night before, but she was getting the hang of that. It was a good release for the excess energy that had plagued her since the exhibition a week ago.
Portia had seen Tav’s moves in his classes with the kids, but that had been different than seeing him take on a man his size and with matching skills. It hadn’t been a real fight, but the way Tav had moved and the skill he’d displayed had been legit. The man could swing a sword, which Portia hadn’t ever thought would be her kink. And the way he’d pulled back his mask and smiled victoriously at her when he’d won . . . like it had been for her.
No.
Portia distracted herself like any modern woman—she picked up her phone and toggled through her social media sites. The photos from the Ren Faire on the armory’s InstaPhoto were getting some good engagement, but the video of Tav’s fight that she’d linked to her latest GirlsWithGlasses post had taken on a life of its own. Some of the readers had even started a hashtag—#swordbae—sharing it with GIFs of his fight, which she was sure Tav would just love. Oh well.
She copied a link to a post with the hashtag and pasted it into her International Friend Emporium chat.
Portia: Tavish is a meme. He’s going to kill me.
Nya: Maybe he won’t find out since he doesn’t use the internet. That could work to your advantage!
Portia: Finally, his stubborness will be an asset, lol
Portia went back to scrolling the hashtag. #swordbae’s admirers had apparently found her earlier blog posts about the apprenticeship (OMG, THIS IS JUST SO), descended upon the armory’s InstaPhoto feed (whoa, #swordbae is talented af), and shared older social media pics (look at how beautiful this building is! I can’t even!!) and the photo the Bodotria Eagle had shared of them (Is #swordbae wifed?☹). #swordbae posts gushed over Tav’s accent, his muscles, his talent, and the way he looked at the camera at the end of the clip—only Portia knew he had actually been looking at her.
Her body went warm again, and she decided it was time for a break. And for food, because she’d been so absorbed in her work that she’d forgotten to eat. Again.
She ventured out of her room in search of a late lunch. The now-familiar halls of the building were quiet; there was no whir of Tav’s grinder. Maybe he was out making deliveries.
Maybe you shouldn’t be conjecturing about his location because it doesn’t matter what he’s doing.
“Hey! There you are!” Cheryl said, looking up from her stir fry as Portia approached. It was nice to have someone be so unreservedly glad to see her, and washed away some of the bad taste left behind by her mom’s call. The ribs she’d become a fan of would do the rest.
“Hey! Can I get the Dalek Delight again?”
“Oh, sorry, we’re all out. He just got the last of it.” Cheryl pointed her wooden spoon over to the other side of the stand, where Tav sat at one of the tables, shoveling away the ribs that would have been Portia’s in a just world.
“Of course he did,” Portia muttered. “I’ll have the Skyfish-ball skewers and a side of Galli-fried rice. If someone didn’t eat all of that, too.” She shot a glare at Tav, who was happily biting into a delicious-looking rib.
“Sure thing. I’ll bring it over to Tav’s table when it’s ready.”
She’d hit Doctor Hu’s during a lull and Tav was the only other customer, and apparently Cheryl wasn’t aware of the fact that even though Tav was less of a jerk, he and Portia had never really been alone for non-work-related reasons. He generally made himself scarce in the shared areas unless Cheryl or Jamie were around.
There was also the actual problem: she had a kernel of a crush on the man. She needed to grind that kernel into meal, but in the meantime she would just act like everything was fine. Old Portia had been great at that, and New Portia could be, too. Not everything from her old life needed to go in the trash. She donned her blasé employee expression and walked over to him, wishing she had fewer manners so she could just ignore him and sit alone with her phone as she ate, like a normal millennial.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Yes.” He took another bite of food without looking up.
Well, someone was living her dream of a manners-free life. She wasn’t in the mood for his jabs—her mom’s call had wiped away the successes of the previous weeks, leaving her feeling vulnerable.
She turned to walk away, but something wrapped around her wrist, holding her in place. Tav’s thumb and forefinger. He was strong as fuck, his grip enough to hold her though she knew he was exerting the barest effort. If he really tried to hold her down . . .
A shiver went through her and settled in her belly, warm like good whiskey and just as bad for her. Somewhere deep inside of her, the kernel sprouted one bright green leaf.
Dammit.
She looked down at him and there was heat in his gaze, a heat that probably matched the sensation that inched up her neck and over her skin. His eyes dropped to her chest and she tugged her hand away, crossing her arms over her traitorous nipples. Damned soft-cup bras.
“I was joking, Nip—Freckles,” he said, his voice rough. Color flooded his face, and he cleared his throat. “Sit down already.”
She slunk into the seat across from him, too embarrassed to meet his gaze. He seemed to be suddenly awkward too, though, which made things slightly better.
“How are the ribs?” she asked. “I’d been dreaming about those ribs since yesterday and you got the last of them.”
He raised a brow, examining the sauce-slathered meat. “They’re even more delicious than usual, now that you mention it. Mmmm.”
She really could have gone her whole life without hearing Tavish make that noise. It was low and obscene and her body was totally down with both of those things. She crossed her legs. “It’s bad enough I have to sit here and watch you eat them, you don’t have to tease.”
His gaze went from his food to her eyes. It was warm and mischievous and she desperately wished standoffish jerk Tav would reappear because goddamn. “Here’s the thing with teasing. It might seem like torture now, sitting there wanting what you can’t have, but when you finally get it? It’ll be the best you’ve ever had. The best ribs, that is.”
Portia watched him take a bite, shocked into silence by how easily he’d managed to undo all of her resolve with his words. It had been better when he snapped and grouched at her because this . . . this was not sustainable. Project: New Portia had only three rules and she was about ready to jump across the table and straddle her boss, breaking one of those foundational pillars and bringing everything crashing down onto her head, like she always did.
“I’ll be fine with my own meal,” she said. She realized her hands were gripping the table and dropped them into her lap.
Tav lifted one shoulder and both brows, not really a shrug, but an acknowledgment.
“Well. How’s the research for the website going?” he asked.
Portia waited a beat for him to say something rude, but that was it. It was a real question? Not a trap? She was used to having to force information onto him—and well, most people. She relaxed in her seat a little bit.
“It’s going okay. I found some leads on the background of Dudgeon House,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Dudgeon House?”
“That’s the original name of this building. You know, the one you’ve owned for twenty years?” She gestured to the armory looming up beside them.
“Is it now? Huh. That’s good to know.” He popped a fried shrimp into his mouth.
Something wasn’t computing.
“How do you know about all these obscure medieval accords and treaties, but nothing about the place where you’ve lived for so long?”
“Because I’ve been too busy trying to keep the place up, start a business, and run what’s basically become a community center to give a shite what it was called a hundred years ago.” He shrugged. “Part of the reason I didn’t sell it off is I wanted to show people that a poor kid from Bodotria could do just as well as anyone else if given the chance. And I’ve done okay.”
Portia wasn’t a therapist, but if she were she might ask him if perhaps he had projected his anger at his biological father onto the building.
“You’ve never considered selling it?” She’d seen the estimated market value for the building online. Tav would be able to buy a more modern building better suited to his purposes and have plenty left over. The building had already been worth a lot but its value had shot up exponentially compared to everything else in the neighborhood. She wasn’t keen on joining her parents’ business, but she did have basic real estate sense.
“Of course, I have. I’d be daft not to. Look around,” he said, pointing down the cobblestone street with a sauce-stained finger. “But if I sell, that’s one more building that gets converted into a place where they turn up their nose at the people who’ve lived here all their lives. I want to change the neighborhood for the better in a way that doesn’t involve good people getting pushed out of their homes and stores.”
Portia made a vague noise of agreement.
“And it’s the same rich fuck buying everything up and turning it into what he thinks the other rich fucks who move in will want. Selling would be a last gasp effort.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek, gnawing at the discomfort caused by Tav’s words. She was, after all, a rich fuck. Her parents’ investment group focused on real estate. Her income came from rent from buildings they’d bought for her in neighborhoods that had undergone rapid property value increases. Skyrocketing rents were what allowed her to do things like be a perpetual student and drop everything to be a swordmaker’s apprentice.
“That sounds . . . not great,” she said.
“Verra not great,” he replied drily.
Portia didn’t know what to say then. Banter usually flowed pretty easily between them, but now her family’s wealth felt like a dirty secret. And there was this kernel of a crush, like a pea under her mattress. Her brain bounced like a roulette ball, trying to settle on a topic, but the wheel kept spinning as she stared at Tav, feeling increasingly foolish.
“Did you know that a tardigrade is a microanimal not a police box?” she asked.
His brow creased in confusion. “What’s that now?”
“Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “Just ignore that.”
This was why crushes were ridiculous. They sapped you of power and rotted your brain.
Why isn’t my food here already? Cheryl, please save me from myself.
“All righty. Ignoring.” He picked up a rib and sucked the meat off the bone, his lips slick as he worked it over. Portia must have made a sound because he paused and his gaze went to her face.
“Okay, you’ve been staring at me like I have two heads for a minute now. Don’t tell me,” he said, wiping at his mouth with a blue paper napkin. “My eating is uncivilized.”
“Um.” She was tempted to tell him what she’d really been thinking of—his lips on her body. Then Tavish’s mouth pulled into a slow grin and she realized he’d understood at least some portion of that without her saying a word.
Shit.
“Here you go!” Cheryl dropped a tray in front of Portia, her smile faltering a bit as she looked back and forth between them. “Everything all right?”
“She’s just eyeing my meat,” Tav said. He picked up another rib and worked the meat from the bone in teasing pulls with his front teeth.
Portia was certain her face had never gone hotter. She was blushing, and Tavish was enjoying the fact that she was blushing, which made her face burn even more. She missed her days of drunken hedonism, when almost nothing could faze her. She’d lost her tolerance for flirting it seemed; just the tiniest sip of one hundred proof Tav had left her dizzy.
Cheryl’s face scrunched in confusion, but then a group of tourists in Union Jack T-shirts ambled up to the sandwich board menu and she went to greet them.
Come on. You’ve eaten men like this for breakfast—or had them eat you. Get a hold of yourself.
Portia picked up one of the fish ball skewers. “Give me one reason not to jab you with this.”
“I’ll give you two—one, it would be a waste of food, and two, I might like it.”
She forced herself to relax. This was just talk, and she was fantastic at “all talk, no action.” They were two adults, flirting, and nothing else had to come of it. Besides, he’d say something dickish soon enough, and kill the hum of attraction in her body like a mosquito on a bug zapper.
She placed the skewer down and began cutting at the fish balls with her plastic fork and knife.
“Seriously? You can’t use your hands for that?”
See? Zap.
“I prefer using my hands for more enjoyable things,” she said before spearing half an orb and popping it into her mouth. “Like making swords.”
“Why are you here?” he asked suddenly.
“The human body requires energy to run . . .” She couldn’t remember the rest of the smart-ass response she’d lifted from her friend Ledi. Something about the powerhouse of the cell . . . she shrugged. “I was hungry.”
“No. Why did you apply for the apprenticeship? Here? And don’t distract me with the spiritual mankiller tripe. You’ve enough experience to get a real, high-paying job. At a museum, or consulting, or anything really. But you’re here, on my arse about learning how to make a sword.”
He seemed to be genuinely curious and not just annoyed with her.
“Well . . . I’ve tried working at a museum. And art galleries. And offices. Nothing fit. It was like wearing a pair of too-small heels. You grin and bear it for a while, keep up appearances, try not to be a bother to everyone around you, but one day it’s too much and you have to step out of the shoes or amputate your toes. Know what I mean?”
“I hope that coming here was the stepping out of the shoes and not the toe amputation part of that,” he said. “But aye, I know what you mean. That’s how the armory started. I was going to work in a shite office every day, hating every minute of it. Coming home to a wife who thought she’d married a reliable office jockey keen on swords, then got met with the truth—she’d married an unreliable sword jockey who hated offices.”
His smile was rueful, and Portia tried to imagine him dressed in a suit, slogging to an office every day with a grimace on his face as he daydreamed of steel and battle.
“What happened?” She knew plenty of people who had divorced—it had been one of her reasons for never getting serious. Yeah, there were her parents but the data spoke for itself. Divorce was almost inevitable, but marriage didn’t have to be. It just seemed like a lot of work to end up miserable and trapped. She could get that anxiety for free without putting up with an annoying partner or wedding planning stress.
Tav chuckled. “Damned if I know. After making sure I had enough income coming in from the rent here, I quit my job and started apprenticing with a swordmaker I’d met through the martial arts stuff, and it was the first time since I’d graduated that I was happy to get up and go to work.
“Greer tried to be excited for me, to care because I did, but it just wasn’t what she wanted in her life—to be married to a niche tradesman. We grew apart.” He looked off into the distance, then smiled and shrugged. “She’s a good lassie. Living the life she wants now, just how I’m living the life I want. Which brings us back to you.”
“Did my parents put you up to this?” she asked.
“What?”
“This is their favorite question for me. Asking me what I’m doing with my life, and telling me I should be more like my sister, or more like them, or like . . . anyone but me. But I don’t know what I want,” she said. “I’ve been running from one thing to another for a long time. School, internship, school, fellowship, classes, drinking, and . . .” He didn’t need to know everything. “I’m almost thirty and I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.”
“I know that feeling,” he said. “Everyone acts like you’re just supposed to find what you love right away, and if you don’t, just do something you don’t love. And if you do neither of those things you’re being selfish.”
Portia’s throat went a little tight because that was the word that lay at the heart of every discussion with her parents, whether they said it aloud or not. And when all Portia wanted to do was make people happy, every insinuation otherwise was a reminder that no one, not even her family, could see through the veneer of hot mess to the real her.
“Well, what do you like to do?” he asked. “Besides annoy me?”
She wasn’t sure anyone besides Ledi had ever asked her that. She hadn’t had the answer before, but now . . . “I like figuring things out, like the website for the armory and how to get people into Mary’s bookshop. I like social media—you’ve gained over two thousand new followers in the past three weeks, by the way. I like . . . helping people. And making things with my hands, too.”
Tav shifted his bulk, leaning back in his seat. “So you’re just waiting to see which shoe fits, eh Freckerella?”
She didn’t quite like that comparison. People focused so much on the prince slipping on Cinderella’s lost shoe that they didn’t realize the real happily ever after was the moment she realized she was brave enough to go to the damned ball alone in the first place.
“I’m not waiting around for some fuckboy to bring me a shoe. I’m here, working for you. I’m finding my own shoe,” she said. “Do you know how hard finding the perfect pair of shoes is? Wait, I’ve seen your shoes. You don’t.”
“Ha. Ha. All right. I’ve got to go make some deliveries and I have a community meeting tonight, so I might not see you at dinner later.” He took a swig of his bottle of water and then stood, holding his tray. “Tomorrow is a forge day. No sleeping in.”
A rush of effervescent excitement went straight to Portia’s head. “Forge? I get to make a sword tomorrow? Finally?”
Her voice came out high-pitched and she would have been embarrassed if she wasn’t so damn souped up.
“Aye. You like making things with your hands, right? Meet me in the courtyard bright and early because I won’t wait for you if you’re late.”
“Yes, Sir Tavish, sir!” she said, saluting. He grinned as he walked away, and Portia sat for a moment with the carbonated happiness that fizzed in her.
She glanced at him as he took the steps up into the armory two at a time, and added Ass Man to the list of supervillain names she was compiling for him.
“Cheryl! I get to make a sword tomorrow!” She waved her hands in the air, an impromptu celebration dance, and Cheryl laughed.
“I’m not sure why you’d be happy to spend more time with that wanker, but I’m glad you get to do something that makes you happy.”
“Thanks,” Portia said. “Hey, do you want to do something this week maybe? Like, away from the armory?”
Cheryl’s brown eyes lit up. “Of course. There’s so much we can do! The Royal Mile, or a train out to the countryside, or I can take you to my parents’ neighborhood, or—”
A couple of teens walked up to the window and Cheryl gave her a quick smile that implied they’d finish the conversation later, after the customers had gone.
Portia reached to grab a fish ball, utensils be damned, and her fingers slid across something sticky and slick. She looked down at her plate and realized Tav had slid the last of his ribs onto her tray when she wasn’t looking.
She grinned as she bit into it, and told herself it didn’t mean anything at all that it really was the best rib she’d ever eaten.