Chapter Forty-Six
Prince Arthur
Everything feels a bit perfect now. Perfect in a way I’ve never felt before. Almost satisfying. I roll over, my arm hitting Phoebe’s back. We’ve been dating since her birthday, just over a few weeks now.
It’s hard to explain.
Feels like it’s always been like this but also not?
It’s never been like this before. We’ve never been together like this before. This is new. A really fucking frightening new that I would never forgive myself for ruining.
I can’t ruin this because it’ll be the last time.
If I mess it up this time, I won’t let her come back to me.
It’s this or nothing—fucking life or death. Feels as though someone’s picked up the puzzle that’s been sitting on the floor in a million pieces and carefully, precisely put it back together again.
It’s the first of fucking December but it’s hot in here, the sun piercing through her French doors because I’ve woken up in her bed, in her room at her mum’s.
Every morning is perfect here. Even back before, on Monday mornings when we had school.
The first few minutes when I blinked awake and became conscious, were perfect here.
There’s something about her home. Feels like a home, do you know what I mean?
When someone dies in your house, it stops feeling like a home, instead it becomes the shelter your family lives under.
Did for us, anyway. But not here. Never here.
It’s always warm. Heating’s always on fall blast. Something’s always cooking—be it coffee or a gourmet full English.
Even when we were kids and I’d come here, I remember there being toys and mess everywhere.
Mum hated mess. Our house was always so tucked away, so neat, so sterile that you wondered if anyone actually lived there or if it was just a show home.
I never liked being at my house. Phoebe was never there. Never stayed over. She didn’t know my house like I know hers.
I lay on my back, wondering what things would be like if I never had her or her family.
I think I’d be dead. When my family fell apart ten years ago, hers picked us right back up.
It’s important to have that, almost imperative for when something like Theo happens to you.
Without it you’re just continually spiralling further and further into the abyss that is grief.
Phoebe stirs next to me, stretches her arms above her head and then looks over at me. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
She gives it a second, yawns, squeezes her eyes shut for a moment before sitting up and grabbing my face, kissing the lips off me.
Gross, ain’t it? Kissing first thing in the morning but not for us.
The girls kissed me straight after I’ve vomited despite her crippling fear of germs. Mate, she’s bathed me bollock naked while I’ve been off my face.
We’ve shared toothbrushes and clothes and water and food and air and life—kissing in the morning isn’t as gross as you’d think.
“Plans for today?” She asks, slipping out of bed and throwing her robe on.
I scratch the back of my neck, throw my legs over the side of the bed. “Mum’s been banging on about lunch.”
She faces me, nods. “Since the article?”
Laugh. “What one?”
As you’d expect, those pictures of us on Tower Bridge have taken the entire world by storm.
We’re wanted for podcasts, photos shoots, interviews—the lot.
Before we do any of that, though, we need to talk to my family.
I’ve been putting it off. When I was at Buckingham Palace celebrating Grandad’s birthday a couple weeks ago, I didn’t even bring it up. I avoided every glance and question.
“We should.” Phoebe walks out of her bathroom with her toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. “Lunch, I mean.” She dips back inside to spit and then leans against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. “We owe it to your mum, Arthur.”
“I know we do,” I sigh, standing up and itching my stomach. I sit on one of her armchairs by her French doors. She comes over, sits on the other one. I nod my chin at her. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“You still got my notebook here?”
Without a word she stands up, walks over to her bedside drawer and throws a black leather notebook into my lap.
“What’s in it?” She asks, sitting back down.
I frown. “You’ve never looked inside of it?”
She pulls back. “No, why would I? It’s yours.”
“Yeah, but, you’re a nosey cow and it’s been sitting in here for years. I wouldn’t be cross at you if you did.”
“I’m not nosey nor a cow,” she frowns, muttering.
I open the book, flip through the pages.
I’m not sure why I asked. It’s nothing secret like a diary.
Just special to me, I guess. It used to be Theo’s.
The first few pages are scribbled in his handwriting—things about him and Mia, school shit, random drawings, lists of songs he wanted to listen to.
It’s the one thing I kept because no one else has it—or probably even knows that it exists.
I filled the other pages with more random drawings.
Diagrams of butterflies, the view from outside Phoebe’s windows, the picture I saw when I sat in this very chair and watched her sleep because I’ve always woken up before her.
“Bit of an artist, aren’t you?” Phoebe smiles as I show her a couple pages.
“Artist is pushing it.” I close the book, leave it on the coffee table between the chairs and get myself ready.
When we go downstairs, Jonathan is in the kitchen, frying something in a pan.
“Morning,” he nods as we walk in and take a seat on the table—well Phoebe hoists herself up onto the counter.
“What’s that?” Phoebe jumps down, peers over her dads shoulder. “Are you frying sausages in oil?!”
Jonathan nods, flips them.
I scrunch my nose up. “That’s really unhealthy.”
Phoebe nods at me. “The smell is making me quite nauseous actually.”
Jonathan spins around, pulls back. “You,” he points at me with his spatula. “Used to sniff coke like it was going out of fashion so you can shut up about ‘unhealthy’—and you,” he points to Phoebs. “Love the way I cook my sausages! This is how I’ve always cooked them.”
“No,” she shakes her head. “I don’t remember feeling quite this sick.”
“Hang on!” I put a hand up, “Are we ignoring what he just said about me?”
Phoebe shrugs, glances away from me. “I mean…he wasn’t…lying?”
“So!” I roll my eyes.
Jonathan’s actually come around, despite the way he eyes me whenever I walk into a room.
He isn’t here a lot. Seeing him cooking in his own kitchen is a really rare sight.
When Phoebe called him to tell him we were back together, he sounded pleased.
Pleased enough, I guess. He’s never been my biggest fan—we all know that—but it could be worse. He could be like my dad but he ain’t.
Anyway, we eat—Phoebe barely—and then we head out to my car, parked outside of her home. Hugo and Jamie sit in the front (my family’s bodyguards that only really look after me) while Phoebs and I jump into the back.
“I need to go to the store,” Phoebe says, eyes down at her phone. “Just for a few minutes—you can come in if you want.”
“You don’t want me to be alone for five minutes, do you?”
She stares up at me. Blinks. “Huh? Do you want to be alone?”
“Well, no,” I wobble my head. “But the other day you asked me if I wanted to come to therapy with you.”
“Yeah,” she frowns, looks genuinely confused. “Everyone needs therapy—especially you. And me. And us together.”
“It’s a date then,” I give her a look. “I’ll put it in my calendar.”
She hits my arm. “Don’t be like that.”
We arrive at her mum’s store on New Bond a few minutes later. I do go in with her—course I fucking do. I’ve never seen her stuff here, the things she’s been working on. When we get to the office on the top floor, she disappears, following a woman with a tape measure around her neck.
I have a look around, flicking through the various different sketchbooks and displays, showcasing all the runway looks her mum and Cynthia have put together.
Above the desk, are sketches of equestrian gear.
It really is something Phoebe would wear.
Practical, stylish, quiet. It’s her. All her.
I pull one away from the thumbtack and have a proper look.
This is all her. The design, the stitching, the colours, the fit—all of it. It’s incredible.
“Pleather!”
I spin around. Phoebe’s marching over to me.
“Arthur, she asked me if I wanted to use pleather! Fucking pleather!” She stops in front of me, huffing and puffing.
“Be more fucking sustainable?! She does know the world is already ruined beyond repair, doesn’t she?
Like, a few thousand pairs of leather boots are really going to melt away the rest of the icebergs!
I swear to god,” she shakes her head, jaw ticking, “I am going to start burning shit! Should I? Should I start burning shit? See how fucking eco-friendly that is!”
“Woah.” I throw the sketch back onto the desk. “Calm down, Phoebs. Pleather, real leather—use whatever you like.”
“I know,” she mutters, takes a deep breath, shakes her head to snap out of it. “Anyway—what were you looking at?”
I shrug my lips. “Just some of your work.”
“Yeah?” She comes over to my side, I put my arm around her shoulders. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m really fucking proud that you managed to do this while I was gone.”
“It was hard, but I did it. It took my mind off a lot of things. I started by modelling for my mum but—”
“I know.”
“What?” She looks up at me.
“Well,” I wave my hand about. “Collected all your magazines, didn’t I?”
She pulls away from me slightly, my arm still around her, and grins. “You did what?”
I wipe away my smile. “Yeah. Subscribed to all the big ones so I didn’t miss them.”
“Why?” She looks bewildered.
“I had to know what you were up to.”
“You didn’t have access to the internet?”
“No. My only form of entertainment was actually reading the paper every morning, can you believe it? They got rid of the Page 3 girls.”