"Only the stuffiest Elvish classics allowed," she agreed tonelessly. If they noticed she wasn't taking part in their mirth, they did not let on.
"Oh, we would read more than the classics. I'll be honest, that would bore me to tears. But not romance. They're just so silly!" Aubreen exclaimed as her husband rolled his eyes, draining his drink.
"I suppose you only read highbrow literature, Berricin?" Silva challenged. “Or Elvish mysteries? Those areneverformulaic, right?” If they heard the note of defiance in her voice, it was washed away in another tidal wave of Aubreen's bright laughter.
"Silva, don't listen to a word he says. As if he's picked up a book in the last decade."
"I don't think there's anything wrong with romance books," Tannar interjected, earning a fresh round of laughter. "Gives us something to aspire to. We could all use with a bit more romance in our lives. I just wish they weren't all so unrealistic. I mean, how many secret princes areactuallytraipsing around? You'd think there was one on every street corner for the way they turn up in books."
"Secret princes who are all masquerading as horse trainers,” Aubreen tittered.
“Masquerading as horse trainers, and they all have two foot cocks.”
The table howled at Berricin’s rude addition. She had packed up the books in her apartment when she’d moved, now one of several untouched boxes sitting in the hall closet, waiting to go to the donation bin, and her ereader had been slid onto the shelf in her room and forgotten, left to gather dust. She didn’t derive any pleasure from reading anymore.
"They all have happy endings," Silva interjected amidst their laughter. “That'sthe unrealistic part.” Across the table, Berricinwas catching their server’s eye for a fresh round. "Happily ever afters. That's never the way life goes, is it?"
She waited until the conversation shifted again, until they were all engrossed in club nonsense once more before making her escape. Silva felt as if she were suffocating. She needed to get out of there, needed to go home. After splashing her face with cold water in the restroom, she edged her way back to the dining room floor, looking out across the long expansive tables, watching the back of Tannar's head. She didn't want to ask him to leave. She didn't want to make a scene, didn't want to give Aubreen any reason to go running back to the club with her tongue wagging.
Silva waited until she was sliding into the rideshare before she texted Tannar.
I'm sorry, I'm not feeling well.
I'm already heading home, you don't need to get up and run after me
I didn’t want to make you have to leave. Stay and enjoy yourself.
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Her eyes closed, fresh tears catching in her lashes as she hit send on the last line. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Such an easy sentiment, so easily taken for granted.I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'll see you tomorrow. Your whole life is going to change tomorrow.
"They spent the entire time arguing over the expectations of the ‘inciting incident.’ It was so silly! They didn't care that they were wasting the entire meeting for the rest of us.”
Her voice was mournful, over-dramatic considering she was talking about something as frivolous as bookclub.
“We never got to talk about the story at all, not really. They only cared about their giant opinions."
Her head dropped pathetically against his chest in what she knew could only be defined as a pout. Silva couldn't help it. Book club that month had been an exercise in frustration. She had left the shop mumbling to herself, stamping across the little gravelparking lot after saying goodbye to Ris, driving straight through to Greenbridge Glen, but by the time she’d arrived, she only felt sad.
She had read that month's book in plenty of time for the book club discussion, had even gone so far as to write herself notes, potential questions, points she wanted to raise. She had found a darling little annotation set for that exact purpose — dreamy ice cream-colored sticky notes and little flags, transparent squares meant to be placed directly on the page. The little raspberry sorbet-colored folio case coordinated with her e-reader cover perfectly, and she'd been very excited to attend that month's book club meeting. She had never worked up the courage to voice her opinion previously, but now she felt prepared, the little tabs sticking out of her book proof that she was a serious reader.
The loudest voices in the group were the werebear who organized the book club with her sister-in-law and a troll who considered herself to be the smartest person in the room. Silva found them to be obnoxious bullies. They’d turned to her that night when she’d tentatively asked a question, attempting to steer the discussion beyond the first eleven pages, to the bulk of the novel’s contents, which chronicled the tempestuous relationship between a centaur and a sylph-like trapeze artist against the intriguing and volatile backdrop of a midnight carnival. The troll had turned to her derisively and the werebear had snorted.
“What, the kissing bits? That’s the dross the author had to write in for the lowest common denominator just to get the book on shelves in the first place. That’s not what it’s actually about.”
The dross.
She’d driven to Greenbridge Glenn that night feeling beaten down and sad. Joining the book club with Ris was meant to be fun, a way to find new friends with common interests beyond Cevnanorë’s protective gates. Instead, it had wound up as areminder that she was unserious, that the things she liked were not valued, and that she was better off not saying anything at all.And if you’re not going to participate, why bother going?
"What the fuck was the inciting incident?" Tate's voice was so dubious above her that she giggled, craning her neck back to look up at his chin. “I thought you told me this was about a horseman and his tightrope walker. Does she fall off her little line?”
“She does, actually,” Silva laughed. “At the end of the second chapter.” Silva sighed, aggravated over the meeting all over again. "Theythink the book was about the mystery. That's how the book starts, with one of the girls in the circus getting murdered. They think that was the inciting incident, but they're wrong. The murder is just a red herring. The main characters are barely aware its happened. But at the end of the second chapter, the centaur catches the trapeze artist on his back," Silva insisted. "Before that, their relationship was only a possibility. They hated each other! Butafterthat . . .” She sighed again, softer. “After it's like neither of them had a choice. But their relationship is quiet. It’s not a big, bombastic thing. The mystery just happened to exist in the vicinity, but that’snotwhat the story was about. But that’s all they wanted to talk about.”
Tate scoffed, a vibration against her cheek. "They sound like the sort of people who need a cymbal crash at the end of a musical number so they know when to clap. And then they all congratulate themselves on how much they appreciated the performance.”
She craned her neck back again, smiling. "See,youwould be better to have at book club than any of these phonies. They only want to read books about people's bad childhoods and how sarcastic they are now.” She bumped him with her shoulder cheekily. “What do you thinkourinciting incident would be?"
Her heart trembled as soon as the words were out, delicate little wings fluttering as fast as they could to keep it aloft. Silva considered her own question. She thought he would say the inciting incident for their relationship was the day she'd come back to the resort hamlet, when she'd stood in the center of the dining room and he'd approached her from behind. Or, maybe he would think it was that party in Bridgeton, the one he'd taken her to that previous year.
