Chapter Thirty-One
Prince Arthur
“Are you sad she left?” Astrid turns to me. “I don’t mind if you want to leave.”
“No,” I shake my head, force my eyes away from the dock where Phoebe just walked. “I’m good here, with you.”
Astrid smiles, rests her chin in her hands. “So, what’s going on with you two?”
“Ah,” I scratch the back of my neck. “Slept with her.”
“What?” Astrid slaps my arm. “You did? That’s huge, Arthur.”
I fight back a yawn. Don’t know why I stayed. To prove a point?
What fucking point? Phoebe knows this thing between Astrid and I is just some poorly put together PR stunt.
“It’s nothing, really,” I tell her, which might actually be the biggest lie I’ve ever told.
“Shut up,” she rolls her eyes. “I can tell that means everything to you. Did she break up with her boyfriend?”
“Nope,” I sigh. “It felt right but it’s not. It’s all a bit pear shaped.”
She shrugs. “Oh, well—what isn’t these days?” And then she stands up, nods her head at me. “Come on, I’m getting cold.”
I follow her into the main sitting area. She sits on the couch, curls her legs under herself and grabs a blanket from down the side of the sofa. I stand there until she smiles, pats the space next to her.
It’s not real between us, you know that, right?
Astrid’s parents caught wind of a small rumor that she was seeing her professor, told my parents, and then they pushed us back together.
I understand it from her family’s perspective but from mine?
I thought they loved Phoebe—I mean, they still do—so how could they do this to me knowing how much it would hurt her?
Sure, another cheating scandal is the last thing my family needs but still, I don’t understand it. The obsession our family’s have with putting us together even though the whole world can see how fucking fake it is. Me and Astrid? No. Me and Phoebe? Yeah, since we were kids.
The entire world has been following our relationship.
I don’t know what they’re saying about her or me or Astrid—or any of us, really. I try not to look.
We sit on the sofa in a comfortable silence. The kind where we’re both thinking of the other people we love but instead of being with them, we’re forced to be here.
“What’s going to happen with us?” She asks, resting her head on my shoulder.
“I don’t know.”
I sigh, find myself putting my arm over her body to pull her in closer. We haven’t slept together or kissed or done anything like that. We just go on dates where we talk about anything but us.
She’s not a foxhole, or a distraction. We’re not fake dating. We’re simply just pawns in our family’s game.
I don’t know when or how or if this will end.
“Do you think Phoebe will forgive you?”
“I hope so.”
“Do you miss her?”
“Haven’t stopped—I miss her when she’s right in front of me.”
She nods against me. “I understand that.”
I laugh a bit. “I feel like you’re the only one that understands me these days.”
“Probably because we’re the only two people in the world in the same boat,” she mutters. “What happens if they ask us to marry?”
“Then we do and we spend the rest of our lives unhappy.”
“And you’ll think of her while you kiss me at the altar.”
“And you’ll think of him.”
“And when we’re in bed, you’ll see her.”
“And you’ll see him.”
I stare ahead, the truth obviously unsettling. It’s not a far fetched scenario—it could be our reality a month from now.
“But at least we’ll have each other.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, rest my lips on her head.
She sits up on her knees, the blanket falling onto the floor.
“Like right now,” she says, hands gripping my face.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
She moves her legs over my lap, one on either side and looks down at me. “You want to be with her and I want to be with him but we can’t and all we have is each other.”
My eyelashes flutter, my cheeks get hot. “Yeah, I guess.”
She nods, moves in closer. “It’s okay, I’ll never think of you and you’ll never think of me.”
I manage a small nod before she presses her lips to mine. It’s soft, sad, tragic. Her hands stay gripping my face. I’m struck for a second before I fall into it and move my hands to her waist.
It’s wrong in every sense of the word. We don’t love each other.
And kissing someone you don’t love has a very distinct feel to kissing someone you do.
It’s not melting, burning—it’s cold, desperate.
There’s no fucking fireworks. Our heads are elsewhere, picturing our respective people in our minds and it’s obvious.
She kisses me like she’d kiss him and I kiss her back the same way I kiss Phoebe.
Just as she starts to move her hips, voices come down below. She jumps off me, flushed, cheeks plumped, dress creased.
“My friends are back,” she mutters, wiping her mouth.
I nod, stand up, run a hand through my hair and readjust my shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers looking up at me.
I shake my head. “Don’t be.”
I pass her friends as I make my way off the boat, say a quick hi and then book it back to Phoebe’s.
Feel a bit sick as I step on, as though I shouldn’t be allowed to after what I just did.
Should I tell her?
No, that’s fucking stupid.
I find myself outside of her bedroom door.
That must mean something? I mean, is that a sign to tell her? Why would I tell her, though? It’d only make her sad? I’ve already made her sad.
I knock once on the door, poke my head through to see her sitting up in bed, phone in hand. Never sleeps well when she isn’t at home. I wonder how she sleeps with Digby.
“Cuddle?” I ask, smile. Worked when we were kids.
She shakes her head, looks surprised to see me. “Why aren’t you cuddling Astrid?”
I walk further in, hands in my pockets. Shake my head. “Don’t like cuddling her.”
She tilts her head. “Harsh.”
Shrug. “Not big on hugs. Made an exception for you, though.”
“That’s nice,” she mutters, eyes back on her phone.
I slip my shoes off, pull my shirt off over my head, unzip my slacks, pull the other side of the duvet over and climb in.
Phoebe puts her phone down on the bedside table, eyes locked ahead, fingers picking at a loose thread.
“I hate loving you sometimes.”
With my hands behind my head, I nod. “I imagine it’s not easy.”
“It is, though,” she tells me, sighs. “It’s the easiest thing in the world which makes it so hard.
” She turns her head to lock eyes with me.
“I mean, you could kill someone, Arthur. In cold blood, first degree, no remorse—whatever—and I’d still be the first person to run to your defence.
” She swallows. “You could’ve just had sex with Astrid and I still wouldn’t have turned you away.
What does that say about me?” She asks in a small, almost worried voice.
I blink a couple times, my chest heavy.
“It means that your heart is too big and too wonderful and too forgiving for me—for anyone. No one deserves the love you give out, Phoebs. Not even me.” I shake my head, run a hand down my face. “It’s too much, too fragile and people are too heavy handed.”
She looks up at me with big, Bambi like, watery eyes. “But you can handle it, can’t you?”
“Yeah,” I nod, move my arm around her. She rests her head on my stomach. “I can handle it because I know how it feels. I don’t reckon many people could handle that feeling.”
It’s the truth.
Loving her makes life easier.
Loving her makes breathing that bit lighter.
Loving her makes the flowers bloom brighter in spring and the leaves fall slower in autumn.
There’s no limit on loving her. There’s no timer. It’s infinite. Even when my heart stops beating for me, it’ll still go for her—always for her.
Always.
Always.
Always.
Since before I even knew what the word ‘love’ meant.
“Arthur?” She says quietly, breaking the silence we were sitting in. “Can you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Can you touch me?”
She shifts, moves onto my lap, stares down at me. I swallow, looking up at her. A bit nervous, I think.
She places her small cold hands on my bare chest. “I want you to touch me so it was like Digby was never there because I never wanted him to be there in the first place.”
I just about manage a small nod before she drags up her silk blue nightdress and throws it to the floor, by the pile of my own clothes.
When she leans down to kiss me, all I’m thinking about is the old times.
How it was before. It’s kind of like nostalgia—a whole bunch of ‘what if’s?
’ That I know will never get answered. I wish it was as simple as Phoebe just binning off Digby but it isn’t because I haven't made it easy for her. I’ve made her believe that I’m just going to up-and-leave whenever the going gets tough.
And if there’s one thing you should know about Phoebe, it’s that nothing on this fucking earth scares her more than being alone.
I turn my head to the side as her hair frames the both of us, her lips pressing feather-in-the-wind light kisses against the side of my neck.
Her kisses are the best. Like a whisper in a dark room, brushing fingertips in the middle of a crowd, a knowing look across the room, a secret language with your eyes and mouth.
You don’t need the fast, overly passionate, rushed shit if you both know.
But that’s when I see it, the proof.
Her blue Tiffany diamond ring rolls out of the pocket of my slacks—because I haven’t gotten rid of it.
I’ve been carrying it around for 1.095 days—glistening in the moonlight peering through the window as the waves below us rock the boat gently.
Every now and then, this beam of light catches me right in the eye.
Feels like a tiny acknowledging nod from my dad, as if to encourage me further to slip it back onto her finger, boyfriend or not.
Quickly cutting through this white beaming light is a great, big, flashing red beacon of warning. Spins around in my head like a siren. The truth. Tell her.
I need to tell her the truth.