2 | Melina
Melina
I have whiplash. Today, I went from sitting in a dank prison visitors’ room with cinder block walls and tiny windows to Prince Taylor’s immaculate home where the floors are made of marble and the furniture isn’t bolted to the ground.
I’ve been roped into Rachel’s intensive pre-wedding extravaganza.
I love my best friend to hell and back, but if she changes the seating chart one more time, I might scream.
I stare at my Prius parked between Julien’s Aston Martin and a fucking fountain.
I make a decent amount of money freelancing, but I think this mansion just called me poor.
Though apparently, ‘mansion’ is not a great enough word to describe this monstrosity.
‘Tis a manor, as I’ve been corrected by Julien.
The inside looks like the house from the Sound of Music, but even grander.
I just walked between two columns, for shit’s sake.
In my opinion, the only person who deserves a manor is crime-fighting vigilante Bruce Wayne.
What has Prince Taylor done to deserve it besides being a glorified nepobaby?
As I stroll to my car, my brain replays our meet-cute from cringetown.
The Prince has this low and scary voice for public speaking, and it startled me when I heard it in person.
God, I looked at him so stupidly he assumed I didn’t speak English.
I knew I’d have to cross paths with him eventually, but I thought it would be at the wedding when I’d look more presentable.
I guess this is his house. If you could call it a house.
“Melanie!”
I usually don’t respond to that name, but I turn around anyway to find the future king walking after me...for some reason. My plan of cordially avoiding him for the rest of the day and forgetting we ever made eye contact is already ruined.
Be cool this time, Melina. You’re a cool girl. The coolest.
“What’s your plan?” he asks as he catches up.
“What do you mean?” I respond very politely to the guy who can’t be bothered to remember my name. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be using a special title to address him, but calling anyone the same age as me ‘sir’ or, God forbid ‘Your Highness’ sounds a bit kinky.
“For the flowers,” he says slowly, like I’m an idiot. “Do you have a plan?”
“I was kind of going to figure it out on the way there, and it’s Melina, by the way.”
He looks back at the manor, his manor. “I’m coming with you.”
Is he serious? “What? Why?”
“Because I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”
Huh. ‘The Prince has an attitude problem’ is familiar tabloid gossip.
About a year ago, I remember Rachel being excited to meet him over dinner, but that night, she texted me, ‘This prince of ours is a royal stick in the mud’.
In the few interviews I’ve seen, he seems professional at best and at least, well, boring.
Now, I understand where everyone is coming from.
He’s right, though. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Recently, my mom’s been saying that I tend to overthink, and if I don’t do something spontaneous every once in a while, I’ll never find a husband.
Don’t ask me how those two things are related.
I swear that woman is obsessed with me finding a man.
My job is mostly, control C and control V and doesn’t allow for much spontaneity.
She might be right in that the fastidiousness has bled into my personal life.
However bizarre her reasoning is, I don’t want to be subjugated to relentless spinsterhood, so here I am getting flowers.
“Why would you want me tagging along?” I ask him.
He pulls out his phone and types something into it. “You probably know more about Rachel’s flowers than I do.”
I blink. “So we both don’t know what we’re doing?”
He doesn’t answer me. I’ll take the silence as a yes.
Faster than you can say uppercrust, a black Benz pulls up in front of us.
He steps forward to hold the door open for me like a gentleman, and I slide onto the black leather seats.
The car smells clean and expensive, unlike my whip, which still smells of cigarettes from its last owners.
When the middle-aged driver asks where we’re going, I read him the address, and we’re off.
It’s my understanding that for his wedding gift, the Prince is lending the couple Clément Manor.
Maybe rich people can’t give each other air fryers like the rest of us.
The only other thing Rachel knows about him is that he and Julien have been best buds since childhood.
It was one of those my-mom-is-friends-with-your-mom deals.
Julien is the son of a Baroness, but I have no idea what a Baroness does in the twenty-first century.
One time I asked him, and he said, ‘It just kind of means we have a lot of money’.
The boys are starting a charity together, and Julien asked me to make a website for them.
I’m very excited to put ‘has worked for royalty’ on my resume.
I can’t help but peek at the royal in question.
His gray suit-with-no-tie look makes him appear just like how he does in the news.
It’s spooky to see he’s a real person and not just a guy who lives in my TV making speeches and opening hospitals.
The younger Prince Thomas is known to be the more boyish one of the two brothers, but this guy isn’t that bad either.
He’s got that Henry Cavill jawline and body of an Olympic figure skater that could make any girl swoon, not that I’m swooning, of course.
“So, do you have a plan yet?” I hedge.
“I’m figuring it out on the way there,” he says while scrolling through Twitter. I think the Prince is mocking me. Childish, but I’ll ignore it.
“You must really like Julien then,” I say as we head through the gates. “To go to all this trouble.”
His noncommittal hum and my awkward teeth-kissing noise are the last sounds we make to each other. I guess he isn’t one for small talk. You’d think he’d be good at it, being a prince and all.
To keep me occupied, I browse Rachel’s wedding bible.
I’ve been clutching onto it this whole day because she is very adamant about me not losing it.
I’ve always thought weddings are a little superficial, but Rachel is a photographer who goes to a lot of events like these.
She’s always been obsessed with weddings.
I’ve seen this sticker-adorned binder since we were kids.
The beginning pages are filled with kid drawings and magazine cutouts of luxurious ceremonies.
Back then, Pinterest didn’t exist, so she planned her wedding by way of our ancestors, with Mod Podge and glitter glue.
Eventually, we pull up to the cute little mom-and-pop shop with a brick facade. Rachel has always been about buying locally. Julien can afford the best people from around the world to have the wedding of her dreams, but Rach said she didn’t want that.
An adorable bell rings when we walk into the shop, and an even more adorable young woman greets us with a smile.
The ceiling is decorated with hanging vines and Edison bulbs, which Taylor has to dodge like a jungle explorer.
All the shelves are very much full of living plant life: flowers, ferns, cacti. What could have happened to Rachel’s?
When the florist’s gaze jerks to the man behind me, I lean to the side to get her attention again. “Hi, I think you just called my friend about her flowers,” I say. “It’s for the Thibeaux wedding. I was wondering if I could see the bouquets if you haven’t thrown them out yet.”
“Uh, yes. I’m so sorry about that. Our refrigerators cut out last night. I haven’t tossed them, but don’t get your hopes up. They’re not savable.” She gawks at Prince Taylor as she speaks. He’s too busy staring into a display case to notice.
The girl leaves and returns to lay a floppy bouquet of wilted flowers on the counter. Some of them are turning brown. My face scrunches. These can’t be seen at a wedding. Definitely bad luck.
“Gardenias are very delicate,” she says. “We always recommended against them. They’ll yellow before the couple says ‘I do’.”
“So these ones are all fine?”
I turn around to Prince Taylor, pointing at the display cases full of bright, non-shriveled flowers.
“Yeah,” she says. “The only fridges that broke were the industrial ones in the back room. Sorry, I can’t believe that you’re standing in my shop right n—”
“How much for all of them?”
She rears back. “All of them? I–I don’t know. I’m not sure if you can do that. I mean, we don’t get another shipment for almost a week. I’d have to close the shop. I’m not the owner, I would call her, but she’s on vacation right now. I’m really sorry.”
A phone rings, and she excuses herself to go take it in the back room.
I hold up the sad excuse for a bouquet of flowers. “So what now?”
He twirls his finger in the air. “Do you think all these should be enough?”
“I mean, yeah, but didn’t you hear her? I think she was just trying to be polite in saying you can’t buy out her whole inventory.”
“Maybe,” he mumbles.
“Do you have a plan now?”
The Prince runs a hand through his wavy brown locks and steps towards the counter. “What’s your favorite flower?”
“Huh?” He’s not thinking about buying me some, is he?
“What flowers do women like?” he asks as seriously as a scientist doing research.
“I like peonies, I guess. They’re pink and fluffy.”
He nods. “Just let me do the talking.”
He’s acting like this is some covert operation. It’s just flowers.
When the girl comes back, he leans over the counter. “I don’t think I caught your name.” His tone of voice changes from being bored and disinterested to warm and friendly.
“It’s Lily,” she says. Her polite smile is met with Taylor’s flawless one. I’ve seen it in interviews and pictures before, but this is the first time I’m witnessing it in person. He has impeccable teeth.
“Wow, and you sell flowers. It’s perfect.”
Is this flirtation I smell?
“Thank you,” she says, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear. “It’s not my favorite flower, though.”
Taylor rests his elbow on the counter and his chin on his hand. “Really?” he asks, like what Lily just said is the most interesting thing he’s ever heard. “My favorite are peonies. I love how pink and fluffy they are.”
He sneaks a glance at me. I squint to let him know I disapprove of this situation.
“No way!” Lily squeaks. “That’s my favorite flower too.”
He leans into the shell of her ear, letting his mouth linger for a second. “It’s fascinating we have that in common.”
Yeah, I’ve seen this move before. He knows that it works every time. Lily is too busy giggling to notice me rolling my eyes. She’s probably forgotten that I’m here.
Taylor rests his hand on hers. “It was nice meeting you, uh—” The Prince looks to me as if it’s my job to remind him of her name.
‘Lily,’ I mouth through a smile. Like the fucking flower, remember?
“Lily ,” he parrots. “But if there’s nothing you can do for us, Melanie and I have to head off.”
How can a prince be bad with names? He must meet new people every day.
As soon as Taylor puts his hand on the door, Lily says, “Hold on a sec.” She types something into her phone like her life depends on it. “How much are you willing to pay for the flowers? Maybe you could stay, and we could work out a negotiation.”
His smile is sickly sweet. “I love negotiating.”
That bastard.
––––––––
In the end, Lily called the owner and put Taylor on the phone. After explaining, ‘No, this isn’t a prank,’ he offered to pay double the owner’s asking price. The flowers in the display cases are all mismatched, but at least Rachel will have them for her centerpieces.
“So that was your big idea?” I ask after we walk out. “Emotional manipulation? Batting your eyelashes and saying pretty please?”
Taylor opens the car door for me again, and I slide in.
“Julien used to call it the PC method when we were idiot teenagers,” he decides to explain after five minutes of silent driving. “We’re telling him you got the flowers, by the way. I don’t need him thinking I can get whatever he wants all the time.”
“What does PC stand for?”
The car falls silent again.
“The Personal Computer method? The Politically Correct method?”
He shortly exhales through his nose. I can’t tell if it’s out of laughter or frustration. Probably the latter.
“Oh God.” I pinch between my eyes when I realize PC stands for Prince Charming.
“So that’s what you did when you were a teenager?
You know most kids play sports in their spare time, not exploit girls for their goods and services.
Although you must’ve played some obscure horse sport they only let rich people play.
You shouldn’t have been so confident that would work, you know.
What if a person comes in and wants flowers now? Did you think about tha—”
“Melina.”
“Hey, you got my name ri—”
“I get it.”
I hold my tongue, not because he told me to, but out of shock.
He looks down at my hand, lying on the seat between us. “You obviously don’t like me, so can we just call it a truce until the wedding is over?”
How fun. I’ve made the Prince plead for a ceasefire. I’ve known him for how long? Half an hour? Maybe I’m being too cynical in thinking he’s a scammer. He did say he would pay the owner double. This all just feels unsettling. He’s lucky I’m not one to pick fights at a wedding. I’m not that messy.
I ball my hand into a fist. He doesn’t deserve to see my lavender acrylic nails topped with silver holographic glitter. “Fine by me,” I mutter, knowing those will be the last words I say to him.
Taylor nods, and the drive is silent the rest of the way back.