Wade stumbled forward. Theoretically, he was trained to squash discomfort, to overcome uncertainty, and roll with the punches.

  But he usually rolled with a punch, then killed something. Occasionally, a lot of somethings.

  The man, ignoring every bit of rejection and uncomfortable body language that Birch sent his way, was not yet worth killing. Which was a shame, this was going to be a lot tougher for him than killing a monster.

  He walked up behind Birch and extended his arm. But he wasn't sure what to do with it. Did he put his arm over her shoulder? Couples did that. But what if she got startled and punched him? What if the man got aggressive and he wanted his hands free to fight?

  The extended arm dipped to her waist. But that was intimate, so he moved to her hand.

  Shit. Birch started hand talking and trying to get to Agnes. He wasn't going to catch the moving target without looking weird.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  What did couples do?

  His Mom always used to smack his Dad's butt when she walked by.

  At that memory, a predictable set of connections triggered in his brain. Immediately, a sense of coldness rose up from somewhere inside of him. It enveloped his body like a Venus flytrap clamping its leaves around all the old feelings and recollections about to surge to the forefront of his mind.

  Shrouded in coldness, he rested a hand on Birch's shoulder, gently nudged her to step aside, and moved so that he was in front of the man.

  A quick scan showed that the civilian wasn't an immediate or overt threat. He stood badly, no look of training or center, and was just intoxicated enough to have impaired balance.

  Wade's arms tensed. He could feel the exact routes between them and all the openings this drunken asshole had left. It would take about as much effort as picking up a pen to start the combination of strikes that would end with him disentangling from an unconscious body.

  The cold inside of him pulsed. He restrained the violent impulses.

  "Do we have a problem?" he asked.

  "Shit," the drunken man said, lifting his hands up. Wade narrowed his eyes, taking in the gesture. With his hands there, there was less access to weapons hidden in his pockets, but it was a good way to get his hands close to his face if he was a trained fighter subtly preparing to start something. He adjusted this threat ranking up slightly.

  The drunken man kept talking, not picking up on any of it, "I didn't realize she was your girlfriend."

  Birch stepped forward and wrapped herself around Wade. Arms coiled up his chest, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  "Babe, I don't like him. And you always said you'd go back to prison for me, right?"

  Wade did not like being touched when he felt this way. He rolled his shoulder and shrugged Birch off of him, his mouth twitching into a scowl. Apparently, his temper wasn't as frozen as he had thought.

  "Fuck!" the slimy little man cried, hands held up in a way that was half pleading and half warding off a blow." I'm sorry. She didn't say she was taken."

  Wade stepped forward, "She said 'no.' That was more than enough."

  "Sorry! Let me, ahh fuck, let me go get you a drink." The small man pointed over at the bar, dropped a twenty-dollar bill in front of Wade, and then immediately hustled his way in the exact opposite direction so he could make an undignified exit from the restaurant.

  Wade stared the whole time.

  "Come on," Scotty said, stepping in front of him and herding him back towards Shilloh. "Let's get Birch a seat and some fresh water. That probably wasn't fun for her."

  It took a few seconds, but he tore his eyes from the door and nodded.

  "Yeah. Come on, Birch," he turned around. "Let's get you taken care of."

  ~~~

  "Next time I want Shilloh to protect me!" Birch demanded between sips of her drink. "She has a greater sense of spectacle and apocalyptic rage."

  "No," said the secret dryad sitting next to him. "I do not like fights, and if you start stirring shit up, then I'm leaving before there's any chance I'd need to intervene."

  Wade was listening with half an ear. The rest of him was slowly trying to thaw out the cold feeling in his chest. His parents were not a fun topic to think about, but this was not the place. He was out with friends. That would help. Agnes was probably minutes away from saying something so out of left field that it would help him reset. This night could still be fun.

  Now was for now. The past was gone.

  With that in mind, he turned his attention back to his friends and made an effort to pay attention.

  Unfortunately, he must have started listening at the wrong moment.

  "Wait," he said, lifting a hand. "I was tuned out. What did you mean that you pretending to be Birch's girlfriend would only have made things worse?"

  Shilloh leaned back and put her elbows on the bar. "It had to be you. There's a certain type of guy who only cares about other guys. If Birch said she was a lesbian, he would have said that he could turn her. She kept saying no, and he would have kept pushing. Probably would have felt more and more like a determined, enlightened alpha male each time he didn't take no for an answer. The only thing that was ever going to stop him was if she was taken by another dude."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "That doesn't make sense. A partner doesn't change things. People cheat all the time. If she's interested, she's interested. If she says no, it's not going to happen."

  Birch and Shilloh exchanged a glance.

  "Yeah," Shiloh said. "That's true, but true doesn't matter. I mean, that's just how this is. He has a story in his head about charming women, no matter what. So you work around it. Right?"

  "No."

  "But…" she paused, seeming genuinely confused." I'm sorry, but did you go to an all-boys boarding school, or only have brothers?"

  "I have an older sister, but I don't know what that has to do with anything."

  Birch let out a huge burp, dabbed a napkin delicately at her lips, and interjected herself. "Wade, Bubby. You're not thinking enough like an asshole. That guy didn't give a shit about me, my thoughts, or anything other than what he would tell his friends about my tits. At most, and I mean most, he was probably thinking about how if I started dating him, he'd make me get plastic surgery or learn to cook his Mom's recipes."

  "That's terrible."

  She nodded, "Yeah. But this happens all the time. Maybe not with your combat-hardened, gun-toting lady banes. But for us," she motioned at Agnes and herself, "we get this weekly. If we're lucky."

  "Truth," the old woman bobbed her head, her glasses necklace a bit askew, and a flush in her cheeks.

  "Yeah. So, think about it, "Shilloh said." If you only ever talk to other guys who have also driven off all the women in their life, the ones who live in a marinating-tub of resentment, sexual frustration, and fourth-hand knowledge of what 'women are really like,'" she said, making air quotes with her fingers. "Then that's the only thing that has real consequences: the opinions of other confused man-children. Obviously, it's not everyone. And there are plenty of guys who mostly hang out with other men who are damn decent. But that guy today was a specific breed. To them, we're props. Men like him will only listen if another man is there to say we're already owned and he will be punished by the people who feel like people to him for trying to steal us."

  Wade's face fell. He tried to find a reason why they were wrong, but all three women confirmed how common an experience it was.

  Over the course of the next half hour, they told him stories. People who wouldn't take hints. Stalkers. Cat calling, and all the times they had to make a guy friend stand next to them so their landlord would actually listen.

  It was a lot. It was so much to process that he was sure he would replay this conversation in his head every morning for the next couple of months.

  But, like he had already told himself, now was for now. He would process later. At this moment, only one thought was on his mind.

  "No," he said, getting to his feet and scowling. "Fuck that. Shilloh, Birch, Agnes, for the rest of this night, I am your boyfriend. We are going anywhere you want, and not a single man or over-aggressive lesbian will try a damn thing. In fact, consider my services open for the rest of forever. We're going to make a code. Any time, any place; you say the word, and I will be your fake boyfriend. Even if you need to put me on speaker phone or video call, that rank fucking bullshit isn't okay. And I hate that this is a tactic that needs to exist when the 'issue' should never have come about in the first place."

  "Honey," Agnes said, smiling at him. "That is very sweet, and I appreciate the offer, but I'll have to decline."

  His head tilted to the side, "Okay. But didn't you just say—"

  "For your sake, don't think too hard about it," Shilloh said. "Just remember, no matter how big they are, when it comes to sex and flirting, Agnes is the predator, not the prey."

  "Precisely," the old woman said, adjusting her shirt with a self-satisfied grin. "Plus, I've got this."

  With a flourish, she reached into her purse and pulled out a strange, rainbow-covered silicone device with a tangled harness and some adjustable buckles.

  Based on the buckles, it looked like equipment you would wear. Still, despite how familiar he was with all sorts of harnesses, belaying rigs, and other types of gear, he couldn't figure it out.

  "Agnes!" Shilloh cried, dragging the older woman's arms down until the device was no longer being held proudly in the air like a baby lion. "Do not bring out a strap-on when we are in public!"

  Strap on? How? The rainbow thing went in both directions. There was no way to wear it without getting poked unless you twisted the straps uncomfortably.

  "Why not? It's a great way to keep the dross away."

  "How— No. I actually don't want to know."

  "I do!" Scotty and Birch said at the same time.

  "Whoa," Birch said, winking at Wade's best friend. "I think we're legally married now."

  Scotty scoffed. "You wish. But, Agnes, what were you saying?"

  "Well, it's straightforward. If a man is hitting on you that hard, then I show him the double-sided strap on. Either he says no and leaves, or he says yes. Saying yes means he might actually be worth the evening, or that I can tie him up and leave at my leisure. No matter how you cut it, it's a win-win-win situation."

  Shilloh groaned into her hands, but Wade just stared at the other three, who were all nodding in agreement.

  "I've never seen one of those before," he said slowly," but if it's what I think it is, then why do you travel with it?"

  "What an excellent question, Deary! You see, at first I didn't have room in my purse. But then, when I wasn't taking care of small children anymore, I changed what I carried to be more oriented towards over-aggressive lesbians. It opened up a whole world of opportunity!"

  The dark-haired cartographer jumped to her feet. "I refuse!" she cried. "Don't need to hear it, don't need to think those thoughts. Fake boyfriend, Wade. Get to fake boyfriending! I want to dance and not have strangers try to grind on me."

  "Uhh, okay," he said, somewhat dazed by everything that had just happened. "Birch, you want to come with?"

  "Nah," she said. "I want Scotty to be my boyfriend for the night."

  Scotty raised an eyebrow, grabbed his margarita, put a pinky out, and sipped very dubiously. "Girl, you can't afford me."

  "You can't afford to let me go."

  "I can afford to—"

  With a battle cry that sounded oddly like 'because of my personal injury lawyers,' Birch jumped at Scotty, arms out and legs curled up.

  Reflexively, he grabbed her.

  They started yelling at each other, but somehow ended up laughing and singing a song about never letting someone go or hurting them.

  "I do not get them," he said.

  Shilloh punched him on the arm. "You don't need to. You just need to support them. And, Mr. Fake boyfriend, you should also probably get me a drink."

  "Oh, I should now, should I?"

  "Yes," she grinned up at him. "It's time to get into character."

  "Ahh, act well your part, for there all the honor lies."

  "You were in the international thespian society?"

  "No, that's just something my mentor liked to say. Though" he squinted thoughtfully, "that might explain some of his dramatic flair. Does thespian society also make you really into Dad jokes and puns?"

  "It's a correlation, not a causation. Still, I reiterate, acting well your part demands booze."

  Wade laughed, shook his head, and turned around so he could catch the bartender's eye. "Fine. What will you be having, my dear?"

  There was a small pause. It was the strangest thing. When he looked back at her, there was a moment when he could have sworn his peripheral vision caught her staring at the seat of his pants.

  He tried to subtly brush at his back pockets, hoping he hadn't sat in anything.

  "I think, my lovely boyfriend of the night, that I'll have… tequila."

  Something glinted in her eyes, and as she gave him a very canine heavy smile, Wade felt a shiver roll up from the base of his spine.

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