Chapter Text
Jonathan Sims was waiting for a phone call. He didn’t know when it would come, or whether it would come at all, but he was a man who had enough experience with the caller in question to be prepared for every eventuality. The day was calm, laced with the remains of that morning’s creeping mist, which even now lingered outside the door of the lobby and rose up to kiss his window. It was bolted closed, as always, and the room was clammy. The white paint on the frame was sticky, and there was a chip in it from his illustrious clients’ last visit. The wood glared at him, a small broken-toothed gap in the dental neatness of the window through which the original oak panelling could be seen. He sweated miserably in his borrowed suit. The back of his neck prickled. The clock on the wall ticked dully onwards, moving steadily towards the hour, and all the while he sat and waited for the landline to ring. He had been waiting since early that morning, when he had cancelled all of his appointments for the day and settled down at his desk. Since then he had taken three calls; the first from an angry client, the second from said client’s partner, and the third from Georgie, who had been calling to ask him to pick up her coat from the dry-cleaner’s on his way home. Finally, he resigned himself to the fact that the call he was waiting for was not going to come. The wedding was on.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like weddings. He had reminded Georgie of that fact several times over the past few days, pausing between complaints to remind her that, as he had always maintained, “Being a divorce attorney doesn’t mean that I hate couples.” In this case, the simple truth of it was that he didn’t like the grooms. Still, he couldn’t bear to be late. He stood and checked his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. There was a crack running down the middle of it, dividing his reflection unevenly in half, so that twin Jons seemed to stare miserably out at him from the world behind the glass, their noses not quite aligned, so that to his tired eyes he looked like an unfinished Picasso. He studied his tie, which was knotted at the throat. It was one of his nicer ones, which he usually reserved for first meetings with clients; blue and white with a pattern of fleur de lys, which rose and fell with his chest and peeked out in brief moments from the collar of his waistcoat like the pink flesh behind the gills of a fish. Then there was his face, about which he could do nothing. His eyebags were dark that day. He pushed his hair back, then, hating the look of his hairline, brought it forwards again, so that he looked like a blunt-fringed schoolboy. He ran a hand through it. What he saw in the mirror resembled nothing more than the severe face of his grandmother. Jon grimaced and went on his way.
Tim met him at the door. “How long do we think it’ll last this time?”
“I give it a month.”
“That long? Seems optimistic.” He whistled a merry tune. Tim was eternally jolly. He seemed far more at home in his skin than Jon did; he walked with long, confident steps and waved to passers-by. The clients loved him. Everyone loved him. He was the sort of person at whom people smiled. Jon was the sort of person who encouraged strangers to stare pointedly at the floor. “I’ll bet you fifty quid that they don’t make it three weeks.”
“Does that give them time to get through the honeymoon?”
“Good point. Two.” Tim nudged him with his shoulder. “Buck up, boss. It’s a wedding. There’ll be cake.”
“If I have any more of their cake, Tim, I won’t be able to fit into this suit by their next wedding.”
“Hm. Might be an upgrade.”
“Tim!”
“I’m just saying! Who’d you borrow it from, your great-grandfather?”
“Some of us don’t have time to keep up with the latest trends in fashion.” He looked at Tim out of the corner of his eye. “You’re in good spirits.”
“You aren’t. Did Elias piss in your cereal again? I mean, come on, Jon. How bad could it be?”
“Two weddings ago Peter pushed Elias off a cruise ship.”
That got a wild guffaw of laughter out of his colleague. “Well, this one’s on dry land. They’re your clients, Jon. Worst thing that could happen is that you get another big old paycheck.”
“I’m sure I will eventually,” said Jon. The day was beautiful. London chugged and heaved around them, foul-smelling and then fragrant, not yet busy enough for them to have to push their way through the churning bustle of tourists and commuters and geriatric billionaires that would fill the streets by lunchtime. The sky was clear and watercolour blue overhead. Jon enjoyed the picture book attractiveness of it, the fluffy white clouds that skimmed by overhead, delicate and curling as those a child might have drawn, the budding trees that burst up from the pavement every few metres, the soft breath of the breeze that blew the fallen leaves around their ankles. The people of that city were annoying and loud and ever-changing, but he had no resentment for this unassuming scenery, the setpieces of early spring, which were already being ushered in by the nighttime stagehands of the city. A handful of pigeons scattered as they descended into the tube station. From there they would take a second tube to Charing Cross, then a Southeastern service out into the Kentish countryside. He always enjoyed seeing the city break down outside the window, skimming over the glittering ribbon of the Thames and into the graffiti-ed outskirts, and then into the endless countryside, green and rustling, punctuated by the occasional dog walker or flock of sheep grazing by the tracks. Tim kept up a steady stream of conversation the whole time, while Jon tried his best to ignore the label of his shirt, which was tickling his back.
As they drew into the station, Jon finally stirred from his trance. He had slumped against the window, and his forehead had left a smudge on the glass. “You know, I really thought they were going to call it off this time,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for Elias to call me and say, ‘It’s off, Jon. Peter’s gone out to sea,’ or something of that sort.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“No. Well, it seems this time they’re actually going through with it.”
Tim ruffled his hair. “Chin up. You look like you’re going to a funeral.”
“The day’s still young. Knowing them, it might well become one.”
They took a taxi to the stately home where the wedding was being held. Jon saw all the same familiar faces there; to their left were the group which Tim affectionately referred to as ‘the cadavers,’ of which none of the members was younger than 90; behind them were the young billionaires and the tech whizzes and the old-money men with their girlfriends on their arms, all of them glittering and beautiful and endlessly charming. Jon felt like a grim old bird presiding over it all, with his greasy black feathers and his dark eyes. He was bad luck. He was a reminder of how quickly things could collapse.
“Pretty tame this time,” Tim said. “I remember the first one we went to -”
“Don’t remind me.” They were shown round the back by a young attendant who Jon didn’t recognise. “Another new member of their staff. Do you think they ate the last one?”
“Very possible.” Tim handed him a sheet of pastel blue paper. “Don’t forget this during the speech.”
“One of your bingo cards? Tim, don’t you think that’s in bad taste?”
“Twenty quid for the winner. I’m going to pass them around.” He winked at Jon. “The people love them.” He put his hands in his pockets and whistled in surprise as they came into the garden. It was, Jon had to admit, remarkable. It brimmed with all of the fruits of spring; they entered through a hawthorn arch upon which the flowers brimmed and foamed and burst forth in sprays of pink and white, their heads peeking shyly forth from the leaves, with deep red hearts which drew the eye inwards and caught it there, entranced by the very essence of springtime, which seemed to hover within each bud, dancing among the petals. Then there were the roses, the petals of which were scattered along the path, pink and fragrant, fresh enough that they remained untouched by brown rot. The whole garden was framed by bushes of them that filled the air with their sweet fragrance, bobbing in the slight breeze. There were flowers everywhere, yellow and blue and white, so that they seemed to have come into a veritable Eden. A bird sung sweetly on a branch behind the altar. Jon felt sick with the beauty of it all.
The garden was divided by two rows of white chairs, each of which was topped with a cream silk cushion which Jon recognised from the last wedding. At the back of the garden, closest to where they had come in and butting up against the house, was a large open area in which the guests could mingle. Jon spotted the bar - always free - and made a beeline for it. The day was already getting hot, and he could feel the fabric of his shirt beginning to dampen under the arms. He settled himself there and let himself watch the guests going by. He recognised almost all of them. They reminded him of a grotesque aquarium, garbed in red and yellow and pink and blue, silk and satin and chiffon and velvet, tweed and twill and faux fur, gleaming sequins and embroidery and panels and pocket-squares. There were the rich, featureless young men, who swarmed like a shoal of guppies, each of them more colourful and attractive than the last, vacant-eyed and tiny, with their fan-tails and their well-made suits and their overwhitened smiles. He caught sight of Elias’ uncle, who reminded him of a gar, with his long, pointed nose and his mouth which jutted forwards like a spike, as if trying to catch up with the sloping contours of his forehead. He moved quickly through the crowd, sweaty-browed and smarmy, trying to find his way to the rest of the family. The Lukases were spread throughout the crowd, each on their own with a small bubble of space around them. They were plain and solitary, and put him in mind of hulking sharks; Peter himself was the greatest and loneliest of them all, scaly and rough to the touch from years at sea, a strange and foreign beast who stood head and shoulders above everyone else in any given crowd. Then there was Jared Hopworth, the catfish, with his whiskers and his gaping mouth, a slow-moving bottom feeder who pushed his way through the crowd without any apparent awareness of the people around him. The waiters ran around like darting shrimp, with curling moustaches and trays and uniform black-and-white suits with bright pink ties. Annabelle Cane was there, Jon noted with a shiver. She didn’t remind him of any sea creature. She had all the unsettling jerkiness of a waiting spider.
“I do wonder why they keep trying to work it out. And, you know, why they couldn’t just date like the rest of us.” Tim grinned. “I mean, all I can think is that the hate sex must be amazing.”
“God, Tim. Do you always have to be so vulgar?”
“Sorry, boss. I know, not your bag. Still, you have to think about it, don’t you? Speaking of which - woah. Who’s she?” Tim pointed to a woman on the other side of the garden. She was tall, with twists that fell over her shoulders and horn-rimmed glasses. She was busy arranging and rearranging a sprig of cow parsley pinned to the breast of her dress. “I haven’t seen her before. Have you?”
Jon rubbed his temple. He was already developing a headache. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sasha, I think? She’s one of the wedding planners.”
“Can you introduce me?” Before Jon could reply, Tim seemed to think better of it. “Actually, it’s probably better that you don’t.” He glanced over his shoulder at her again. She noticed him looking and gave him a little wave. Jon could have sworn that he actually blushed. “Good luck with the wedding. Don’t kill anyone. That includes yourself.” Tim patted him firmly on the back and made his way into the writhing crowd.
He reached for a drink from the tray of a passing waiter and drank deeply. There was no sign of either of the grooms yet. He was just settling in to pass the afternoon in tipsy oblivion when a large, warm body crashed into his, knocking his glass to the ground.
“Damn it.” He patted himself down anxiously. A waiter swooped in almost immediately to pick up the fallen drink. “Watch where you’re going.”
He looked up at the stammering figure, who had gone bright pink and was turning an even more remarkable shade as he watched. His face was soft and freckled, though they were barely visible thanks to his flushing cheeks. Here was an interesting creature, he thought, and rather unflatteringly compared him to a salmon. His next thoughts were no kinder, coloured as they were by his annoyance at having dropped his drink and having to be here, at this wedding, pretending that the two men were in love and that their relationship would last longer than five minutes and that he wouldn’t rather be at home in bed, reading a book or working or doing anything other than exchanging pleasantries with people he didn’t know and didn’t care to.
“I’m so sorry - god, I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t looking. Are you alright? I mean, obviously you’re alright, it’s not like it’s - I don’t know, acid or something - but you’re not wet, are you?” The man unthinkingly reached out and, to Jon’s disbelief, began to pat him down with a paper napkin. “Oh god, your suit. I’m so sorry.”
“Stop apologising.” He couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice. “It’ll dry.” The man looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for Jon to introduce himself. He looked almost tearful. Jon took an immediate and, he would admit to himself later, irrational dislike to him. After another uncomfortable moment, the man held out a pale hand.
“Blackwood. Uh - Martin Blackwood.” He bit his lip.
“Jonathan Sims.” He felt the dread of having to continue the conversation fall upon him. “So, Martin, how do you know the grooms? You’re not one of the waitstaff, are you?”
He laughed nervously. “No. I mean, easy mistake to make, I guess. I’m the wedding planner.” His tone was naturally uncertain; every sentence rose up at the end, as if it was a question. “One of them. The head one.”
“Oh.” Jon had the good sense to be slightly embarrassed - though, he thought, only slightly, given how little he cared about what the Bouchard-Lukases thought of him. “And how many of their weddings have you organised?”
“Five.” He scratched the back of his head and laughed again. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his freckled forearms. There was a mark on his wrist where a watch had clearly been until very recently; the skin was reddish-pink and indented, and Jon could still make out the impressions of the gaps between the segments of the strap. His suit was navy blue, with a powdery shirt. He was sweating too; Jon felt relieved that he wasn’t the only one. “This one’s pretty toned down. I think they wanted something traditional this time. I mean, they’ve had the cruise ship, and you know, that didn’t work out - do you know? Anyway, that didn’t stop them from trying to have another one - but I said, hey, maybe that’s a bad idea, maybe we should try something with less of a death risk this time, maybe something normal, you know, just for once, this time round. And there was the cliff top one - the less said the better - and the park wedding, and the one at the harbour. But I’m talking too much about myself, aren’t I?” His cheeks were still pink. “Whose side are you on?”
Jon looked at the two blocks of chairs and grimaced. “Neither.”
Martin laughed too loudly. “I mean, how do you know the grooms?”
“I’m their divorce attorney. Eleven divorces, eleven weddings. I didn’t go to the first one for obvious reasons.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, before Martin blurted out, “But you can’t be here.”
“Oh? I didn’t realise you were in charge of the invitations, too.”
Martin was stammering again. “I mean, I didn’t mean it like that. I just… well, isn’t it bad luck?” Jon wished that he still had his drink. As if reading his mind, Martin hailed a passing waiter and grabbed two glasses. “Here. Sorry again.”
Jon took a deep draught. “Not even a blessing from God Himself could save this marriage, Martin.” He took a longer look at his companion, and felt the sudden need to say something polite. Martin’s face was red and pitiful and he felt guilty. Clearly he wasn’t the only one caught up in Peter and Elias’ wake. “I like the flower arrangements.”
“They’re Sasha’s.”
“And - ah - the chairs. Nice cushions.”
Martin actually glowed at the compliment, and he felt another stab of guilt. He resolved to try to be nicer to him. “Really? I chose the fabric myself, and I thought, it might be a little garish, you know, but that cream lace along the border just looks so nice, and Elias agreed - he’s always liked those eye decals for some reason, and if you look closely you can see that they’re all over it. My mum liked it too - she said it reminded her of her wedding train, and she doesn’t talk about my dad much, so -” He cut himself off. He clearly thought that he had said too much.
“Well, I think they’re lovely. Charming.” He looked out over the crowd again, and immediately ducked behind Martin, clasping his shoulders. “Oh, god. Hide me.” Martin trembled under his touch. Jon noticed absent-mindedly that the fabric of his shirt was remarkably soft, and wondered what it would feel like on his own sensitive skin.
“Jonathan Sims! You’re not trying to run away from me, are you?”
He gave up any hope of avoiding the interaction, and emerged from behind the cover of Martin’s substantial shoulders. “Jude.”
“How’ve you been?” She held out a hand for him to shake. He hesitated, and she laughed, waving it at him derisively. “Come on. I don’t bite.”
He took the hand, and just as he had expected, she squeezed hard and clicked his pinky finger right out of its joint. He tried his best not to whimper until she finally released him. “I’m… alright.”
“‘Course you are.” She gave him one of her most infuriating grins. “Tell Tim thanks for the bingo card, hey?” She waved it at him. “I’ve seen a copy of Peter’s speech, and I think I’ve got this one down.” With that, she moved away from them, disappearing back into the crowd. Jon had no doubt about what position she occupied in the aquarium. She was a shark.
Martin’s face had returned to that impressive pink colour. “Who was she?”
“Jude Perry. She’s in demolition.” He shook out his aching hand and rubbed his palm unhappily. “She never misses an opportunity to say hello.”
“I don’t think I’ve made her acquaintance. And Tim?” Martin asked sheepishly. “Is he your date?” There was something unidentifiable in his voice.
“What? Oh, no. Just my colleague. You’d like him. Everyone likes him.”
“I like you.” There was another supremely awkward moment of silence. “I mean, so far.”
“Thanks.” It was time, Jon decided, to change the subject. “I should really take a look at my card. Every wedding, they say the same things in the speech.” He pulled it out of his pocket and unfolded it. “This one’s a classic. Elias mentions the prenup and Peter gets angry.”
“One of them tries to kill the other?”
“That’s a free space. Look, this one’s similar: Watersports (Water Related Violence). Not his best, actually, given there’s no water here. And then there’s another good one - Simon Fairchild shows up -”
“Who?”
“The cause of their third and fifth divorces. Him and Elias got a little too close - you know what I mean. Peter and Elias never really date anyone else, but Elias gave it a go while they were still married.”
“Twice?”
“Twice.”
Martin grimaced. “I’ve always thought that they must have one hell of a prenup. A hell of a lot of money, too, to afford all of these weddings and divorces.”
“Ironclad.” Jon could feel a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. “I’ve seen all of it. Funds, investments, houses in the Côte d'Ivoire, the lot. Peter owns five ships. That’s where he’s always going.” He was already drunk. He felt the need to share more with Martin, this near-stranger, simply thanks to his proximity and the fact that he was another sufferer in the great circus that was Elias and Peter’s relationship. “You know, Elias Bouchard isn’t even his real name.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. This name’s his fourth. It was Jonah Magnus first. He changes it every few marriages so that Peter can feel like he’s having a fresh start with someone new.”
“But Elias - uh - should I call him Jonah? Anyway, he never gets that privilege?”
“Elias is perfectly happy hating what he’s got.” Jon patted his pockets. “You haven’t got a cigarette, have you?”
“No. I don’t smoke.”
He sighed. “What are you good for?” Martin looked distraught. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Before he could say anything else, a bell trilled. It was the signal for the guests to sit down and prepare themselves for the ceremony. After that would be the reception - Elias and Peter’s weddings always had this extended period of chatter before them, likely so that their guests would get drunk enough that they could look past their sickening advances on each other and their petty arguments, then a second, more formal reception - and the dinner, and then the speeches. Martin told him as they walked over to their seats that he had arranged for all of the sharp implements on the table to be taken away before those began.
To his mild dismay and surprise, Jon was seated next to Martin for the dinner. He supposed that Martin might have pulled some strings now that he knew him, so that they could keep talking. He did get some amusement out of the idea that their jobs were so directly opposed; it was like a conversation between a mortician and a midwife, he muttered to Tim under his breath. His colleague kept giving loaded glances to Sasha, who was sitting across the room from them by the grooms’ table. Jon downed more glasses of champagne than he should have. In the bathroom mirror he stared at his clammy face, ringing by flashing fairy lights which glittered in his eyes and gave his skin a sickly greenish undertone. His glasses had gotten scratched right up the middle, and so whenever he tried to focus on something he saw a thin black line spread like a hair across his vision. He was very tired. He thought of his bed back home, where he spent sweaty nights tossing and turning and trying to sleep, tangling the sheets around his legs, curling up like an invalid or a foetus in the very corner with his head pressed against the wall and his face in the crack between the mattress and the plaster, breathing in the cold air. Georgie stood tutting in his mind’s eye, his ex-girlfriend and part-time roommate when he was too tired to make the long commute back to his flat. It had been many months since he had had a good night’s sleep, and it was showing.
“Romantic, isn’t it, when you think about it?” Tim said when he got back to the table. “That they always come back to each other.”
“To the prison of each other’s company.”
“Bad afternoon?” Tim patted him on the shoulder. To Martin, he said, “He’s always like this. This is what I have to put up with every day. We’re just like them, y’know. Always sticking together, through thick and thin.” He looked Jon up and down. “Too thin, in your case. Have some more cake.”
He was aware that Martin was staring at him. He no longer wanted to have company. He wanted the day to be over. He thought of work, as he often did when he needed to distract himself from his current state, and then he thought of Peter and Elias, and then his mind was back on the wedding, back in his head where it belonged, glued to every tiny orifice of the inside of his skull, every aching crack and soft fold of tissue, tied to the wooden chair in the marquee at the wedding of two men he hated, who he could no longer bring himself to pretend to like, two men who clung to each other and despised each other and loved each other.
Tim won the bingo, as he always did. The prenup was mentioned, and Elias’ pink nose went even pinker; Simon Fairchild arrived in a metaphorical puff of smoke and brought the mood down, and Elias and Peter acted all the more warmly towards each other to make up for it, so that everyone in the room, Jon assumed, felt as sickened by them as he did. He went outside for a moment to smoke, needing to get away from the bright lights of the party and the dancing and the music. The night was dark and cold, and he felt the air rushing in and making his head spin. The stars were bright overhead. Somewhere in the distance he heard an owl hooting, followed by the wicked laughter of a fox creeping across the moonlit countryside. He lit his cigarette and drew deeply on it. His hands were shaking from the need for nicotine.
“Are you heading off?”
“Martin.”
“I’m sorry. I noticed you leaving and I was worried that you weren’t feeling well.”
“I promise you, Martin, I just look like this. I’m fine.” He tipped his head back to watch the night sky. He was drunk. A satellite, or perhaps a plane, flew overhead. In the cold of the night, with the muffled music from the wedding filling the air around them, he imagined that it was a shooting star. He felt sentimental. He felt older than his age.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Martin said. “I first came here at night, actually. I thought they’d like it, you know, seeing it like this.”
“They’ll be too drunk to see anything at all. Don’t be disappointed, though. I’m here to see it. So are you.” He took another drag. The burning end of his cigarette glowed in the darkness. He imagined that it lit his face in unsettling contours; how would he look golden, with the shadows playing across his face and making him into something else entirely? “The night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one; yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun.”
“The mind has a thousand eyes, and the heart but one; yet the light of a whole life dies when love is done.”
“You know the poem?”
Martin shrugs. “My mum likes it. I read poems to her sometimes, to help her get to sleep.” He fell silent.
Jon exhaled deeply. “Don’t you ever get tired of the whole thing?”
“What do you mean?”
“The weddings,” he said. “The violence and glamour of it all. Their whirlwind romance, and getting caught up in it. I mean, I’ve had to drop other clients for them. I see them, what, every three months or so for another divorce. They have one fight and drop it all, and expect me to drop everything for them too. And then there’s the yelling and throwing things, destroying my office - I had this lovely snow globe that I got last Christmas or the Christmas before, and Elias broke it - and where am I supposed to get another one at this time of year? It’s volatile. They call me at all hours of the night. The minute they have a problem, it’s ’Jon, come and divorce us.’ I want to step out of the dance.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.” Martin grimaced. “I’m just trying to do my job, but my god. They never agree on anything. All white flowers, Elias says, and then Peter calls me half an hour later and wants yellow, and when I give them both nobody’s happy. Peter wants every wedding to be at sea, but Elias gets seasick, so I have to consult the weather forecast months in advance and hope and pray that the waves are perfectly still, or else come up with some absurd compromise that doesn’t work at all. Silk for the suits, says Elias, but Peter wants tweed. Two different ringbearers, four best men. They never talk to each other. And, you know, it’s not like I’m homophobic - I mean, I’m gay -” He blushed. “You don’t mind that, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “But they’re sickening together. They’re terrible.”
“Oh, I know.” Jon felt a malicious little thrill. “And when it falls apart, we all get caught up in it. Once Elias got some - I don’t know, some sort of bug freak to deliver us a basket of wasp larvae. Who does that?”
“Jesus Christ.” Martin looked at him in the darkness. His eyes were an interesting shade of brown, not like chocolate or caramel or any of those elegant, poetic metaphors, but just brown, warm, soft brown. They looked right in his face. “And it’s not like I ever get any thanks for it. I assume it’s the same for you. Even if the pay is good -”
“It’s not worth it.” An idea occurred to him, nebulous and uncertain in the back of his mind. As he spoke, his words gave it form, solidifying it into something it might never have become had it not been for its heavy shape in the night air, like molten metal being cast into shape by the blacksmith’s hammer. “What if we make it stop?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean like… a contest. Stop the whole carousel.” He was starting to slur his words. Martin was drunk too; he could smell the champagne on his breath. “Next time they come to me for a divorce, I’ll try to get them to stay together forever. Couples therapy, retreats, every trick in the book. And if that doesn’t work, when they come to you for their next wedding, you get them to stay broken up. Either way, they leave us alone.”
Martin looked at him with wonder in his eyes. “And if neither of us make it work?”
Jon shrugged. “Then we’re no worse off.”
“You said it was a contest. What’s the prize?”
He threw his arms out wide and spun in a circle. His cigarette had long since burned out, and he dropped it into the grass. “Being free.”
“You can do better than that. What if the winner gets to choose?”
Jon looked at him appraisingly. “You’re not too bad, you know. You’re so much better when you’re drunk.” He offered him a handshake. “So what do you want if you win?”
“Well, I haven’t decided yet.” He gave Jon a lopsided grin, and took his hand. His palms were clammy and soft. The backs of his hands were so freckled that they looked almost golden in the moonlight. A great cheer went up from the marquee. “So it’s a deal?”
“It’s a deal.”