107 P.M.—The Button Manor
No one had been looking for Romeo Button.
While the Manor’s staff rushed after his siblings, answering to their every whim, preparing them for the Prodigy Ball, Romeo had shaved, given himself a quick wolfish haircut in his bathroom mirror, dressed himself in the royal-blue tuxedo Henry had selected for him, and then been told (also by Henry) to wait in his room until someone called for him.
Romeo did not wait for the call.
Instead, he climbed out of his bedroom window and escaped into the gardens.
Once there, he checked in on the horses in the Manor’s stable, as he did most mornings, and then made his way to the kitchen to steal a few croissants from Mrs. Gray, the Manor’s head chef, trying—and failing—not to get any crumbs on his brand-new suit.
“You’re going to make yourself sick at the rate you’re going, Romeo,” Mrs. Gray had chastised as he’d shoveled down three pistachio croissants in one go.
“You underestimate me, Mrs. G,” Romeo had replied with a grin, his mouth still full of the nutty French pastry.
He tried swiping a fourth croissant, but Mrs. Gray had batted his hand away.
“As someone who has witnessed many of your tummy aches over the last decade and a half, I would disagree. Besides, these aren’t meant for you, these are for the journalists.”
Romeo could hear said journalists shuffling about beyond the kitchen. Their excited whispers had been floating through the halls all morning.
“Even those?” Romeo asked, gesturing to the small basket of assorted pastries on the kitchen counter next to Mrs. Gray.
“Those are for Evie. She’s home for a few short days.” Mrs. Gray smiled.
Romeo’s ears involuntarily perked up at the mention of the name.
Evie, Evelyn Gray. Mr. and Mrs. Gray’s only daughter.
Evie and her brother, Adam, had grown up next door to Romeo.
Or as “next door” as the Manor allowed. They lived in the staff quarters, which was the large house next to the Manor where all the Manor’s employees lived.
Evie and Adam were the only children. Mr. Gray was the head gardener and Mrs. Gray the head chef, and as Evie was around the same age, Romeo and his siblings had kind of grown up with her too.
“Evie’s here?” Romeo asked, trying to sound casual; but there was nothing remotely casual about anything Romeo did.
He hadn’t seen Evie in almost three years.
She’d moved to Europe after signing a very fancy contract with an Italian ballet company, and he’d not heard much since. She never even came home for holidays.
“Yes. It was a last-minute thing, really. She wasn’t sure if they’d let her have time off for the Thanksgiving weekend, but thankfully they did!
” Mrs. Gray’s tone was full of pride, the way it was whenever she spoke of Evie.
Romeo had always wondered what it must feel like to have your parents actually be proud of you. He guessed it must’ve felt nice.
“I remember how close you two were as kids. Used to take bubble baths together and everything,” Mrs. Gray continued with a laugh, and Romeo hoped that the heat creeping up his neck would not show up on his face.
“Uh, yeah, I suppose we were close back then,” Romeo said, clearing his throat.
“You should go say hi to her. I’m sure you have a lot to catch up on.
She was actually just here a few minutes ago …
not sure where that girl has wandered off to …
” Mrs. Gray’s voice trailed off, her eyebrows furrowing as she peered around at the only exit Evie could have slipped out from.
But before she could say anything else, a shrill sound went off and her attention returned to the kitchen table, where a little frog-shaped timer was singing loudly, vibrating against the wood.
“I should get back to this. Need to make sure there’s enough for the guests once the conference is over. ”
“I could stay and help?” Romeo offered, and he genuinely meant it. He would rather be in the kitchen with Mrs. Gray than listening to a boring hour-long conference. Besides, he’d always loved watching Mrs. Gray bake stuff, and not just because he enjoyed stealing the things she made.
“That’s really kind of you, Romeo, but I’ll be fine. I don’t want to get you in trouble with your father, so you’d better head off.”
Romeo did not bother explaining to Mrs. Gray that his father would probably not care or notice if he was in attendance at all.
Instead, he sneakily swiped a fourth croissant, this one strawberry flavored, and fled the scene, making his way down the hall to the Manor’s library, where today’s press conference was being held.
As always, he was the first of his family to arrive.
It wasn’t that he was a particularly punctual person; he just did not require the same pre-event preparations his siblings did, and as such he had become used to turning up at the same time as the staff.
He was so early today it seemed he’d arrived even before his father.
The usual setup of the library had been shifted to accommodate the press.
While the dark oak bookcases remained, the plush leather sofas usually dotted around the room had been removed and replaced with rows and rows of wooden chairs.
Romeo walked past a few of the cameras that were still being set up, all of which were facing the direction of the long wooden desk at the front where his family was to be seated in a few minutes.
There were name cards placed carefully in front of each seat: Bilal, Fola, Octavius, and Perdita. And then his father’s name card right in the middle in front of an obnoxiously large leather padded chair.
Romeo didn’t even have to look closely at the table to know that there would be no place card for him. There never was.
Instead, he found his place in the corner as he always did and watched as the journalists filed into the room and settled into their own seats and positions.
The space was abuzz with whispered excitement from them, which seemed to be less about getting to profile one of the biggest events of the year, and more so about the exclusive and rare access they would have to the famous family.
There were utterings of the nicknames that had been ascribed to Romeo’s siblings since they were young: the Artist, the Olympian, the Brain, the Maestro—as if they were characters and not real people.
Romeo had never had such a name, but a few years ago some lowlife journalist who’d been writing a tell-all story about his family had coined a nickname for him that seemed to stick to this day in the occasional article mention.
A two-word epithet that would always haunt him: the Failure.
Romeo had disliked all journalists ever since.
He wasn’t sure the last time there’d even been a press conference of any kind inside their home.
Probably not since the first Prodigy Ball ten years ago.
Their father liked to keep the mystery alive, he supposed; it was harder to control the narrative when everyone was constantly in your business.
Romeo and his siblings had always been advised to avoid most interactions with the press, to keep their heads down, to always act with grace in public and in turn do everything to keep the family name intact.
But this year was different. This year a door to their world was being opened to those who cared to peer through it.
For the first time in years the elusive Button family was finally doing a collective interview.
The excitement in the room only seemed to grow when his siblings began to filter in one by one. From his corner, Romeo watched as Perdita floated in wearing a black-and-white tailored dress and a wide smile that was doing a terrible job at masking the truth.
Perdita had texted Romeo from the airport earlier that morning, having only landed at JFK a mere few hours ago, yet she was now somehow standing here, jet lag and all.
Loud applause filled the air, tempered with a slight hesitance, as if the journalists could sense his sister’s exhaustion.
Perdita took her place behind the table.
Bilal followed next, the applause noticeably quieting as he hobbled over to his seat in a rather ungraceful manner, sporting a very obvious limp.
Romeo found it a disconcerting sight; Bilal, the nimble fencer, had always had an effortless fluidity to his movements.
Dozens of eyes fell to Bilal’s legs. More specifically to the left one, with the large white cast wrapped around it.
Bilal took his seat next to Perdita and seemed to pay no mind to the ravenous stares of the journalists, instead holding his usual stoic expression in place.
Some journalists looked on at the entrance expectantly, anticipating the arrival of the remaining three Buttons—Fola, Octavius, and their father.
Romeo wasn’t surprised when the doorway remained empty though.
Last he’d heard, Fola was out in the streets of New York trying to locate Octavius, something only Fola was truly capable of doing.
And as for their father, he always liked to be the last person to enter a room—probably as some kind of power play.
The lack of coordination in arrivals exposed the clear fracture in the family that not even a glitzy event like this could cover.
One thing Romeo was certain of was that their father was not going to be pleased about having to wait.
It was kind of a miracle that this press conference was happening at all, seeing as it was next to impossible to get all of his siblings in one room together these days.
But if there was one thing his father strived to do, it was the impossible.
And when he couldn’t do that, he used his money to get his way.
For Romeo and his siblings, that meant the threat of losing out on their inheritance.
There was an awkward lull as everyone awaited the arrival of the rest of his family—eager to interview the Buttons who actually mattered.