Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
LEXI
“And after I’d finished my coffee, he had to leave for a meeting with one of the big streaming platforms about a documentary to tie in with the book release.”
“Whoa.” Becca leans back, and the Dead Skunk’s old wooden chair creaks. “You have had quite the day.”
“Yup.” I drain my fall special pumpkin ale. “I cannot believe I’ve got to go to a Scottish castle with a fucking prince and pretend to be his girlfriend and come up with enough sensible things to say about him to write a goddamn book.”
“It is quite the fairy tale situation.” Becca runs her pristinely polished pastel pink nails around the rim of her almost-empty glass of rosé.
“If you mean a hideous gothic fairy tale where two people who clearly have no respect for each other’s professions—if you can call being born to do nothing a profession—have to spend untold amounts of time together to both get what they want. Then yeah, it’s real Brothers Grimm stuff.”
“Another round?” asks Sasha, our favorite server and a fashion student by day. “You certainly look like you could do with one tonight, Lexi.”
“She’s had a…let’s call it an unexpected day,” Becca says. “So, yes, please.”
Sasha heads off toward the bar.
“I shouldn’t really,” I say. “I have a shit-ton of stuff to do tomorrow now. Laundry and packing for starters. What the hell do I wear to a fucking castle?”
“You haven’t even told me what he’s like yet,” Becca says. “And that’s the most important part.”
“No, it isn’t. The most important part is where I get this whole hideous experience over with as quickly as possible so I can get on with the rest of my actual career.”
She leans across the table. “But what is he like?” she whispers.
I shrug.
“Okay.” She taps her fingertips together. “Imagine he’s not a prince born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Now tell me what he’s like.”
“It’s impossible to separate the two.”
Sasha reappears, and we lean back to give her space to put down our drinks.
“You look perkier already,” she says to me.
“Perkier?”
“Yes,” she says. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile all night. And you have a bit of color in your face now.”
“It’s the sight of a full glass.” I pick up my fresh autumn-spiced beer and raise it to her in a cheers gesture before she leaves to attend to the next table.
But I know it’s not that at all. I know full well that it’s Becca’s question about what Oliver is really like that’s brightened my face because I’m even brighter on the inside. I need to learn to hide that better.
I might be trusting her with the secret identity of my ghostwriting client even though I signed the NDA, but there’s no way I’m going to discuss the thing that happened when he opened the door and locked eyes with me.
Or how strong his hands looked when he pushed them through his hair—hair that you could really grip on to.
Or his backside in those jeans. Or the width of his shoulders.
And definitely not the way my insides fluttered when he made me laugh with that Trainspotting speech in his Scottish accent.
“He’s nice enough, I suppose,” I tell Becca, then take a sip of beer in the hope the glass will hide most of my face.
“Why are you blushing?” Becca asks.
“I’m not blushing.”
“Okay, maybe not technically full-on blushing. But Sasha’s right—your cheeks are pinker than they were before I asked the question. And you smiled a bit.”
“There is no pinkening and absolutely, definitely no smiling about this situation.”
“Well, I think he’s hot.” Becca finishes her first glass of wine, slides it to the side, and pulls the fresh, full one closer.
“If I wasn’t breaking my NDA by telling you about him, I could introduce you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I meant, be careful.”
“Careful of what?”
“Of taking down more than his life story.”
I fall back in my chair and laugh a laugh that’s conspicuously and suspiciously loud. “There’s not going to be any taking down of his anythings. No shenanigans will be had here. I can tell you that for absolute, one hundred percent, total certain.”
“I’m just saying, you know…he’s hot, you’re hot, you’re going to be trapped inside a romantic, remote Scottish castle together for a couple of weeks revealing all your innermost secrets, and things can…you know…happen.”
“First, I have no idea if he’s single. Second, the secret-telling is only going in one direction, from him to me.
And I doubt very much he’ll tell me anything too secrety, because despite making a grand stand and leaving the country to make his own way in the world, and talking a big game, I don’t think he wants to risk pissing off his family one bit.
In fact, if I had to place any bets on anything, I’d bet he’s scared of them. ”
“If I was forced to come up with a good side to this,” Becca says. “I’d say at least it’ll be good for you to escape from being trapped in the city for a bit, get some fresh air on your face, and shake up your joyless same-old-same-old daily routine a bit.”
“Thank you for making me feel even shittier about my life than I already did.”
She peers at me over her glass. “It’ll definitely get shittier if you don’t make sure that nothing happens.”
“For God’s sake, Becca. The man represents everything I despise. I wouldn’t touch him with an extremely regal ten-foot pole. Nothing is going to happen.”
Becca rolls around her bed holding her stomach, laughing so hard there’s no sound coming out of her but tears are rolling down her cheeks.
I have to hold onto the corner of her dresser to prevent myself from toppling over as I cackle at the sight of myself in her full-length mirror wearing her bright yellow strapless tube dress and red knee-high patent leather boots.
“It’s—” She pauses to wipe her eyes. “Oh God. Hold on a minute.” She snatches a tissue from the box on the nightstand and blows her nose. “Yeah.” She’s as breathless as if she’d run a marathon. “That’s the one. Perfect for a royal wedding.”
Then she drops onto her back, hands on her stomach, and starts to laugh all over again.
After another final drink at the Dead Skunk, I spiraled into a panic about what the hell I could possibly wear as Prince Oliver’s date to his sister’s wedding.
And when we got home, Becca decided it was the greatest idea in the world to try on some of her clothes since she has way more dresses than I do.
Not hard since I have two—a black-and-white-polka-dotted one for formal work events and a blue-and-white-striped shapeless T-shirt dress for running errands in the city in July and August when it’s too humid to bear anything with a waistband.
First, I tried to pull off her gorgeous pink floral floaty number that makes her look like she should be twirling in slow motion in a field of wildflowers during a golden sunset while dreaming up ideas for her latest poetry collection. But it made me look shapeless and ninety-four.
Then there was her super-classy houndstooth fitted number that looks like it’s a double-breasted coat but is actually a dress. Yeah, that thing was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen.
So when it became clear that the mission was a failure, Becca resorted to giving me increasingly ridiculous and inappropriate outfits to try on.
And this is definitely the winner.
I collapse onto the bed on my back next to her as we both heave those long breaths you get when your body’s too exhausted from laughing that you can’t laugh any more even though you want to.
“Oh damn.” I drop an arm over my eyes. “I’ll have to tell my parents where I’m going in case the press gets a photo of Prince Oliver and his mysterious new girlfriend.”
“You’re going to blow the NDA with them too?”
“God, no. But it’s only the book I can’t mention, so I’ll tell them I’m going to Scotland to do an in-depth interview with him for work. That’ll cover it.”
“They’ll be excited about that.”
“Maybe. But they’ll also be too busy working, or too tired from working, to be excited for long.”
“What time is it?” Becca asks. “I have to break down the new ten-page article on an increase in teenage anxiety into a dozen ten-second videos first thing tomorrow.”
I roll onto my side and fumble for my bag on the floor. When I pull out my phone, there’s a text on it.
“Shit.” I bolt upright.
“What is it?” She props herself up on her elbows.
“Oliver.”
“Dude, you’re already so familiar you’ve dropped the prince, and he’s texting you?”
“He told me to drop the prince. And of course we exchanged numbers. We have a lot to coordinate and neither of us has an assistant.”
The second I’ve read his message my eyes close and my head drops forward, a smile instantly on my lips.
“What is it?”
Without lifting my head, I turn my phone to face her.
She reads the message out loud. “Hey, Superhero Lexi. My sister needs your dress and shoe size for the wedding stylist. If that’s classified info you don’t want me to know, here’s her number.”
“Now I feel ridiculous for thinking I could wear my, or your, clothes to the wedding. Of course they have a stylist.”
“And this is a cute-as-hell text,” Becca says.
“Yeah. And you know what, you’re right.” I fall onto my back again. “He is hot.”