Suddenly Royal(15)

“Look, I met with the duchess and she brought Alex. When it was time to leave, the parking attendant said my car wouldn’t start, so Alex insisted on seeing me home.” I took a sip of water, trying to calm my nerves. I could still smell him—it was like he had permeated all my senses. “Some kind of princely chivalry. That’s all.”

“I’m not stupid, Sam. I know what I saw.” Jess smiled. “Prince Yummy likes you.”

I shook my head and hopped down from the counter. I needed to derail that thought process before it got out of hand.

“Even if he did, which he doesn’t, I’m not interested. You know me, Jess. A guy like that is nothing like what I want.”

“We usually need exactly what we think we don’t want.” Bert’s quiet voice filled the tiny kitchen and Jess nodded her head like a madwoman.

“Give me a break. Save your psycho mumbo jumbo for someone else.”

“What did they want to see you about, anyway?” Bert cocked his head to the side. “Are they donating money to the program?”

“No.” I let that rattle around in their heads for a minute. “Apparently I’m royalty.” You could’ve heard a pin drop because I was pretty sure they had both stopped breathing. “Go figure, right?” I refilled my water glass and squeezed past Bert’s giant frame before heading for my room.#p#分页标题#e#

“You know what the best part of my night was, though?” I stopped at my door and turned to look at Jess and Bert, who were both standing in the doorway staring at me with open mouths. “It was seeing Jess meet Prince Yummy in her giant college football jersey and fuzzy socks.”

“Oh my God.” Jess’s voice followed me as I walked into my room and I couldn’t help but snicker.





A Royal Hidden Among Us

—Minnesota Daily





Something beeped in my room and I groaned. I rolled over, thinking it was probably just the e-mail notification on my phone, but it beeped again. Without opening my eyes, I felt along the bedside table and grabbed my phone. Cracking open one eye, I read the messages.





Unknown: Don’t go outside.

Unknown: I’m sending someone to help.





Sitting up in bed, I rubbed the crusty mess out of my eyes and glared at the phone. Who the hell was telling me not to go outside? Who was sending someone to the house for me? I looked at the number again and my brain kicked into gear. I checked my outgoing calls, and sure enough, it was the same number. My heart rate picked up as I realized Alex was contacting me.

I swung my feet over the edge of my bed and gasped when my warm toes touched the cold hardwood. I slid into my slippers and opened my door. Sounds of the TV drifted to me from the living room, so I padded out to see who was awake. Jess was sitting on the couch, curled up under a blanket and staring at the TV with large eyes.

“What got you out of bed so early?” I sat down next to her and tugged some of the blanket over to cover my legs.

Jess just pointed at the TV. I looked at the bright screen through slitted eyes and gasped. “Why is there a picture of our house on the news?” A sinking feeling filled my gut. The next picture flashed onto the screen answered my question. It was me and Alex outside the Parallel, his hand on my shoulder. That was followed by a picture of him helping me put on my oversized coat. “Oh no. Oh no.”

“My mom texted me at five this morning.” Jess looked at me with large eyes. “I didn’t want to wake you up—I figured you’d need your sleep to deal with it.”

“Alex texted me.” I held up my phone for her to see.

“He’s sending someone here? That’s good.”

“Why is that good?”

“How do you think the news station got a picture of our house?” Jess cocked her head to the side.

“You’re kidding.” I turned and looked at the closed blinds. “They’re really sitting out there still?”

“Three news stations.” Jess nodded. “Bert checked earlier.”

“Three news stations?” Part of me wanted to go peek out the window, but the saner part of me just wanted to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head. “Where is Bert?”

“Back in bed. He has a class in a couple of hours.”

I groaned. I had classes to teach today and Dr. Geller wasn’t going to be back until tomorrow. “Oh, today is going to suck.”

“What are you going to tell Prince Yumm—”

“Don’t call him that!” I slapped her arm. “What if you see him again and that accidently slips out?”