Royal Attraction

by Truitt, Tiffany

  “You can say that again,” I mumble. The tabloid headlines my father compiled in his folder still buzz around in my head like fruit flies.

  Ollie’s grin falters but only slightly. Quickly, he’s back to looking me up and down like I’m a Rubik’s Cube that took him two seconds to figure out. He knows exactly how to get me in the building. What to say. If Oliver was player royalty, I was one of his earliest projects. At least that’s the story the tabloids my father collected told me. If I was to believe the story they painted of him, Ollie hadn’t been some young boy, scared and inexperienced like me, craving an intimacy that seemed out of reach. He had slept with Monica Apples. He had lied to me that night he returned from the party with Henry. I wasn’t his first. He had sensed my hesitation and went in for the kill.

  “Stop stalling. You promised Freddie you would stop by tonight.”

  “Who wants a girl who isn’t a stripper at his stag party?” I challenge. “It was sweet of Freddie to invite me along, but it was clearly done out of some sort of childhood-camaraderie sense of obligation.”

  I would do just about anything to get out of this.

  Ollie groans. “Don’t be silly. You’re not a girl. You’re Ryans. Part of the pack.”

  Despite myself, I smile at his words. For a moment, just a moment, it feels like old times. Somehow, telling me I’m not a girl is the nicest thing he’s said to me in years.

  “It wouldn’t be the same without you,” he adds, using that voice. The voice I never heard directed toward me till that night. The one that he used all those years ago. The one that convinced me to…

  “You still with me, Ryans?”

  “You still with me, Ryans?” he whispers.

  He freezes as if the whole world, its creation or destruction, waits on my answer. I can barely catch my breath. I reach up and touch his ruddy cheek.

  “Ryans.”

  I shake my head in an attempt to clear it. “Yeah, sorry. Still suffering from jet lag.” I nod toward the security door he’s holding open. Quite sure I’m going to regret the whole night, I sigh. “Lead the way.” Better to just give in than spend another second alone with Ollie. That was a one-way ticket to the Danger Zone.

  For the briefest of moments, Ollie reaches out to me like he’s going to take my hand, but he thinks better of it. My traitorous hand twitches in response.

  I try not to dwell on it too much as I follow Ollie through a series of dark hallways. It’s not like I want him to touch me. Especially in the way he did all those years ago. That would be a mistake. Thankfully, the darkness and my alone time with Ollie are short-lived as we exit the service hallways.

  As I enter the great hall, twenty pairs of eyes turn my way. I gulp. Instantly regretting that I believed Ollie when he told me it was just going to be a quiet night and choosing to wear a simple pair of blue jeans and plaid shirt under an oversize George Mason sweatshirt.

  “Oh! Brilliant! Aly’s here. Now we can get the party started,” Freddie hiccups as he spots me, his arm casually slung around the tailbones of a dinosaur I’m sure I once knew the name of. Clearly, I’m a little late to the party.

  “See, what did I tell you, Ryans? Just a quiet night,” Ollie leans down and whispers in my ear.

  Only to a Dudley would an afterhours stag party held in the British Museum of Natural History seem like a tame night.

  “Come on! Say it again, Aly. Just one more time,” Freddie begs, grabbing my hand and swinging our arms so hard back and forth, I’m pretty sure neither one of us will be up for playing croquet with his grandmother after tea tomorrow. Of course, at the rate Freddie is going through the multitude of champagne bottles floating around the group of rabble-rousers, I don’t think he’ll be functioning enough to lift a teacup. Thankfully, the days of monarchs screaming ‘off with their heads’ is a thing of the past.

  I manage to liberate my hand and cross my arms over my chest, kicking at the floor. “You all are being stupid,” I mumble, feeling my face heat up hotter than a black asphalt basketball court in the middle of July.

  I am insanely lucky. I know that. Lone girl in a group of twenty of Europe’s richest nobility, dressed in tuxes like they stepped out of one of those fancy cologne commercials that somehow made watching an ad with your father excruciatingly painful. Like you need to say twenty Hail Marys before bed in case God heard what you were thinking. Giggling and even swooning a bit as the boys partied and sang old chants from their days in boarding schools. Skipping through the empty halls and rooms of the museum, raising my glass as this boy and that boy toast some relic. Honoring the fact that Freddie Dudley, second in line for the throne of England, is the biggest history buff around, and it is his night.

  I’m having a blast. I can’t deny it. There’s something lovely about goofing off with the Dudley boys like we used to do in the old days. But that’s the problem. We no longer live in the old days, and soon I’ll have to leave this all behind. The more fun we have, the more I realize what I’m giving up.

  “Just leave her alone, Freddie,” Aiden says from behind me. My throat goes dry at the sound of his voice. Of course he’d be here. Even though I rarely see him around the palace because his schedule is insane, I knew he wouldn’t miss his brother’s stag party. I had prepared myself for this, but seeing Aiden still tangles all my insides up. It’s not the same as when Ollie stares at me, but it has a debilitating effect all the same. The days where I dreamed of being someone’s princess are long gone. Doesn’t mean that seeing him doesn’t leave me feeling like I just ran over his cat. I had done some damage there. I can’t deny that.

  My eyes dart over to where Ollie stands, one of his legs straddled over the barrier that protects the rare Dodo painting by Roelandt Savery. His finger poised to caress the off-limits work of art. Ollie’s eyes go from me to Aiden and back to me again.

  For a moment, I’m seventeen and back in that room. The door swinging open. The look on Aiden’s face.

  I snatch the bottle of champagne from Freddie’s hand and bring it to my lips. I tilt the bottle and chug until the sweet wetness drips down my chin. A few of the boys whistle while a couple cheer. Freddie laughs and claps his hands like an excited kid in a candy shop. My eyes manage to make their way back to Ollie, who’s looking at me, eyebrow raised and a grin crawling across his face.

  “Blinding form, Aly. What else can you suck down that well?” yells Henry.

  “Oi! Out of line!”

  “Don’t be a wanker, Henry!”

  “Piss off!”

  Aiden, Freddie, and Ollie all take a step toward me, flanking my sides and glaring at Henry. And despite wanting to play a game of tetherball with Henry’s head, I feel a sense of warmth fill my chest. A lot of things have changed, but some never will.

  I reach out and touch Freddie, who’s positioned closest to me, on the arm. “It’s all right, boys. I’m a big girl.” But my words don’t seem to do the trick. They still look ready to pounce. I shake my head and roll my eyes before giving them exactly what they’ve been asking for the past hour. “He’s just taking the piss out of me.”

  “AHHHHHH! She said it! She said it! Everyone! Bottles up!” Freddie bellows, his voice echoing off the hall that holds priceless artifacts from thousands of years ago, which now holds a group of the most loveable idiots a girl could know.

  I can’t help but laugh as I shake my head. “I don’t get it.”

  “Ollie made a drinking game before you got here. Every time you say a common British saying, we have to drink. You know, since you sound so ridiculous when you say them.”

  “I do not!”

  “You do, too,” Ollie says as he saunters over to me, clinking his bottle against mine. “Now, drink up, Ryans.”

  “I will not. I spent the majority of my life living in England. I do not sound ridiculous. You don’t own those words.”

  “You sound ridiculous, Aly,” Aiden says quietly from beside me, offering the tiniest of smiles.

  I can’t help but smi
le back and tap my bottle against his. Ollie clears his throat, and for some reason, I feel my face go red. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. I shift, so I am standing as tall as I possibly can. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Ollie says with a shrug. Though by the way he clenches his jaw once the words leave his mouth, I can tell it’s most certainly not nothing.

  “Come on! Say another one, Aly.” Freddie hiccups as the group follows him into the room with the giant whales.

  “I can’t believe you all think I sound funny.”

  “You’re an American, Aly. You’ll always be an American,” Aiden explains.

  “So…what? I’m just supposed to walk around saying things like ‘dude’ all day?”

  Suddenly, the horde of Europe’s richest and hottest stops moving and turns to look at me.

  “Oh, you’ve done it now, Ryans,” Ollie warns, his natural grin returning.

  I gulp. “What are you talking about?”

  Freddie covers his mouth, the squeal of actual giggles coming from under his hand. “You said it…you said ‘dude’!”

  “Gentlemen,” Ollie calls out to the set of secret service men who have been discreetly following us from room to room. “Would one of you bring out the absinthe?”

  My mouth drops open. Ollie saunters over to me. “The only thing more ridiculous than you saying British things is when you say American things, love.”

  “The price of straddling two worlds, Aly,” Aiden says apologetically.

  “I bet that’s not the only thing she can straddle,” Henry interjects, slapping his pal on the shoulder.

  Both Aiden and Ollie turn toward him, but I hold up my hand. “Let me,” I say with a tight smile. I walk over to Henry and place a hand on his chest. “You know what America and England have in common?”

  “What’s that?” Henry asks, his eyes about as glassy as they can be.

  “How quickly their men fall,” I say, before kicking my foot out behind his leg and wrapping it around the backside of his knee. Seconds and he topples to the ground. Everyone laughs and cheers as I bow. Shaking his head and chuckling, Ollie offers a hand to the flustered Henry. “Don’t worry about it, mate. She’s done it to all of us.”

  I look over to find the Dudley boys beaming with pride.

  After the arrival of the strippers, each representing a historical time period, from caveman to the court of Henry VIII, I wander off to explore the museum on my own. I managed to hang with the boys for longer than I expected, but I drew the line at watching girls disrobe while the horde threw money at them from their trust funds. Freddie seemed mildly uncomfortable with the whole thing. But only mildly. Even if he was the kindest, dorkiest of the Dudleys, he was still a Dudley.

  “That lass is definitely in need of some moisturizer,” says a deep voice behind me as I peer over a mummy entombed in glass.

  “Holy shit! You almost scared me to death,” I shriek, grabbing at my chest. My voice echoes off the nearly empty hall.

  Ollie shrugs. “At least you’d be in the right room for it.”

  I chuckle. He holds up the bottle of absinthe and raises an eyebrow.

  “No way. No green fairies for me,” I say, vigorously shaking my head. The half bottle of champagne I downed was more than enough. I don’t even know how Ollie or any of the other boys are still left standing. By the time I return from this trip, I’ll need a liver transplant trying to keep up with the drinking abilities of the Brits.

  “Suit yourself. More for me,” he replies. Before I can remind him that we have tea with his grandmother in the morning, he pops up and sits on the glass case of the mummy across from where I’m standing.

  “What…what are you doing?” I ask, my voice going all high. “You can’t sit on that!”

  “Who’s going to stop me?” he challenges.

  “Ugh! I hate when you do that!”

  “Do what?” he asks before taking a swig.

  “Act all royal.”

  “But I am a royal,” he says with a grin and a wink.

  I’m about to tell him he’s a royal pain in my ass when my phone chirps with a text message. I pull it from the back pocket of my jeans, but before I have a chance to check the message, Ollie jumps off the case and snatches the phone.

  “What the hell?” I exclaim.

  “You know the rules. No phones,” he reminds me.

  Of course I did. I just didn’t really think they applied to me. I know how important privacy is to the Dudleys. I am fully aware of how they have been burned in the past. Heck, their notions of privacy followed me back to the States. It’s why I hesitated every time it seemed like a girl wanted to befriend me. Why I felt more comfortable sneaking around with a professor instead of some frat boy, foolishly believing with age came maturity and discretion. Even though I ran from this life three years ago, it still dictates every decision I make.

  The no-cell-phone rule was a nonnegotiable when hanging out with them. But what did he really think I was going to do? I would never expose any of the secrets I knew about the Dudley boys. Never. If he had any sense, he’d be worrying about what my mistakes could mean for his family. But Ollie hasn’t mentioned what he knows about school and my sad, scandalous love life since the night after eavesdropping in the pub.

  “Give it back,” I demand, trying in vain to snatch it from his hand. He darts out of my reach and swipes. “Huh. Isn’t this interesting,” he muses. “It’s not a text message but a news alert.”

  For the love of Jane Austen.

  “Seems like someone has an alert set for Oliver Dudley.”

  “Give it back,” I growl. “I can and I will kick your ass. I’ve done it before.”

  “If there is something you want to know, Ryans, you just have to ask,” he replies as he continues to scroll through the list of gossip articles attached to his name.

  “Just. Give. It. Back,” I beg, jumping up and down as Ollie holds my phone above my head.

  “Not till you tell me why,” he says, all joking at an end. His eyes stare down at me, wide and sad. “You can’t believe all this stuff. Some of it is really bad. I thought you were smarter than that.”

  I freeze. He knows he’s hit a sore spot. I shouldn’t have told him about failing out of college. I clear my throat and pray I can hold the tears back long enough to book it out of here. “Please, just give it back,” I say quietly.

  Ollie swallows, looks away, and hands me my phone. I snatch it and turn on my heels, ready to get out of here as fast as I can. I don’t make it very far when his voice halts me. “Let’s play a game.”

  “Not in the mood,” I reply, my back still toward him.

  “Come on, Ryans. Obviously you want to know some things about me. So, let’s get to it.”

  I spin around and cross my arms. “What are you talking about?”

  Ollie walks over and plops himself back onto the glass case. “I’ll read a headline. You guess whether it’s true or not. You get it right, I drink. Wrong, you drink.”

  “That’s a stupid game,” I grumble. Despite my words, my body takes a few steps toward him. I do want to know. I can’t explain why, but I do.

  “Afraid you’re going to lose?” he taunts, speaking to my ultracompetitive side.

  “I never lose. Here,” I say, throwing him my phone.

  Ollie sets the bottle down and begins to scroll through the stories. “Here’s a good one. Apparently, I inquired about buying a tiger for Freddie’s stag party.”

  Hmm. This sounds crazy, but Freddie’s favorite stuffed animal growing up was a tiger, and Ollie did put in a lot of effort to make tonight about all of Freddie’s favorite things. “True,” I reply, hoping my voice doesn’t sound as hesitant to his ears as it does mine.

  “Damn,” Ollie sighs. “That one is true. Thought I had you.” Ollie lifts the bottle to his lips and takes a swig. “All right, rumor number two. I once slept with a mother–daughter pair of supermodels during fashion week.”

  “As disgusting as I
think you are,” I say, still feeling the sting of his comment on my intelligence, “I know you wouldn’t touch anything over forty. False.”

  “She was fifty. Had unbelievable stamina,” he counters, handing me the bottle.

  I take it and shake my head. “Don’t be gross.”

  “Drink,” he demands. I bring the bottle to my mouth and drink, coughing on the liquid that burns down my throat. As I destroy the inside of my throat with what can only be described as gasoline, I can’t help but wonder how many women Ollie has slept with. Not that it’s any of my business. Because it isn’t. Not in the least. But there’s still a part of me that wants to kick a ball at his head.

  This goes on for the better part of an hour. We’re nearly finished with the bottle, and the world has lost all its edges. Lines are no longer straight. Everything is fuzzy. The game’s pretty much tied, and I’m left feeling like I’ll need a shower from the overwhelmingly tawdry nature of our conversation.

  “For the win, Ryans,” Ollie announces, pulling me back to earth. “I lost my virginity to pop star Monica Apples.”

  That rumor. He chooses to end on that rumor? I feel dizzy. I jump up onto the glass case I had been leaning against, swing my legs up, and lie back and stare at the ceiling. I can’t look at him. Not for this one. I feel something crawl up my throat, and I’m not sure if it’s dread or the alcohol paying me back.

  “Come on, Ryans. This is an easy one,” Ollie’s voice calls out to me from the other side of the room. Might as well be the other side of the world for how far from him I currently feel.

  “Why aren’t you out there with the strippers?” I don’t want to play this game anymore.

  “I’m exactly where I want to be. True or not true?”

  “I don’t know how to do this.”

  “Not exactly an expert myself,” he says with a small, nervous laugh.