Royally Crushed (16 page)

Oh, this is going to be bad. In a very, very good way.

*   *   *

“That was beyond boring,” Georg says in his completely sexy accent once we’re clear of the ballroom and finally feel safe enough to stop running and start walking. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

“You’re the one who gave me the idea,” I grin at him, trying to catch my breath. Poor Georg had been cornered by two ancient diplomats, and they were not-so-subtly grilling him about what he planned to study in college when I interrupted, as innocently as I could, and told Georg that we needed to go if we were going to finish the “planned tour” in time for him to be back to say good night to the P.M.

Ha!

The diplomats bought it, and the second Georg and I were out the ballroom door, he told me to run—well, as fast as I could in my new heels—and I followed him until I was totally lost. Now that we’re finally walking, I realize we’re in the long hallway that leads out to the gardens behind the palace. I walked through here on my
real
palace tour the day Dad and I arrived. It’s completely empty now, except for me and Georg. And the lights are all off, except for some hidden, faint lights near the floor. Totally romantic, even with the pictures of all the old, gruesome-looking men on the walls and the sour-faced statues scattered here and there beside the closed doors.

“Well, thanks a lot for interrupting when you did. I’m so sick of having all my parents’ friends butt into my business, you can’t even imagine.” He looks angry as he adds, “They weren’t asking about school to be friendly. It’s that they think they have the right to tell me what to do, like they think I’m not following the correct path for Schwerinborg.”

“Like you won’t turn out to be as good a prince as your father if you don’t take AP Physics next year?”

“Exactly.”

“That blows.”

This, of course, makes him laugh, which I think is what he really needs.

We walk along in silence for a while. It’s a good silence, though, and Georg takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world to him.

And the really scary thing is that it feels totally natural to me, too. Exciting and majorly nerve-racking, but natural. Like we’re
supposed
to be holding hands.

“Do you think they’ll notice if we don’t go back?” I ask as he leads me out an unguarded side door.

“Depends. My dad will be too busy to notice for hours. My mom might ask around though.”

I almost ask him whether or not his mom will get mad, but the garden is so gorgeous, I quit caring.

“This is fantastic,” I say, nodding toward an empty fountain a few feet in front of us. It’s surrounded by benches, and you just know that it’s full of staff in the summer, sitting and eating their lunches, listening to the water as it cascades down from the vase held by the goddess statue in the center. There’s still snow in a few spots, but since today was warm, I’m guessing it’ll be gone by tomorrow.

But somehow, the cold and the snow make the garden even more beautiful. Maybe because I know it’ll be ours, all by ourselves.

“I come out here a lot,” he says. “Especially in the winter. It’s a lot nicer in the summer, but—”

“More crowded,” we say at the same time, then we laugh.

Georg squeezes my hand, then pulls me a little closer. “You cold?”

I shake my head. I know it’s the dead of winter, but I’m not, even in my wispy dress.

Then I realize what a dork I am—because of what he was really asking—and try to cover. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to stay out all night, but it’s not bad.”

Georg slips off his jacket and slides it over my shoulders. I know it’s totally corny, and so does he, but neither of us care.

“Better?”

I nod, and he takes my hand again, walking me a little farther from the back door, I think so no one sees us and starts gossiping.

“It’s strange. I know we’ve only known each other a few weeks, but I feel like we understand each other.” He looks at me sideways, and I can’t tell if he’s being flirty or serious. “We’re a lot alike.”

I think so too, despite the fact that he’s dark to my pale, every person in the world is dying to know the real Georg, (like anyone cares about the “real Valerie”), and he’s got an accent that makes me want to jump all over him. But I never would have said what he did. I mean, it’s fine for
him
to say it. But for me to say I’m a lot like a prince would come off as pretty damned egotistical.

“What?” he asks, misreading my silence.

“Nothing. It’s just . . . I feel very comfortable with you too. This”—I wiggle my fingers in his hand—“this feels right. Cool, but scary at the same time, you think?”

“Like when I’ve got my hand on your leg under the table, with your father sitting right there?” He stops walking and faces me, and that wicked look is on his face again. We’re behind a big hedge, so no one in the palace could see us if they tried, which is just
classic
. Even the air around us is cool and still, like it’s waiting to see what happens next too.

Oh, I want him, bad.

“Especially then,” I say. And I get bold, lean forward, and kiss him.

Because I can tell it’s what we both want, but we’re both too scared to start.

I KNOW HOW TO KISS. GO FIGURE.

After all this time of stressing over whether or not I’d screw it up royally and make a complete and total fool of myself if a guy kissed me, and I mean really kissed me, I find out that I can do it just fine, thankyouverymuch. Georg clearly has no clue this is the first time I’ve engaged in an intense makeout session. Again, thank you very much.

And kissing Georg Jacques von Ederhollern is nothing like when Jason Barrows kissed me back in seventh grade. For one, Georg knows what he’s doing. He is
good
. I mean, there’s nothing sloppy or overeager about it. And he doesn’t just kiss me with his mouth or his tongue.

I am learning in the best way possible that Georg is a full-body kisser.

Maybe it’s supposed to be this way though—I mean, how would I know?

But what I
do
know is that when we hear voices in the garden—apparently one of the waiters and his girlfriend had the same thought we did—and scoot back into the palace, I want Georg to start from the beginning and kiss me all over again, because every single nerve ending in my whole body is doing this funky vibrating thing from wanting him. It’s like someone stuck my finger in a socket and left my skin to sizzle.

Apparently Georg has the same thought, because his expression is totally intense as he pulls me along a couple of hallways without saying a word, then through another door.

When he flips on the light, though, every ounce of tension leaves my chest in a whoosh, and it’s all I can do not to split my gut laughing.

“Oh, now
this
is totally romantic.”

“You like the urinals?”

I laugh even harder, because I just can’t help myself. He frowns. “That’s the right word, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah. They’re urinals, all right.”

“No one ever uses this restroom,” he explains, pulling
me past the two regular-size stalls and into the handicapped one on the end. I can hear the music thumping through the floor upstairs, and roll my eyes upward.

“The reception hall is right above us,” he says as he wraps his arms around me, pulling me up against him again. “It has its own restrooms, though, so no one will bother us here.”

“Good thing we managed to get outta there.” I run my finger down his cheek. I love the way his skin feels. Smooth, but a different kind of smooth than mine. Like he shaved right before dinner. “I really prefer to dance to something besides whatever it is they’re playing.”

“It’s Schubert.”

“You a big Schubert fan?”

“Him and Eminem.” He smiles and kisses me again, but gently this time, all soft and caring. My hip nearly bumps against the siderails of the stall, but he puts his hand there first, anticipating the collision.

“You hang out in these stalls often?” I tease. If he’s brought other girls here though, I don’t want to know. I don’t want anything to ruin tonight.

“Actually, this is the one place I can come to be alone. I’ve been hiding out in here since I was little. My parents have no clue.”

He lets go of me and reaches behind the paper towel
holder that’s beside the handicapped stall’s sink, half pulling the thing off the wall, and yanks out a pack of cigarettes.

I try to act cool, but I know I must look totally shocked.

“When I’m really, really having a bad day, I sneak down here and grab a smoke.” He tosses the pack in the air, catches it with one hand, then tucks it back behind the holder and slams the metal cover back into place.

I’m so surprised I don’t even know what to say. I thought Georg was Mr. Perfect. I mean, he plays soccer and gets awesome grades and doesn’t even blast his music. Though I know the quiet music is because his parents want him to appear proper and all, I think he’d be smart and basically a clean-living guy without the pressure from his parents.

But he’s just normal like me.

“I know you probably think it’s disgusting,” he says, but there isn’t an apology in his voice. “But sometimes, I just need to do something—”

“Like in an emergency situation?”

“Yeah. I hate the smell on my clothes.” The wicked grin returns, and he adds, “Plus my parents would kill me if they smelled it. I don’t think they’d believe I smoke, but they’d be angry thinking I was even hanging out with anyone who smoked. God forbid some photographer snapped it.”

“No kidding.” I smile, just to let him know I don’t think it’s a big deal, and I wouldn’t judge him for it.

I mean, he has no clue how relieved I am that he won’t judge
me
.

I’m about to tell him that I’ve had a couple of emergency cigarettes too, and all about the Wendy’s Dumpster and Jules and Natalie and Christie. I want to tell him I hate the smell and would never want to endanger my health, but that sometimes doing something dangerous or risky relieves all the pressure and stress at school—just like it took off all the pressure to do something risky tonight and sneak out of the reception—when the door opens so hard it whacks against the tile wall and sends the big letter
H
(which Georg tells me stands for
Herren
, the German word for “men”) swinging on its screw.

Georg moves to shut the door to the handicapped stall, but it’s too late. My dad has seen us.

Thankfully the tuxedoed man he’s leading into the restroom hasn’t. My dad eases the guy, who reeks like you wouldn’t believe, into the next stall where he proceeds to worship the porcelain god very loudly.

My dad pulls the stall door shut behind the guy and says, “I’ll be right here. Let me know if you want a towel.”

The guy moans, then begins heaving again.

My dad isn’t paying attention though. He’s just glaring
at me and Georg. Then his eyes drift past me to the floor, where the cigarettes have fallen from behind the paper towel holder onto the floor.

Oh,
shit
.

“I think you two need to head back to the ballroom,” he says very quietly, though I doubt the guy on his knees in the next stall is in any shape to notice he and my dad aren’t alone in here.

I want to tell my dad that we were
not
smoking. We weren’t doing anything wrong. Not even hooking up—yet—but Georg just nods, then grabs my hand and pulls me behind my dad and out of the restroom.

“How much trouble are you in?” he whispers once we’re out of there.

I shrug. “My dad’s pretty cool. I doubt he’ll rat you out to your parents.”

Georg quirks his mouth, like it’s no big thing. “I asked how much trouble
you
will be in.”

“Truth? I don’t know. But”—I feel the same wicked grin Georg gives me spreading across my face—“I got busted last year with cigarettes. My parents know I don’t smoke—it was an emergency situation thing—but they weren’t exactly doing cartwheels. Getting caught twice could be bad.”

“Wow. We really are alike,” he says. He looks completely
caught off guard by this, but in a good way. Like I just went up a notch in his mind, even though smoking isn’t exactly a quality I want a guy to appreciate in me.

“You’ll tell him we weren’t smoking, right?”

“Of course,” I say. “I’ll tell him they were in the stall when we got there. He should know I’m telling the truth. It wasn’t like one of us was standing there holding a lighter or the bathroom reeked.”

“Not until the minister of the treasury showed up and gave back his quail.”

The minister of the treasury? The guy who was sitting with us at dinner? I let out a little laugh, just to let Georg know I think everything will be okay. “If my dad can handle someone that important getting totally smashed, I bet he can handle seeing me in the men’s room hanging with you.”

“I suppose, if you explain it that way.” Georg stops at the top of the stairs, pulling me over to the wall just before I turn the corner into the hall outside the ballroom. The Schubert morphs into Mozart—I think it’s Mozart—but despite the fact the music is all classical, you can tell there’s a serious party going on. The stairs are quiet compared to the boisterous chatter and clinking glasses of the ballroom.

“Before we go back”—he looks past me to make sure no
one sees us, then back into my eyes—“I want you to know this has been one of the best nights of my life.”

“Me too.” I grin like a total goof, then take his tuxedo jacket off my shoulders and hand it back to him.

“I really like you, Valerie. A lot. I just—I mean—I want us to be together.”

The knot in my throat is threatening to choke me, even more than the bird on my dinner plate did. “Thanks,” I say, even though it’s probably moronic to thank someone for liking you. “I really like you a lot too. If you didn’t notice out in the garden.”

He grins at that, and our freaky-cool connection feels stronger than ever. “So would you like to dance with me? In front of everybody?”

“Steffi will have a stroke.”

“Steffi won’t know.” He’s lying of course, and we both know it, because of course Ulrike’s dad will ask Ulrike who I am when he gets home, and he’ll tell her I was dancing with Georg, and Ulrike will tell Steffi. That’s just how things work. By tomorrow morning the whole school will know.