3. Nick #2
“That’s not it.” Her eyes are a state-of-the-art lie detector test. “I can do this all day if you want to keep going in circles. Being a mom has given me amazing stamina and an iron will. I have potty trained three boys. You will not break me.”
“I’m dreading going back to Ardenia,” I tell her with a much-needed exhale.
“I love my country. I just…I want to walk into a store without someone calling ahead. I want to make a bad decision that isn’t a scandal.
” I snap off a piece of the gingerbread house, wishing it was the hot pretzel from the hot dog cart.
“I’m tired of being managed. Of being watched.
Of being told which fork to use and who I might plausibly fall in love with. ”
I find myself still wondering about those two guys holding hands and kissing yesterday.
What did they get up to last night? Did they go out to dinner?
Did they go to a club? Maybe they went to a bar and met up with their friends.
Or other friends. They’re in a corner booth having brunch right now, yelling their opinions on Drag Race to each other over the din of the chatter.
Or maybe they’re hanging out together at a coffee shop, or in each other’s apartments, getting into shenanigans.
I’d like to get into shenanigans sometime. I think I’d be quite good at it.
Tears sting at my eyes. The loneliness, the realization of this being the rest of my life, it all sets in.
Millie doesn’t say anything, letting the silence hang between us as she rubs my arm. I toss the piece of gingerbread back on the table, my appetite gone as I think about heading home, where I’ll face mounting pressure to find a wife and produce an heir.
“I went on a date last night,” I admit. “Her name is Grace. She’s lovely…”
“And yet you have zero desire for her.”
I nod my head yes.
“Her chest isn’t hairy enough,” Millie says.
“Not by a long shot. And she’s missing a crucial piece of anatomy.”
I look down, equal parts angry and embarrassed. I’m a grown man stuck in the same place as my scared teenage self.
Millie is the only friend I’ve come out to.
Most of my social circle is made up of fellow royals and socialites, not the most trustworthy bunch.
Would my “friends” sell me out to a tabloid for a gargantuan sum of money?
It’s possible. Most of the people in my social circle have their finances controlled by their parents.
They’re wealthy on paper but have little cash of their own.
“Nicky, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you’ve had to keep this secret in. I’m sorry that your only relationship has been with that fuckface Vincent. Most guys under twenty-five are terrible at sex.”
“Didn’t you meet Adam while in university?”
“There are exceptions to every rule.”
We descend into laughter, breaking up the misery and tension of my personal life. I can always count on Millie to cheer me up.
“I wish I got to see you more often,” I say. “I miss you.”
Truly good friends are more precious than gold. Millie is my closest friend emotionally and farthest away geographically.
“Stay,” she says suddenly with a surprising urgency flickering in her eyes. “Stay in Sourwood.”
Millie has always had a fondness for jokes, so I assume she’s kidding. Yet she has a no-nonsense glint in her eye.
“Stay here through Christmas. No security detail. No black SUVs. No royal business. No Agnes and Alfred. Live in Sourwood and experience life as a normie for a few weeks. Think of it as a royal Rumspringa. You can crash in our guest bedroom.”
“I’m a crown prince. I can’t crash in someone’s guest bedroom.”
“His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas can’t. But Nick, my friend from university, can.”
“Nick…” I laugh out of nervousness, perhaps worried that my best friend is losing her marbles. “Are you crazy, Millie?”
“Never call a woman crazy. And no, I’m not. You can wear Adam’s clothes.” She reaches over and musses up my neatly combed hair. “That’s better.”
“I think people can still recognize me with messy hair.”
“Oh, honey. Nobody here knows who you are.” She pats my hand to ease whatever bruising my ego just took. “Most Americans can’t even find Ardenia on a map, much less pick out its prince. I think you’ll be fine.”
“We’re one of the ten biggest copper exporters in the world!”
She nods at me not unlike parents do when their child presents them with a mangled drawing of a bunny rabbit.
“Anyway, you’ll go to the grocery store. You’ll stand in line. You’ll complain about parking. It’ll be so much fun!”
I know she’s being sarcastic, but that does sound somewhat fun.
“You can shovel snow and have mundane conversations about the weather.”
“So people actually talk about the weather? That’s not made up?”
“Jesus, you really do need to touch grass.” She snorts a laugh, and her cackle is infectious.
Even though this idea of hers is a total impossibility, it’s fun to dream.
“We’ll decorate the tree and shop at holiday markets and see an old Christmas movie in town.
All the things you can’t do as a prince. ”
Millie is perkier than a bouquet of helium balloons.
She’s bouncing in her seat. “And also…Sourwood has a bunch of gay guys. There are multiple two-dad families at my kids’ school.
I worked on a PTA committee with one of them, and he…
well, that dad kind of had a stick up his ass the whole time, but the rest are cool.
” She puts her elbows on the table and leans in, wiggling her troublesome eyebrows at me.
“Maybe you can get some more sexual experience while you’re here. ”
Heat flares up in my cheeks, turning what feels like my whole body red. “Millie.”
“Santa comes more often than you do.”
I glance up the stairs to make sure her kids aren’t in earshot.
“You know I’m right,” she says with a satisfied grin.
“Be a small town ho-ho-ho. We can make you a profile on all the apps. Scratch that—our mayor did that a few years ago and it turned into a whole scandal. We can find you hookups the old fashion way. Are gay men still having anonymous sex in truck stops and airport restrooms?”
“Millie! Now can I call you crazy?”
“I’ll settle for unhinged.”
“You’re actually serious about this plan of yours?”
Her mischievous smirk would not budge. “Can you fake an American accent?”
“I don’t know!”
“With all the episodes of Friends you watch, you’re probably better than you think.”
It’s times like these I hate how well she knows me. Millie is a steamroller with no chance of stopping. She’s giving me hope, my chest lighter for the first time in months. The thought of walking about town anonymously, of making out with a dashing man…it fills me with joy. But it’s all false.
“What about my father?” I ask, bringing us back to reality. “He’d never allow this.”
“You’re thirty-six-years-old, Nicky. It shouldn’t be up to him to allow you to do this.
You don’t need permission to live your life.
And if the king hates this idea, tough. You’ve been a dutiful son and a dutiful prince.
You’ve flown around the world on palace business for years and never complained.
You’ve gone on dates with women. If you want to be a difficult diva for once, you’ve earned it.
Tell him you’re taking a month off, and if he doesn’t like it, he can fuck himself up his own ass.
Well, you should probably clean up the language, but keep the tone. ”
Ever since she got me to smoke cloves in her room sophomore year, Millie has been pushing me out of my comfort zone. But is this dare one too far?
“Millie, I can’t…I can’t disappear for a month. I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not.”
“Aren’t you already doing that?” she asks pointedly. “What if you were able to go on a date with a man here? You two meet for a cup of coffee, talk about Christmas plans and favorite Friends episodes, and at the end, as he’s walking you back home, he kisses you on the front porch.”