A Prince on Paper

by Alyssa Cole

  What was with him?

  “That’s what my mother used to call me. Now the tabloids use it because they think it’s funny, and people at the palace use it because they think I like it. I’ve grown used to the reminder, but right now is not a good time.”

  “Oh.” Nya remembered Ledi and Portia’s cryptic conversation, and—suddenly—what had been playing on the news channel in the lounge of Gate R as she fretted over returning home. A remembrance of Queen Laetitia. It had been ten years since the queen of Liechtienbourg had died of an undetected heart issue—some had said the cruelty of the world she tried so hard to fix had been too much to bear. Others said she’d paid more attention to the health of others than her own.

  She hadn’t paid attention to the news, but hours later, Nya had found Johan alone in the darkness clutching a ratty teddy bear. And he’d asked her to hold him.

  Oh.

  Both in the plane and in this sauna, she’d assumed that he’d blocked her chance to silently brood, when in reality she’d twice interrupted his.

  A sudden tenderness filled her, despite how his overconfident presence usually irked her. She knew what it was, to be motherless. She knew the gaping void it created, and she’d never even known her mother, who’d died in childbirth. She’d lived in a shrine to the woman, though, her father’s constant vigil over what they’d lost—what had been taken from him. She couldn’t imagine that bittersweet effort at keeping her mother’s memory alive being broadcast on international news stations. She did know what it felt like to have everyone know and dissect your most private pain, though.

  She wouldn’t give him pity, since that’s what she was fleeing herself. Was that what anyone ever wanted? She sat and breathed and sweated beside him in silence for a long moment.

  “I can come up with another nickname for you,” she said finally, dabbing her towel at her forehead. “If you want.”

  The wood bench creaked and she felt the vibration of him shifting to look at her.

  “That depends, Sugar Bubble. Is the nickname going to be an insult? If not, then yes, I want.”

  She hadn’t imagined Johan would care about being insulted, because she hadn’t thought much about what it was like to be him. Well, she had, but she’d focused on the part where everyone thought he was attractive and funny and he could do whatever he wanted with no fear of retribution. Even as she’d fought her grudging crush on him, she hadn’t considered that he was a real person with real feelings and real vulnerabilities.

  She was no better than the people who assumed they knew who she was. Okay, she was slightly better because now that she knew, she would do something about it.

  She looked at him—really looked at him. At the way his shoulders were tensed despite his grin, and how the nail of his middle finger scraped at the wooden bench in a repetitive motion.

  “A nickname is important,” she said, pulling her gaze away from him. She stretched her neck to the right and left, loosening the tension. “Let’s see. What do I know about you?”

  “If this has anything to do with my hair, I’ll shave it all off, I swear,” he threatened playfully. She was glad that his playfulness had returned.

  Nya didn’t think a shaved head would detract from his handsomeness, even if his dome was shaped like a mountain range underneath, as the aunties said.

  He was mischievous and cunning and had a pointy nose. Sometimes he jumped around ostentatiously. She wouldn’t leave out that red hair, no matter what he threatened, and she couldn’t forget how lonely he’d looked in the picture she had of him.

  Phokojoe, she thought, remembering the traditional tales she’d learned as a child and passed on to her students. The trickster god.

  “Phoko,” she said. “I will call you Phoko.”

  “Phoko,” he said, trying to fit his Liechtienbourger accent over her Thesoloian one and doing a pretty good job. “I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound like an insult so I like it.”

  “Excellent. I’m good at making up names. I will add that to my CV.”

  They chuckled, and Nya inhaled the warm air deeply, feeling her body relax a bit.

  “What kind of job are you considering now that you’re back in Thesolo?” he asked softly after they’d sat quietly for a couple of minutes. A harmless question, but one she was surprised he bothered to ask.

  “Are you asking as my confidant?”

  “Yes. I’ll forget as soon as I walk out of this sauna.”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I thought I would go back to teaching at the orphanage, but they don’t really need a teacher with my credentials right now. They say I am overqualified, but I think they don’t want the negative association with my father.”

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  She smiled at how disgruntled he sounded on her behalf. “It’s fine. I . . . I don’t think I want to work there anymore. And if I do, I have some connections in high places. I’m sure they’d be willing to hire the princess’s cousin if not the criminal’s daughter.”

  He made an absurdly exaggerated gasp. “Nya. Are you implying you would use coercion to get a job? I thought you were sweet.”

  She smirked at him, not sure it was a compliment. “Sweetness doesn’t pay the bills, does it, Phoko?”

  He laughed, and she shook her head.

  “I’m joking. I can find something on my own, once I figure out what I want to do.”

  He threw more water onto the hot rocks. “I wish I could help, but the only thing I know how to do is cause drama and herd paparazzi.”

  “Those are very useful skills in today’s market,” she said, index finger on her chin.

  “The people of my kingdom don’t really think so. My family doesn’t either.”

  “That shows what they know. I just saw a very lucrative offer for a dramatic paparazzi herder on JobSearch.thesolo.” She grinned at him. “I applied, though, so you’ll have to beat me if you want the position.”

  She stiffened waiting for him to respond with innuendo and ruin everything, but he shook his head slowly, then slicked his sweat-damp hair back, leaving one palm resting on his head. His other hand gripped the bench. “I cede it to you.”

  She looked at the hourglass she’d flipped when she’d walked in. She’d already been in the sauna for well past the recommended time period and was starting to feel it. And it’d been a couple of hours since she’d checked her phone. If she didn’t hurry, whatever message Hanjo had sent her in One True Prince would disappear. If she missed that next message, which was meant to take their relationship from casual flirting to explicit flirting, she’d either have to pay to retrieve it or wait until the next morning to reload the game from a save point.

  “I have to go.” She made her way down from the bench to the floor, but paused when he grunted in reply. “How long have you been in here?”

  He slid down from his seat to the bench below and placed a hand unsteadily on the wall. “Hmm. Not quite sure, actually.”

  A thread of alarm hemmed her suspicion.

  “You should come out and have a cooling soak, then,” she said. “Too much heat can be dangerous.”

  Johan stood, a sheepish grin starting to pull up his mouth and his gaze locked on hers. Then the grin slipped away like the sand in the hourglass, and his eyes went white as the irises rolled up. He started to pitch forward. Nya ran to him, arms scooped ahead of her to catch him under the armpits, but she wasn’t prepared for the deadweight of an unconscious playboy.

  “Eh, eh, eh!” she called out. She braced with her legs as much as she could, but Johan’s bulk brought them both down to the floor. Her braids cushioned her head as it bounced against the warm wood, but then she was stuck under Johan’s sweaty, solid mass. The floor was damp with moisture and though Nya was concerned for him, she was also wary of how many bare feet had passed over the planks pressing into her body.

  “Phoko!” she said urgently. “Johan!”

  He stirred a little, but she was still pinne
d beneath him. The hot metal of whatever pendant he wore pressed into her rib cage.

  “Wake up,” she cajoled, wriggling a bit to get away from the heat of it—and him.

  His head lifted slowly, slowly, until it was directly above hers.

  “Was ist passe?” he asked groggily as his eyes fluttered open. His nose brushed hers, once, twice, three times as he shook his head and blinked.

  “Did you eat today?” she asked, trying to move her arms. His whole body was pressed into hers, and she thought she could feel every muscle and every sinew that held him together. Every muscle.

  She stopped moving.

  “I don’t think so,” he admitted.

  Nya sucked in a breath. “You are crushing me, Phoko. Can you roll over? I’ll go get a doctor.”

  “No, no doctor.” He braced his palms on the floor and levered himself up, staring down into her face. He looked embarrassed and confused. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It happens all the time in small, hot spaces like this.”

  A cool breeze cut through the steam, and they both turned their heads to see one of the palace guards standing over them, eyes wide.

  “I thought there was danger,” the woman said, averting her gaze. “I didn’t realize—I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Johan was in his tiny swimming trunks. Nya was in her hot-pink bikini and—she glanced down at the newly freed-up space between them—yes, her front-clasp top had failed to constrain her bosom during the fall.

  She shimmied her hands up to fix her top, which Johan seemed not to have noticed. “He fainted after sitting in the sauna too long. Can you help us?”

  The guard didn’t indicate that she believed Nya in the least, but she strode over to them. She made a big show of hoisting Johan up from behind, and Nya made sure the cups of her bikini top were in place.

  “Shall I call the royal medic?” the guard asked.

  “Yes,” Nya said.

  “No. Unnecessary,” Johan overruled as he stood with the guard’s help.

  He was too woozy to see that his rejecting aid made this whole situation even more suspect.

  “Please escort him to the dining area of the spa, and get him something to eat and drink,” Nya said. “And have a medic check him, just in case.”

  Ledi and Portia stuck their heads into the doorway, one above the other, like curious kittens. “What happened, Lineo?” Ledi asked.

  “I found Prince Johan on top of Ms. Jerami, but it appears he fainted. Similar to His Highness fainting on top of you in the royal dungeon, I suppose,” Lineo said without even a trace of a smile.

  “No, he really did,” Nya insisted as Lineo led Johan away.

  Johan looked back over his shoulder at her as he was led out. “Thanks for catching me, Sugar Bubble.”

  He had the audacity to wink, as if this didn’t look bad enough.

  Nya crossed her arms over her chest at Ledi and Portia’s questioning gazes.

  “Is it so hard to believe he just fell on top of me?” she asked.

  “Well, no,” Ledi said. “But when you add in your admission that you shared a bed on the plane, it is kind of suspicious. If you’re only examining the evidence without context.”

  “Well, please do add the context, then,” Nya said sharply.

  “The context that Johan is known for his irresistible attractiveness?” Ledi asked.

  Nya shot her a dirty look. “No man is irresistible, especially one who spends his time behaving as he does.”

  “He called you Sugar Bubble,” Portia said. “What does that even mean?”

  “Google it,” Nya bit out.

  A knowing smirk lifted one corner of Portia’s mouth and she glanced at Ledi.

  “He. Fainted,” Nya said. “And now I’m covered in whatever fungus lives on this floor.”

  “Okay, okay,” Ledi said. She shot Portia a warning look. “Let’s go get you defungified with a body scrub. If you want us to come along, that is.”

  “Of course, I do,” Nya said, then sighed. “I’m sorry I ran away earlier. I don’t want to talk about my father. I’m having a lot of feels right now and I don’t know what to do with all of them yet.”

  “I would tell you to talk through them. Ledi would tell you to ignore them,” Portia said, picking something from Nya’s braids. “You can decide what feels right for you, and whether or not you want our help with that. We’re here for you, whatever you decide.”

  Nya sighed, glad she had good friends; she knew what life was like without them and she never wanted to go back to that. They were just trying to help. And she needed their help, even if she didn’t know exactly how yet.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I do have to check my phone first.”

  Fungus could wait. She had a two-bit prince trying to woo her. She would think of the 3-D prince she’d had on top of her later.

  Chapter 4

  Royal Wedding Inspiration?

  While most reporters are being denied entry into Thesolo for the royal wedding of Prince Thabiso and soon-to-be Princess Naledi, a source in the kingdom has confirmed that both Prince Jo-Jo and the Duke of Edinburgh are in attendance. Good news comes in threes, so can we expect to hear wedding bells ring for His Grace and his enterprising partner, Portia Hobbs (best friend to the bride)? We might ask the same about Jo-Jo to make three, but we pity the woman who tries to tame him!

  —The Looking Glass Daily, Royal Beat

  Hi Lukas, it’s your brother, Johan, remember me? I think maybe you’ve forgotten since all my calls go to voice mail, and you aren’t responding to DMs, PMs, or texts. Call me back.”

  Johan ended the call and then reluctantly scrolled down to F to find his stepfather’s listing: Forshett Laffel. “Fork Spoon” had started as a joke and settled into a compromise. The king had asked to be called papp, but Johan found that difficult when the very laws of the land made it painstakingly clear that he was not and would never be Linus’s real son. Forshett Laffel, it was, then.

  The phone rang and Johan regarded his nails. Though his father couldn’t see his display of nonchalance, it was a habit he’d fallen into when he was nervous or uncomfortable. If you stood around looking like you thought yourself better than everyone, it had a twofold benefit: 1) people left you alone because 2) they assumed you must think that for a reason.

  “Hallo, Jo-Jo!” The king sounded surprised. “Have you gotten yourself into trouble again?”

  Johan supposed it was strange for him to make a phone call at some odd hour in Liechtienbourg for no reason. But he didn’t only call to warn of his misadventures before they hit the papers, did he?

  “Hallo, Forshett. I’m trouble-free for now, alas,” he sighed into the phone. “Give me a few hours, though.”

  Linus chuckled.

  “I’m calling about . . .” Johan found he couldn’t bring himself to admit that Lukas was ignoring him. “. . . the referendum. How’s it looking?”

  “Hmm, not good, meng fis, not good.” The king sighed. “It seems that more people think the monarchy is a relic of the past and that we are good-for-nothing wastrels sucking at the public teat than I’d imagined.”

  Johan couldn’t exactly argue with that. He’d gone from a boy with country roots to living in the palace. Being in forced proximity to the rich and royal had taught him any number of things, primarily that lots of them were wastrels. His Prince Jo-Jo act had, in part, started as a sarcastic lampooning of the behavior so many of the rich people around him indulged in. He’d waited for someone to notice and call this out, but instead it had made people who’d avoided him suddenly seek his company and tabloid journalists fight over scraps to report on him.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  The king read that sound as sympathy. “If you believed the opinion section of the papers, the public want us gone. And Milos Arschlocher’s rhetoric isn’t helping.”

  “That’s a pity,” Johan said. “But you do have your kitchenwa
re empire to fall back on. Everyone loves a good spork.”

  “For the last time, they’re not sporks. They are finely crafted utensils that speak to elegant sensibilities!”

  “Hmm,” Johan said again, but he smiled. Unlike many royals, Linus had work that he believed in, and his silverware business employed people who might not have found work otherwise, like migrants who had crossed the border into the kingdom seeking a safe place to live. “And Lukas? How is he taking this?”

  “Lukas is being Lukas,” the king said airily.

  Johan sighed. “And what does that entail?”

  “You know, staring at his phone. Going to soccer practice. Grooming his horse. Teenage prince stuff.”

  “Okay. And he’s not upset? After the . . . event?”

  Linus sighed deeply. “No. He’s gutt.”

  “What about you?” Johan asked grudgingly. Part of him, the part that would always be a little boy watching the fairy-tale courtship with dread, still wished his mother had never married Linus. He’d once blamed the man entirely for her death. He now merely mildly resented him every now and then. But his stepfather, who’d never remarried despite many offers and could sometimes be heard having quiet conversations with the photo of Laetitia hanging in the parlor, also needed support. “Are you hanging in there?”

  “I’m gutt. We’re all gutt.”

  Johan didn’t know why he bothered asking. Everything was always gutt because apparently it had been bred into the royal line not to let pesky things like sorrow and grief get in the way of duty, and Lukas had apparently inherited the stiff, if perhaps a bit thin, upper lip of the von Brausteins.

  “Gutt,” Johan said drily.

  “Gutt,” the king said, a hint of desperation around that last consonant that almost made Johan want to see how long they could keep up the single-word conversation.

  “Ja,” Johan said to break their loop.

  “Well. Have fun in Thesolo. Don’t start any international incidents when you visit Njaza.”

  Johan heard footsteps and saw Thabiso approaching. “I doubt I could do anything worse than three hundred years of brutal colonial rule, so no worries there. Bye, Forshett.”