Rejected at the Banquet: My Mate Chose the Servant Over Me

Maverick found me on the east terrace of the Nighthollow estate two days before the banquet.

I was reviewing the seating chart he'd sent over—or pretending to. Mostly I was watching Barnaby nose around the garden beds and trying to remember the last time I'd slept more than four hours straight.

He didn't announce himself. He just appeared at the edge of the terrace with two mugs of coffee, set one on the stone railing beside me, and leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. That was Maverick's way. No entrance, no performance. Just suddenly there, like he'd always been.

'Banquet prep,' he said, nodding at the papers in my hand.

'Banquet prep,' I agreed.

We stood in silence for a moment. The morning was cool and grey, the kind that smelled like rain coming. I wrapped both hands around the mug and let the warmth settle into my palms.

Then he said, quietly and without preamble: 'Do you need anything?'

Not I'm sorry. Not I heard what happened. Not the particular careful gentleness people had been using around me all week, the kind that made me feel like a cracked thing they were afraid to jostle. Just: do you need anything.

I looked at him. He was watching me steadily, the way he always did—like he had all the time in the world and no agenda for how I was supposed to answer.

'I'm fine,' I said.

'I know,' he said. 'I'm asking anyway.'

Something small and inconvenient shifted in my chest. I looked back down at the seating chart.

'I have everything I need,' I said. 'Thank you for the coffee.'

He didn't push. He just nodded and picked up his own mug, and we stood there together for another few minutes while the wind moved through the garden below. And I noticed—not for the first time, but for the first time I was paying attention—that the persistent tight ache behind my sternum, the one that had been there since the banquet, was slightly less present. Like a sound that had been playing too long and suddenly dropped a register.

I filed the observation away and told myself it was the coffee.

Then Barnaby came bounding up the terrace steps and ruined any chance I had of staying composed about anything.

He'd been sniffing around the garden for ten minutes, doing his usual thorough investigation of every interesting smell within a quarter mile. But the moment he spotted Maverick, he stopped dead. His whole body went electric—ears forward, tail going absolutely frantic—and then he launched himself across the terrace like a missile aimed at a very specific target.

Maverick crouched down without hesitation. Barnaby hit him at full speed, rolled immediately onto his back, and lay there with all four paws in the air, whimpering with pure, unguarded trust.

Maverick laughed—a quiet, genuine sound I didn't hear from him often—and scratched Barnaby's chest with both hands. 'Hello to you too.'

I stood very still.

Barnaby was not an indiscriminate dog. He was polite to strangers, cautious with people he didn't know, and he had never, in three years, shown Brody anything warmer than tolerance. Brody said it was allergies. He kept his distance, kept his hands in his pockets, and once told me I should consider re-homing the dog if I ever wanted guests to feel comfortable.

I had apologized for Barnaby. I had actually apologized.

Now I watched my dog lie belly-up on the terrace stones in a state of complete surrender, making soft desperate sounds while Maverick scratched behind his ears, and I thought: when was the last time Brody touched Barnaby at all? Not avoided. Touched. With any kind of gentleness.

I couldn't think of a single instance.

Barnaby rolled back upright and pressed his whole head against Maverick's knee, and Maverick let him, one hand resting easy on the dog's back, still talking to me about catering logistics like nothing extraordinary had just happened.

I turned back to the seating chart. My throat was tight for reasons I didn't examine.

Maverick stayed another twenty minutes, walking me through the banquet layout—which entrance I'd use, where Elara would be positioned, sightlines from the private wing. He was thorough and unhurried and gave nothing away in his face. When he left, he took both mugs back to the kitchen without being asked.

I stayed on the terrace with Barnaby leaning against my leg and the seating chart in my hands.

There was something Maverick wasn't telling me. I'd known him long enough to recognize the particular quality of his silences—the ones that meant he was carrying information and waiting for the right moment. His questions today had been precise in the way that only people who already have answers ask questions.

I didn't press him. Whatever it was, he'd tell me when he was ready. Maverick had never once given me something I wasn't ready to hold.

I scratched Barnaby behind the ear and looked out at the grey morning.

Two days. I just needed two more days.