Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Callum
I wake up and discover an editorial in The Corporate Times by the esteemed journalist Nigel Paterson, accompanied by a photo of me falling overboard.
I read it on my phone as I eat the raisin toast Herbert has brought me.
Look, it was fun for a while, watching an American bumble around pretending to play prince. But we need to get serious here. Are they actually expecting us to accept that this guy is going to be our king?
Someone needs to have a quiet word in his ear that it’s time for him to stand aside.
Because Callum Prescott is not who you cast to play the role of king. He’s a moderately funny court jester.
Which is not what our country needs right now.
The words follow me throughout my day, to the Haversham Dog Shelter, where a particularly amorous cocker spaniel decides my leg is his soulmate, to the opening of a halfway house at Bethnal Green.
When I get home that evening, I find BritishPatriot has done his own take on it.
Callum Prescott would probably be as useless as a jester as he is at everything else. I’d follow him around, pelting tomatoes at him.
Before I can help myself, I send both links to Oliver.
Do you think I should invest in a jester hat???
Oliver messages me back almost instantly.
He’s a fuckwit.
I love how Oliver will have fun with me but will also sometimes just tell it to me straight.
Who? The journalist who wrote the opinion piece or our patriotic friend?
Both of them. Unfortunately, fuckwittery isn’t a limited resource in this country.
About a second later, there’s another message from Oliver.
Here’s something to make you smile. I saw this in Brussels and thought of you.
A lump forms in my throat as I stare at the photo of the tiny yellow dandelion surrounded by gray.
Swallowing hard, I try for a lighthearted reply.
I’m so glad invasive weeds make you think of me.
It’s a spot of hidden beauty.
Yeah, I got that, Oliver. I also get that every time you show me this unexpected side of yourself, I fall deeper into my crush. I’m in so deep now that I don’t know how I’ll extract myself.
I don’t type that message though.
Instead, I do a quick Google and go with my trademark, a random piece of information.
Fun fact: every part of a dandelion plant is useful. Its roots, leaves, and flowers.
Maybe I should have tried harvesting it then.
Side hustle of the prime minister: selling dandelions. I can see it. I might join you if this royalty thing doesn’t work out. Although maybe I should take Nigel’s suggestion. Maybe being a jester is the right career path for me.
I’m trying to make light of it, but part of me is withering inside. When you’ve always had a sneaking suspicion the world sees you as the punchline to a joke, it’s not nice to have it confirmed.
Oliver doesn’t reply.
Is my self-pity too much for him?
As the minutes tick by and my phone remains silent, doubt and self-recrimination make themselves at home in my head.
Do I really have any right to complain?
After all, I have so much privilege. I never knew any kind of deprivation growing up. And now I’ve been thrust into a world of absolute abundance where very few material things are beyond my reach.
Oliver grew up surrounded by poverty and has known real hardships in his life.
Maybe he’s decided he’s had enough of a self-pitying, whining prince.
Maybe he thinks I need to toughen up and accept this is the trade-off for a life where I get opportunities and experiences most people could only dream of.
I just have to accept that I will constantly be judged and ridiculed.
My phone beeps and my pulse skitters. I pick up my phone in trepidation. Is this Oliver telling me to get over myself?
The message is from Oliver, but it’s not what I expect.
Are you free tonight?
How is it possible that four simple words in a text message can cause such a spike in adrenaline? Along with relief.
I quickly type out my reply.
Yes.
Do you want to come on an outing with me?
A lightness fills my chest, like my lungs have turned into hot air balloons preparing for lift-off.
Sure. But it sounds suspiciously vague.
I’m deliberately being suspiciously vague.
I can’t help smiling at that.
I’m sure my mother warned me against accepting invitations from suspiciously vague people offering to take me on outings.
Pick you up at 8.30 in the quadrangle?
See you then.
As the clock ticks down to eight-thirty, I’m faced with the challenge of what to wear. Herbert’s my usual go-to person for dress etiquette, but I’m not sure if even he would know how to dress when you’re meeting the prime minister for a suspiciously vague mission.
In the end, I decide on casual chinos and a pullover sweater.
I’m watching out the window when a black BMW pulls into the quadrangle. I run down the stairs.
Oliver’s handsome head pokes out of the back door of the BMW.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey, yourself.”
Shit. Did that sound slightly flirty? It felt flirty.
I try to keep from blushing as I climb into the backseat next to Oliver. But one glance at Oliver, and it seems like the heat is determined to stay. Oliver’s still in a suit, his stubble giving his dark, brooding looks an almost dangerous edge.
I feel slightly breathless as I drink him in, and I’m fairly sure it’s not from the effort of climbing into the car.
“So, are you going to tell me what this mission is?” I ask.
“Not yet,” he says.
“I never knew you were such a man of mystery.”
He just looks at me, his dark eyes intense on mine. “We’re going to have an evening where the normal rules don’t apply, okay?”
My heart pitter-patters. “The rules don’t apply?”
Oliver shakes his head. “Not tonight.”
We head out the Palace gates. Cameras flash because there’s a wall of paparazzi there as usual, but the tinted windows hide the Prince of Wales and the prime minister sitting in the back seat on a secret mission. Which, you know, could potentially intrigue members of the media.
“You’re not taking me to murder anyone, are you?” I ask as we sweep past St James’s Park. “Because it’s only the sovereign who has criminal immunity, remember.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“Good.” I settle back in the seat. “You’d think it would be an incentive for people not to annoy me, so they don’t end up on my hitlist, but that message doesn’t seem to have filtered through to the British press yet.”
Oliver laughs, and I try to ignore the way his laugh flutters through me, animating every organ.
“Maybe you should use your next speech to inform the people of the UK that you’re keeping a naughty and nice list like Santa Claus.”
“I think it’s a good thing you’re not my speechwriter.”
We grin at each other, and a bolt of lust shoots through me from being on the receiving end of his smile.
Holy shit. Now that I’ve figured out I’m attracted to Oliver, it’s becoming harder and harder to rein in that attraction.
We’ve reached the motorway now and are heading east on the M25.
I stare at Oliver’s profile, taking in the small details of him: his straight back, the way his arm curves to where his hands sit loosely in his lap.
His hands are just normal hands, but I find myself staring at them like I’m an aspiring palm reader and his hands contain the answers to the fate of the universe.
Why do just the small details of Oliver’s hand—the light dusting of hair on the back, his slightly knobby knuckles, his neatly clipped fingernails—make my pulse race even faster?
Do I have a newly developed hand fetish? Or maybe it’s just part of my admiration for anything Oliver.
We leave the motorway, and suddenly, we’re in the streets of northeast London, driving past council estates, the dilapidated apartment buildings sticking up like stubborn sentinels among pockets of nicer houses.
We turn down a high street where there are a few shops boarded up, others with metal grills pulled down over the outside like a veil.
The car swings left at the end of the high street and suddenly stops outside a rundown block of apartments. The building’s paint is flaking off, showing the faded red bricks underneath. A single dim streetlight casts long shadows around the entrance.
My forehead scrunched, I turn to Oliver. “Where are we?”
Oliver nods at the door of the closest apartment, where the window displays a torn net curtain. “This flat belongs to someone you know as BritishPatriot.”
My mouth drops open. “What? Why are we at the house of someone who loathes me?”
“I just wanted you to see exactly who these people are.”
I blink at him.
Oliver must see uncertainty on my face because his expression softens.
“I promise this is safe, Callum,” he says quietly.
“I’ve cleared it with my security team and your security team.
This guy has no history of violence. He doesn’t know we’re coming here tonight.
I would never do anything to put you in danger. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
It boils down to a basic truth.
There is no one in the world I trust more than Oliver.
Oliver opens his door and climbs out, holding the door for me. He waits until our security teams are in position before he strides up the short pathway to the front door. I follow him, my legs shaking, feeling slightly lightheaded.
I can’t believe we’re doing this.
I’m about to meet BritishPatriot. My nemesis. The person who taunts me twenty times a day, who devotes so much time and effort to pointing out my inadequacies.
In my head, he’s an Adonis: tall, broad, and incredibly handsome. And he wears a smirk similar to Cliff’s as he uses his superpower vision to see straight to all the flaws within my soul.
Oliver raises his hand to knock on the door, then glances back to where I’m hovering uncertainly behind him.
“Maybe you should stand in the shadows,” he suggests.
I step away from the pool of light that spools onto the doorstep. Jacob, one of my security officers, immediately comes up to stand beside me.
Oliver knocks, a firm, strident sound.