The Celebration and the Beginning of an Affair (9)

“Fuck. I'm exhausted.”

After dealing with the endless stream of people, I escaped into the garden and muttered to myself.

─Click.

When I checked my pocket watch, it was already eight thirty. The celebration was scheduled to end at ten, which meant I'd spent sixty or seventy percent of the party dealing with old men.

Even so, I managed to have Fran stick with Larilura so she could eat, and escaped the old men by fleeing to the terrace.

But shit, did those assholes think that my going out onto the terrace meant @@@setting up a one-on-one meeting@@@? They were actually lining up outside and waiting.

In fantasy novels, people usually leave you alone if you're on a terrace, but I guess fiction is just fiction.

So when I saw Edlin standing in the middle of the line, I got the hell out of there. A face-off on that cramped terrace with a forty-something auntie who hunted bachelors? Are you insane, human?

“Sob.”

Ah, shit, I'm hungry. I'd been starving ever since lunch at eleven, so I groaned at the futility of life and headed for the back of the garden...