Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance) (20 page)

"Why? One was forced on her. Do you not remember?"

"That was the past. Those things are not done."

"It wasn't that long ago, sister. Strange as it is to believe, dear Mother was once our age. I've heard rumors of trouble between her and our grandsire."

I wave a hand to dismiss them. "Servants talk."

"Not just from servants, though I do plenty of talking to them, though lately Mother has been exclusively taking old women into her service. I wonder why."

"I'm sure you're still just as popular with the villagers."

"Perhaps."

"Just do us all favor and don't get any of them in trouble."

"Who, me? Trouble?"

"Konstantin, listen." I lean forward. "If you learn anything about Mortimer arranging a marriage contract, tell me. Please."

"If you know, Mother will know you know because I know, and she'll know I let you know."

"What?"

"I will. Even if it means I end up being king. Oh well, I guess after I breed whatever sow mother sticks me with, I can have something on the side."

I scowl at him.

"It's good to be the king." He shrugs. "I've got to run, I have important in flagrantes to delicto."

I snort. "Good luck with that, brother. Remember what I told you."

He grins, waves, and ends the call.

I prop my chin on my hand and check my email. I scroll through the various messages from professors—all automated, generated by the school's message board system—until I come to an email from Mortimer.

"A gift for you,"
the title reads.

I click the little box and prepare to send it to the garbage can, but against my better judgement, I open it and scroll down.

The message, in its entirety, is:
<3

Beneath that is a closeup picture of his penis.

I jerk away from the computer and try not to retch. Slowly, I turn around and try not to look as I hit the Reply button.

Did you send your gift
, I type.
I can't see it.

Then I hit Send.

Sigh.

Give up my rights and the throne. I don't know what Mother would do if I did. Banish me? Most likely. I couldn't stay home, that would be certain. Any children I had could threaten my younger brothers line if he takes my place.

In America we would be safe, but what would I do here? I could teach, I suppose, or work for a company, but so far I can handle America only in measured doses, with a guide. I would be lost going to work, buying a car, paying my taxes. I don't even know how to cook.

All this luxury has made me helpless. I can't even care for myself.

I jump at the knock on my door.

It's Thorlief. I let him in and sit on the bed.

"Back so early?"

"He has practice tomorrow. He has to be up early to train."

"I see. You're sad."

"I promised him a week. The week is almost over. Thorlief, I need something from you."

He lets out a deep, rumbling sigh. "Yes."

"On Friday I must skip class and go with him. You must convince everyone that I am sick and cannot leave my room. Bring meals to me and leave them. Do whatever you need to do."

"Princess—"

"Please," I whimper.

His big shoulders roll, and he gives me the briefest of nods.

"End it now," he says. "You'll be happier. Or after this excursion. Let it end on a happy memory you can cherish. A little happiness can last a very long time, but a little anguish can burden happy memories forever."

"It ends on Friday."

He nods again. "Just so."

"Wait."

He stops before he leaves and closes the door again.

"Yes?"

"What would you do if you were in my position?"

He looks up. "Why do you ask?"

"I could abdicate. Refuse to accept the crown. I have six healthy siblings."

He looks confused for a moment, opens his mouth to speak, closes it again. I see his chest swell as he takes a great breath, but he stops before he speaks once more.

"Tell me. What would you do?"

"If I could change my life," he says, "if I could start over, I would follow my heart's desire and damn the consequences. We only have one life, and most of us realize that too late. Sometimes we do not know the value of a thing until it is gone, of a moment until it is passed, of a love until it is lost. I would have tried, Princess. That is all. I would have tried."

Thorlief opens the door and steps out.

T
he next day
, when I finish my classes, I text Jason. He answers quickly.

J
ason
: I'll let you know when practice is done. I'll pick you up.

I
feign coughing
that night and tell Mavra I am not feeling well, and ask her for something light. My dinner is a fish stew. I eat some and ask Thorlief to take it downstairs before I slip out the window.

"Tell them I'm feeling ill and I will not be coming out of my room tonight. I need my rest."

"Yes, Your Grace."

He closes the door as I step out onto the porch roof, testing my weight before I grab on to the column and slip down. When I hop the fence, Jason is there to catch me. He wraps his his arms around my waist and lowers me to the ground.

I slip my hood up, and we walk together to the house. I say very little. He says less. It seems as though his hands never leave my body though, whether it's an embrace or hand on my hips or just a hand holding mine.

We order pizza and watch movies, without really paying attention. Eventually I end up on his lap, curled up against him, our bodies lazily entwined like they were formed for each other. A perfect fit.

I am not aware that I fell asleep until I wake up. I wasn't out long, but I was sleeping on his shoulder. Jason is drowsy himself, almost nodding off every now and then.

He shifts his weight and lies down on the couch. I crawl on top of him and settle against his side, wedged between him and the back cushions. It's warm here, and I rise and fall with his breaths. I like this.

I squirm up his side so I can rest my head next to his. He loops his arm around me and pulls me closer, and I lay my arm over his stomach.

"Where are we going tomorrow?"

"It's a surprise."

I laugh. "It had better be worth it."

"Oh, I think it'll be worth every minute."

I smile. "I'm sure you do."

He moves his hand down and squeezes my butt. I wiggle it in his hand and nip at his chin. He plucks a chip from the bowl and sticks it in my mouth.

Eventually, I must go home. I have to pry myself away from him, resting my hands on his chest while I rise. He tries to pull me back down, but I shake loose, stand up, and stretch, pushing my hands over my head.

"Do that again," he says, looking me over.

I give him a sharp look and turn for the door. "I must go. In the morning?"

"Slip out early. Like six-ish. Come on, I'll take you home."

I smile and walk together with him in silence, every breath a sigh, every thought a longing. I feel as though I weigh a thousand pounds as I drag myself over the fence and hop down. I must force myself to move quickly through the yard and up the porch roof so that I am not seen, but even then I slow. I stop, crouched on the asphalt, and wave at him before I slip inside.

I wish that tomorrow would come, but I know when it comes it must also end.

J
ason

E
verything has to be perfect
. This might be the most important day of my life. I haven't felt like this since, I think, my thirteenth birthday. The sensation of butterflies in my stomach, the excitement and nervous energy, the sense of dread from knowing that which comes to pass must also come to its end. It's a bundle of emotions a child might feel, and it is beautiful and strange.

I wake at six in the morning, and by agreement with Akele I take the Cadillac out and drive her to the self-service car wash just outside town. After I clean the exterior, I spend an hour vacuuming and wiping down the inside and spray it with new-car smell. I may not be able to afford anything better than borrowing my roommates' car, but I'm going to do the best I can with what I've got.

The day has to be perfect.

After it's washed, I drive it back to the house and park it just behind the sidewalk, waiting for our quick getaway. Then I shower and change and pace the living room floor, waiting and waiting and waiting for the text that feels like it takes hours to come.

I pace until it feels like my shoes will wear out, and then she texts. She's ready.

The run to her house takes five minutes. By the time I get there, she's already climbing over the fence. She rushes across the street to meet me and almost throws herself into my arms. I grin at her and hold her tight before leading her up the sidewalk.

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," I tell her for the tenth time. She could ask me a thousand more times and I'd never tire of it. I just want to hear her voice.

When we reach the house, I open her door for her. She does this peculiar thing where she sticks her butt in the car first and swivels her legs in when she sits, and then reaches over and unlocks my door without a word.

My dad once told me that was a good sign.

I start her up and pull out, and Ana looks like she wants to ask where we're going but silences herself and instead looks out the window. I take a different route out of town on purpose, to show her new sights.

No matter what, I can't get enough of just watching her as she takes in new things. She's so fascinated by
everything
. Here I would think the princess would be the worldly one, but just about everything is a source of awe.

"This looks like home," she remarks once we get past the canal.

"Yeah?"

"All the fields and the green."

It's not all green. The leaves are turning, a riot of colors, reds and oranges. I take the old road, US 13, rather than the highway.

"Look," she yells, pointing.

There's a bait shop on the side of the road, maybe fifteen minutes from the canal. They have a fiberglass shark in a big glass tank. Every year in early fall, somebody opens the tank and puts a Santa hat on the shark.

"Pull over," Ana cries, "Pull over!"

She's so enthralled by it, I can't turn her down. I pull off into the gravel lot out front of the bait shop, and Ana jumps out to look at the shark.

I come up behind her, spin her around, and whip out my phone.

"What are you doing?"

She has a funny look on her face in the photo I snap of us, me grinning, clutching her to my side with the shark behind us, his fake sharky grin full of sharp teeth.

"That shark photobombed us."

She laughs. "Wait."

She smiles in her own selfie with me, and smiles again when she looks at the photo.

"Don't put that on your Facebook."

She looks up. "I don't have a Facebook."

"I know, hon. I'm kidding. Come on."

I walk her back to the car, and we start off again. It was an early morning for us, so I let her fall asleep in the seat. The Caddy has seats for sleeping, at least for the passengers. I yawn while I drive, glancing at her every few seconds.

She naturally shifts in the seat until her head is on my shoulder and mumbles in her sleep, in her mother tongue. I have no idea what she is saying, but I don't care; I could listen all day. It almost sounds like singing.

I give her a nudge and wake her up when we get close to town. On a weekend day there would be traffic on the main road backed up for miles. Today we sail through and stop at only a few lights before driving over the canal bridge to head for the boardwalk. I park off Rehoboth Avenue to avoid the parking meters and rush around to open her door.

When Ana steps out, she sniffs the salt air and grins, her eyes lighting up with joy at the familiar scent.

I grab her hood and lift it back over her shoulders.

"No need to hide here."

She shakes her head and her long braid falls loose, hanging down her back. I watch her for a moment, my heart beating a little faster. She finally gives me a little nod, and we start walking.

"I hate making you hide," I tell her. "You're so beautiful."

She turns bright red when she blushes, like sunlight bathing fresh snow. Her appearance is at odds with the beach. My snow maiden.

Arm in arm, I walk her up the sidewalk. There's a greasy-food lunch counter that serves breakfast this early in the morning.

Ana looks over the menu, quietly mouthing the choices to herself before she orders scrambled eggs and cheese on a hoagie roll. I get the same but with bacon and we sit down on one of the benches to eat together, the breeze constantly trying to pluck food from our hands.

A gull comes screeching down and lands in front of us, and circles us on webbed feet. Ana waves at it, amused by its obvious desire for our food. After we finish eating and toss the wrappers, the bird follows us for a while. Or rather, follows her. I think he expects her to feed him. She probably would if she didn't notice the signs warning against it.

I don't want to rush this, so I walk slow. I've seen all this before, many, many times. For Ana it's all new, and the expression on her face shows it. So many things I just took for granted are new in her eyes.

Ana gives me one look as we approach the Christmas store and pulls me inside by the wrist. I always wondered why there's a store that sells Christmas decorations at the beach, but they've been here my whole life.

"I love Christmas," she says as we walk inside.

"What do you do for Christmas, give presents?"

She gives me an odd look. "No, silly. Presents are for the children, on Christmas Eve. Christmas is for food and revelry."

"Revelry?"

"I had my first glass of wine at Christmas. Real wine. My brother is younger, but he was allowed to drink before I was. Uncut wine, I mean. At table we always drank wine with water."

"You got drunk? On one glass?"

"I was fourteen," she sighs. "One glass, yes. My head felt like it was bursting the next day. I wish you'd been there to give me cranberry juice."

"Cranberry… oh, yeah. You remember that?"

She nods.

I go quiet, just watching her. She stops to fiddle with the ornaments and toys, watches a model train go around and around the trunk of a fake tree, smiling.

"What are your Christmases like?" she asks.

I stand next to her, watching the train go in circles.

"When I was little, Mom and Dad would buy me a mountain of presents. So much that they filled up the whole couch in the living room. They didn't have much and they couldn't really afford it, even buying used toys and stuff, but I never knew. They never let me know they were poor when I was a kid."

"Poor?"

I sigh. "They sat me down when my sister was three and I was thirteen, and told me my Christmas would be a little leaner so my sister could have presents. I was angry at first, but watching her rip open the packages made me change my mind, and I told them not to get me anything the next year. I mean when she was two, she couldn't open anything herself, you know?"

"Do you feast?"

"We did, yeah," I sigh. "Mom would glaze a canned ham, and Dad would let me have half a beer. I guess it's like you and the wine. We'd eat at noon, then go to my grandmother's house for the rest of the day. Then usually the weekend after we'd go up to my other grandmother's house, up in Pennsylvania."

"Canned ham?" Ana says.

"Ham that comes in a can."

"Like the Spam?"

"Like the Spam. Just a lot bigger. And less Spammy. The only thing they really have in common is a can and they came from a pig."

"Oh."

We head out of the Christmas store and back into the sunlight. Ana holds my hand as we walk and almost pulls me along as we get closer to the sea. She must not have seen it in a long time. She almost runs to the boardwalk and then across it to lean on the fence and look out.

It's a bright day but windy, and the waves are rolling in hard, rising and crashing. Ana grins and stares out as the wind picks up and stretches her hair out behind her, whipping it so hard I wish I'd brought a heavier jacket.

Without a word she runs down the stairs and darts across the sand. I catch up to her just where the waves rise farthest and roll back, the foam licking the toes of her sneakers. She leans into the wind and lets the sea spray coat her face, pressing her eyes tightly shut even as she grins wildly.

I hook my arms around her just to keep her from toppling forward into the water. I'm freezing, but she looks like she's ready to go for a dip. I rest my chin on her head and breathe against her. Ana puts her hands on my arms and rocks in my embrace, smiling.

"It's beautiful here."

"Yeah. It is. Come on."

It pains me to take her away from the water. She's enraptured with it, enamored by it. She stares at it the whole time we walk down the boardwalk.

Until she hears the distant, tinkling music and looks around. She stops in her tracks with a little scuff of her feet on the boards and her mouth falls open. She's seen Funland.

For anyone who's been to a real amusement park, Funland isn't going to be all that impressive. It occupies half a city block, fronting on the boardwalk. The biggest rides are the haunted house and the Viking ship, though a couple are taller, rising high above the building's open roof. Ana starts toward it like she's being pulled by some invisible rope, almost stumbling.

"Can we?" she pleads, turning to me. "Can we go inside?"

"Why do you think we're here?"

She grins wildly and breaks into a run, her hair whipping behind her. I sprint to catch up, then grab her around the waist before she can rush inside.

"Easy, easy," I tell her. "Rides first, then we'll play some games, huh?"

"What sort of games?" she says, smirking.

"Frog Pond."

She blinks. "Is that a euphemism?"

"No. Those kinds of games are for later. Right now we have fun. Come on, we're riding the Mad Mountaineer first."

After I buy a sheaf of ride tickets, I wedge Ana into one of the miniature roller-coaster cars that make up the Mad Mountaineer. It's not a real roller coaster. Maybe twenty feet wide, it just spins wildly in circles, the cars riding up and down on a track, no more than a foot of difference.

Ana screams wildly anyway, once it starts moving. She holds on to me for dear life, alternating between yelping and laughing. She laughs so hard she's out of breath when it slows.

She fidgets in her seat. This is the best part. I will never forget the look on her face, I swear it. The Mountaineer goes full speed backward, and Ana cries out and hugs on to me harder until she realizes what happened. Then she laughing starts again.

She's still giggling when I offer her a hand out of the car.

We ride the Paratrooper next. I can see her fidgeting nervously next to me in line. There's not much of a wait, and we take one of the cars together. The Paratrooper lifts the cars with their parachute-shaped roofs in a tilted circle, rising high over the rest of the rides before swinging down again.

Ana has no idea. She slips her arm through mine as the attendant tightens her seat belt, and looks at the topmost cars. The ride spins around slowly as it loads up, bringing us up to the top after maybe a minute.

She looks down.

"Is this the whole ride?"

"No way." I grin at her.

Then it starts, building up more and more speed. The look on her face is priceless. As it goes around faster and faster, the cars tilt out, until she can look straight down at the ground and hold on to me for dear life. Her grip tightens as it reaches maximum speed.

The ride may only last two minutes, but it feels like half an hour. By the time we step off, she's giggling again.

"I want to do more."

I bought enough tickets to go all day.

I'm saving the best for last. Next I lead her to the bumper cars, and we get in line.

"Have you ever driven before? Do you know how?"

She shakes her head to both.

Oh, this is going to be good.

As we wait our turn, she looks at the little cars with their rings of rubber around the edges.

"Why are they called bumper cars?" she asks nervously.

"Pretty much why you think," I tell her, smirking.

The cars are at random spots all around the ring. She shuffles on the slick rubber, holding my hand. I almost pull her into one of the double-sized cars with me, but I drop her in one of the single ones instead, and take the nearest one for myself.

I give her a thumbs-up, and she awkwardly returns the gesture.

"Pedal on the right makes it go," I tell her just as the electric hum starts up.

She surges forward crazily, spinning out as she pushes the accelerator all the way in. Grinning, I start off more controlled and clip her read end, sending her spinning wildly.

Ana wrestles with her steering wheel. From the corner of my eye I see her speed up, and then she rams right into my rear end. The world turns madly as the bumper car bounces off the big tires lining the track, and I have to wrestle it around to get going again, bumping into random people.

She learns fast. She's cruising around the track in a circle, clipping people out of the way so she doesn't go spinning off from the impacts. I make a tight turn and try to hit her, but someone else bangs into me and I miss.