Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Callum
When you find yourself on a private royal jet in midair over the Atlantic, it’s a good sign your life has taken a slightly surreal twist.
I fidget in the leather seat, running my hand along the armrest. It’s not made of plastic like every other type of armrest on a plane I’ve ever encountered.
No, this one is made of some kind of wood that’s so highly polished I can make out my blurry reflection.
Even smudged, my reflection looks startled.
“Would you like something else to drink, Your Royal Highness?” a flight attendant offers.
I blink a few times at the sound of my title before I reply. “No, I’m good.”
Although one part of me is tempted to see what alcohol they have onboard, I’m pretty sure adding inebriation to this current situation won’t help in any way.
“Something to eat then? The chef can cook you whatever you wish.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “There’s a chef on board? On a plane?”
His polite gaze doesn’t waver under the weight of my uncertainty. “Yes. There’s a chef on the plane. He can cook you anything you would like to eat.”
Oh, right. While it’s tempting to check out the cooking skills of an airplane chef, like with the alcohol, I’m not certain the addition of food to my currently churning stomach would be a good scenario for anyone.
“I’m okay for now, thanks.”
Across the aisle, Spencer frantically types into his phone. I guess he’s preparing for what’s happening when we land. I have no idea what’s going on. I’ve been pretty much in a state of bewildered shock since Spencer confirmed I am now heir to the throne.
After he said the words, I’d glanced at Emily just to confirm it wasn’t a hallucination brought on by extreme date stress. But from how wide her mouth had dropped open as she stared at Spencer, it’d been apparent that he definitely wasn’t a figment of my imagination.
“Um…it looks like I have to go,” I’d said, scraping my chair back. “And…uh…yeah…you might have to send the dry-cleaning bill to Buckingham Palace. Anyway, it was nice to meet you. I’ll grab the check on the way out.”
Being eleventh in line to the British throne has always just been a fun random fact about me—like the fact that my thumbs are double-jointed—that I’ve occasionally thrown out at parties to impress people.
Honestly, my double-jointed thumbs have been more of a crowd-pleaser because people actually believe that one.
It doesn’t help that half the royal succession sites on Google overlook my existence. Once you get past the tenth in line, people tend to lose interest in doing proper research. After all, what are the chances that all the people ahead of you will suddenly have to step aside?
Higher than you’d think, as it turns out.
Once I was safely inside Spencer’s car, I’d had a quick conversation with my grandmother, the Queen, who’d filled in some of the details of what was going on with the arrests and requested I come to London as soon as possible so she could talk to me face-to-face.
Spencer had driven me to my apartment, where I’d hastily thrown some clothes into my worn duffel bag, and then he’d taken me straight to the airport to board the private plane for the eleven-hour flight to London.
Now, seeing Spencer busy on his phone, I suddenly think about all the logistics I should be sorting.
First, I need to call my boss because I’m supposed to be at work in half an hour.
Luckily, I get straight through to her on her direct line.
“Hi, Becca. It’s Callum. Sorry, but I’m not going to be able to make it in to work today,” I say.
Becca lets out a long-suffering sigh. “We’re short-staffed as it is, Callum. You know that. You better have a decent excuse.”
“I’m on my way to England because I’m now heir to the British throne,” I offer.
There’s a momentary pause. “Very funny, Callum. If you’re not here by nine a.m., you better have a doctor’s note.”
The dial tone sounds in my ear.
Well, that went well.
I turn my attention to a message I’ve just received from Scott on the group chat with him, Cliff, and me. Knowing Scott, he’s just waking up and wanting some fun. Sure enough, it looks like he’s decided his entertainment of choice is another installment in the series Callum’s Disastrous Dates.
So, how did your date go last night???
I can almost hear the anticipatory throb in his question.
I let out a sigh as I reply.
It was interrupted, which was probably a blessing as it was crashing and burning more spectacularly than the Hindenburg.
I’ve thrown that little metaphor in there for Cliff’s sake because a few weeks ago, I gushed to him about a documentary on hydrogen airships I’d just watched and he’d appeared mildly interested.
My phone vibrates with Scott’s reply.
What did you do?
I resent the assumption that it was my fault.
I know you, Callum.
Okay, so it was kind of my fault. I did spill a glass of red wine on her.
So, no chance of seeing her again then?
It ended abruptly, so there wasn’t time to make plans.
Why did it end abruptly?
Because a Scotland Yard agent turned up to tell me I’m now the heir to the British throne, and I needed to be escorted to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen.
Very funny. She snuck out the restroom window, didn’t she?
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised no one believes me on this one.
A woman climbing through the window to escape a date with me only happened once. I really appreciate how you continuously bring it up though.
Before a reply comes back from Scott, I’m distracted from my phone by Spencer having a tense conversation.
He finishes his phone call and glances at me, the creases in his forehead so deep they should be classified as crevasses.
“The news of the arrests just broke. The media circus has already begun.” His mouth straightens into a line. “We need to get you to the Queen as soon as possible.”
The expression on his face has me taking a large gulp. “Okay.”
It’s raining when we land in London. I try not to take it as a premonition because it always rains in London. My memories of my childhood visits here before my father died are full of that steady, persistent rain and dull, leaden skies.
I’m ushered from the plane straight into a black Rolls Royce parked on the tarmac. I’d thought this kind of thing only happens in movies, but nevertheless, I allow myself and my tattered bag to be smuggled into the back seat along with Spencer and another protection agent.
I stare out the tinted windows as we whiz along the rain-soaked streets.
I’m now the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne.
I try to get that thought to stick in my head, but it’s like one of those Post-it Notes that has lost its stickiness and is now just floating around on the jet stream of my mind, refusing to take root.
I try another angle.
When my grandmother passes away, I will become king. The few people on the streets right now—the woman wrestling with an umbrella, the man sprinting for the bus stop—will one day be my subjects. When they sing “God save the King,” they will be referring to me.
Okay, that thought is so ludicrous that I laugh. I abruptly abort my laugh when Spencer and the other agent turn to stare at me.
But in the place of my borderline hysteria, a question surfaces.
Do I actually want to do this?
Just because I’m the next in line doesn’t mean I actually have to do the job, right?
It’s going to turn my life upside down. And while I can’t pretend I’m not slightly aimless, with my job at the call center simply a stop-gap until I work out what to do with my life, I definitely never considered king as a future career prospect.
My mother had a brief experience of royal life when she was married to my father, and she then spent the first twenty-two years of my life before she passed away protecting me as much as she could from this reality.
If she were still alive, what advice would she give me? A pulse of grief shoots through me as I contemplate the thought. Losing her guidance is one of the hardest things to cope with, the fact I now have to face the world on my own.
Should I step aside and let my younger half-brother Nicholas be the heir? Surely the British public would be happier with that than with an American as heir to the throne?
I scrape my hand across my jaw. I really need to talk to my grandmother.
“We’re driving you straight to Buckingham Palace,” Spencer says. “First, you’ll have a meeting with Her Majesty. And then the prime minister is scheduled to meet with you both at ten o’clock.”
“The prime minister? Oliver Hartwell?” I squeak.
“Yes, the government and the monarchy must work closely on this. The Queen can’t change the order of succession. Only an act of Parliament can do that.”
My mind bounces like a ping-pong ball in a hurricane.
Oliver Hartwell’s election as the British prime minister caused a stir even in America.
The politics of other countries don’t often penetrate the bubble of American media because our own politicians keep us entertained enough, but two things about Oliver Hartwell made the American public take notice.
First, there’s his movie-star good looks.
He’s what you’d get if you played around in one of those apps where you can merge two celebrity faces.
In his particular case, Henry Cavill and Chris Evans would combine to produce his dark, brooding handsomeness.
We do seem to be a country that’s a sucker for a pretty face.
The second reason Oliver’s election made headlines was that he was married to a guy.
The first openly-gay prime minister of one of our closest allies, at a time when the backlash against LGBTQ+ rights in America was raining thick and fast.
When he came to America for his first state visit, there were more waving rainbow flags than Union Jacks.
The idea that I’m going to meet Oliver Hartwell has my hands shaking.