by Grey, R. S.
I frown, thinking it over.
“They don’t make it down here often,” he continues. “In fact, I can’t recall the last time they visited her. Whitney flies to New York every now and then to see them, but she always comes home worse off than when she left.”
“Sounds like she’s better off without them.”
He turns back to me. “Like you’re better off without your dad?”
I shrug, feeling guilty. “I know I should want a relationship with him, but the truth is, you took his place years ago. I’ve never wanted for family.”
Cal smiles and reaches over to pat my hand. “I think that’s the exact reason why I’ve been careful with her. Imagine if you and I didn’t have each other, how tough a road that would have been…”
I stay silent, mulling it over.
“You’ll take care of her, won’t you?” he asks.
Something clicks for me then. It’s an obvious truth I’ve been ignoring all these weeks. I’ve always known Cal to be a few steps ahead of the rest of us. His mind works continuously, inventing and designing every aspect of the park. I didn’t realize he was extending his gifts to my life as well. Sitting here with him now, I finally piece together the real reason Cal placed me in the role of His Royal Highness. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the board had nothing to do with it at all. Cal was playing matchmaker.
I’m sure of it.
I wonder how long he’s wanted Whitney and me to be together. I don’t ask. It doesn’t matter now. If anything, I should thank him. Instead, I nod, answering his question, and stand, feeling deeply exhausted.
“Before you go, Derek, there’s something we need to discuss about the company.”
Chapter Eighteen
Cal
When I hear the sound of Whitney’s voice at my door, I stuff my book back under my covers and lie back, feigning sleep. She’s here with my breakfast. I can hear the clink of ceramic as she sets the tray down on the nightstand beside my bed.
“Cal?” she whispers, touching my hand.
I make sure my breathing sounds haggard, a wheeze or two thrown in for good measure. It works well. On cue, Whitney’s hand tightens around mine. Her gentle grip translates all of her worries.
I peel one eye open slowly, as if it takes all the strength left in me.
“Whitney?” I ask, acting fatigued.
She smiles tentatively. “Morning. How are you feeling?”
Wonderful. That nurse and I played cards half the night and she proved to be a worthy opponent.
“Oh, I’ll manage,” I groan, trying to lift myself into a sitting position.
She leans forward to assist me and the first pang of guilt hits my heart. Serves me right, putting it on like this.
What option do I have though?
Whitney and Derek have been taking their sweet time, performing a prolonged mating ritual. Some of us don’t have years to wait around for them to admit their feelings for one another. I had no choice but to take action.
Of course, I didn’t plan the hospitalization. That was just a happy accident, really.
Once I saw them together at my bedside, I realized the opportunity I’d been presented.
Now, I just need to milk it.
“You and Derek have been so helpful. I don’t know how I’d be faring without you both.”
She nods and fluffs my pillow.
“He’s a good man, Whitney.”
“I know.”
“You love him?”
She rears back, surprised.
Oops.
I press a hand to my heart as if a sudden spasm is causing me pain. She forgets my question and worries over me.
I change course.
“Derek won’t be filling in for His Royal Highness anymore.”
Her brows furrow over her jade green eyes, eyes I hope to see on the faces of my future grandchildren someday.
“Of course,” she says, understanding.
“I’ll need him to take over some of my duties. I’ve been obstinate when it comes to passing the reins, but it’s time.” She nods, keeping quiet as I continue, “We’ll have Ryan fill in for him.”
“Really?”
Oh good, she’s disappointed.
“Though now might be a good time for you to transition out of your role as well.”
Her forehead crinkles. “Quit working as Princess Elena?”
I lean my head back and close my eyes. “Consider it.”
It’s hard not to smile. I didn’t realize I had such an evil streak.
There’s another knock on the door—my cardiologist here to do a morning checkup. Whitney excuses herself and the second she’s gone, I perk up, reaching over for my breakfast tray.
I’m starving.
“Morning doctor.”
“Hey Cal. How’d you hold up over night?”
“Nothing to report. Hey listen, while I’ve got you here, is there any way you could make my prognosis sound worse than it is?”
He frowns, confused. “How so?”
“Oh, just maybe only having a few weeks to live. That sort of thing.”
Thirty years my junior, he still has the audacity to shoot me a reproachful glare.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. The beta blocker we’ve got you on should do the trick. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”
I sigh, deeply disappointed.
“Well damn. Don’t mention that to my grandson or Whitney if they stop you in the hall on your way out. Better they think I’m on my deathbed for now.”
Chapter Nineteen
Whitney
This morning, I woke up before Derek, tangled in his luxurious sheets, weighed down by his bronzed arm stretched across my body. He sleeps sans shirt, and the sight of his muscled shoulders and arms on full display distracted me long enough for my bladder to nearly burst.
After using the restroom as quietly as possible, I went to check on Cal and bring him breakfast, but now that I’m done, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. Hang around? Make myself useful? Grab my clothes and flee? The last option sounds the best, but when I return to Derek’s room, he’s awake, in his bathroom, with the door shut. I can hear the whir of his electric toothbrush. I think fast, grabbing my phone out of my purse and stuffing myself inside Derek’s closet to place a phone call.
Carrie doesn’t answer at first. I get anxious.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
The call connects.
“Hello?” she asks, sounding half-asleep.
“Carrie, it’s me.”
“Babe, hang up,” a husky voice adds. “C’mon, it’s early.”
OH MY GOD.
“WHO WAS THAT?” I demand.
“Thomas,” she admits.
“CARRIE.”
“Jesus, stop shouting. He can hear you.”
“Tell Whitney you’ll call her back,” Thomas says, probably reaching for the phone to disconnect me.
“No! I need help! Carrie, tell Thomas to stop listening.”
“Thomas stop listening.”
“No,” he says simply.
I sigh. “Fine. Just…I need help.”
“Where are you?” she asks. “It sounds like you’re underground.”
“I’m hiding in Derek’s closet.”
Thomas groans.
Carrie actually laughs. “You’re what? Does he know you’re in there? In his house, I mean?”
What does she take me for?! A stalker!? Just because we trailed Fudge Guy to his car one time, now I’m some kind of crazy person?
“Yes! Of course he knows I’m here—in the house, that is. Not in his closet.”
The sink turns off in the bathroom. I’m running out of time!
I cup my hand over my mouth to quell my voice. “I slept over here last night, but I don’t know what to do. Stay? Act cute? Casual? As if I do this sort of thing all the time?”
“She’s overthinking it,” Thomas replies.
“Tell him to stop l
istening! This is a private conversation!”
Then, before either of them can answer, the closet door is pulled open and Derek is standing there, looking down at me—blinding me with sunlight and his sculpted physique.
“And don’t call me again!” I shout into the phone before hanging up. “Damn telemarketers.”
Derek tilts his head, an amused smile accenting his adorably sleepy features. “Do you always take phone calls in the closet?”
I hold up my phone. “Better reception. Something to do with all the walls, I think. Anyway, good morning. I was just going to get my clothes on and get out of your hair.”
I walk past him and into the bathroom to find my bra and panties. They glare up at me from the counter as if to say, We know what you did last night.
I berate them in my head before collecting my jeans and sweater.
Derek is standing at the door of the bathroom, leaning against the frame. Arms crossed. Cool as a cucumber. Even with bedhead, he’s so damn cute, I want to lick him. Kiss him. Hug him until our bodies stick together like hot glue and popsicle sticks.
I do none of those things.
“Well, aren’t you going to turn around?” I twirl my finger in a circle so he gets the idea.
His shoots me a glare that says, I’ve seen it all anyway, but then he obliges, turning his back to me.
Smooth tan muscles taper down to his waist where gray pajama pants sit low on his hips. I stare a beat too long before swapping his boxer shorts for my panties. Then I tug on my jeans. While his back is still turned, I fold his boxers neatly in half, then again, and again until they’re small enough to stuff into my pocket. Hopefully he won’t miss them. They’re mine now.
“Where are you off to so early?” he asks.
“I have a big day. Work and all that.”
“Heather’s having someone fill in for you.”
“Who?” I demand.
“Does it matter?”
I guess not.
“If you’re freaking out over what I said last night…”
I freeze with my sweater halfway on, covering my eyes. I can’t see a goddamn thing.
“What thing?” I ask tentatively through the nylon-polyester blend.
His hands suddenly yank my sweater the rest of the way down so his gaze meets mine. Oh good, eye contact. My favorite thing.
“That I’m falling for you. You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes. Okay. So that really did happen. I wasn’t sure.”
“Do you have any thoughts about it?”
“Love? In general? I think it’s good.”
“Whitney…”
“I don’t know, Derek.” I feel caged in in his bathroom, put on the spot. He’s blocking my only exit and I can’t really go out the window seeing as we’re a million stories off the ground in a freaking castle. “I need time to think about things. Yesterday morning we were fighting and then last night…well, I can’t even look in the direction of your shower without my knees going weak. Now you’re asking me to break down my emotions?” I tap my temple. “It’s a jumbled mess in here. Chaos, really. I’m trying not to worry about Cal, trying not to make the wrong move with you. I thought about leaving before you woke up so I’d look cool, but you ruined that.” I toss my hands up in defeat.
“Sorry?” he says, bemused.
“Apology accepted.” I start to move around him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to see Cal one more time before I go back to my dorm—”
His palm stops me in my tracks, flat against my chest. He’s not exerting pressure, really, but his hand is steady and big and the gesture is clear: Stay put.
“I won’t leave you again.”
I’m a tiny bird perched on a wire, ready to take flight at a moment’s notice.
“What?”
“I won’t do what I did eight years ago.”
My heart beats against his palm as he stares down at me expectantly. Yesterday, we supposedly put this behind us, didn’t we? That fight on the float was about me not giving him a clean slate.
I should laugh this off. Minimize the ache.
Derek continues before I can.
“Back then, you opened up to me about your family. That day in the coffee shop when you cried? Do you remember? Your parents weren’t coming down for Thanksgiving and you felt alone and you opened up to me about it. I was your friend and, through my own thoughtlessness, I hurt you when you were at your most vulnerable. I left and didn’t even say goodbye. I sent you an email.”
I don’t flinch. I remain perfectly still like that tiny bird, wings at the ready.
“I know we said the past was in the past, but that’s not how life works. I hurt you then and I’d like to make up for it, to earn your trust again.” He tilts his head. “Won’t you say something?”
The muscles around my throat are constricted. Speech is an ability I don’t possess at the moment.
“Whitney,” he says, lifting my chin gently to get a better look at me.
His soft brown eyes are marred with worry. He’s just cracked himself open for me, and though more words fail me, I do manage a quick, “Yes. Okay. I’ll try,” before lifting up onto my toes and kissing him. Then I stay there, my face pressed against his so we’re cheek to cheek. We’ve slept wrapped up in one another and it shows. We carry the same scent. His soap mingles in the air between us.
I brush my cheek against his rough stubble, enjoying the burn for a moment before stepping back and taking his hand so we can go check on Cal together.
* * *
If I’d realized the whirlwind that was in store for us in the coming days, I likely would have stuck around in that room a little longer, barricaded the door, soaked in time with Derek while I still had the chance. With Cal on sick leave, Derek is now essentially running Fairytale Kingdom on his own. He’s busier than ever. I never see him. When I go to check on Cal, Derek’s not in the penthouse. When I walk through the Underground, I look for him incessantly (much to the annoyance of Carrie) but he’s nowhere in sight. I spot Heather every now and then, but even she maintains a near-sprint pace at all times, hand wrapped around her growing belly.
Ryan has officially moved back into the role of His Royal Highness. The first day I saw him, I prepared myself for the worst, thinking maybe he’d still be angry with me for the other night, but he smiled and shrugged. “Friends?”
We shook on it and that was that. He’s been in the parade with me as well and now, I get married to him instead of Derek. I try not to feel too sad about it. Ryan’s not so bad, really. We make it fun and silly. I lie and tell him he’s just supposed to kiss me on the cheek and Thomas never corrects us. After my hardcore make-out with Derek on the first day of the parade, he probably agrees that less is more.
We have a new addition during the meet-and-greets as well. A young man, dressed up as a footman in the castle, is now stationed behind me during all my sessions as Princess Elena. He’s a security guard. At 6’5’’, he’s massive, with scarred knuckles and shoulders so wide I once saw him turn sideways to fit through a doorway. I half-expect the children to run shrieking in fear when they see him, but there’s something inherently soft about him. It’s his gap-toothed smile, I think. A new routine develops pretty quickly. The children come to me first and take their picture, and then they run to him, begging him to flex his muscles. When he does, they shriek with amazed delight.
Two weeks pass like this. Autumn settles in and Halloween is only a few days away. My trip to NYC looms on the horizon and I try hard to come up with ways to get out of it. I even think of using Cal’s illness, but he chides me when I bring it up to him.
“You need to go. See them. Support Avery.”
Haven’t I supported Avery enough in my life?
Carrie and Thomas are attached at the hip. They don’t even attempt to hide their obsessive devotion to one another. They talk in baby voices and use names like “bubbie” and “sweetums”. Their hands are fused at all times. They on
ly begrudgingly separate when they encounter some unmovable obstruction, like a concrete pillar, then they pass it and immediately link together again like two NASA-grade magnets. Thomas joins us for lunch every day. They share food. Once, he fed her his sandwich before I said, “No. That’s the line. You found it.”
After work, they’re always sucking faces. Not wanting to intrude or accidentally get my face sucked, I head back to my dorm and hang out with the girls. When they’re not ratting each other out about roommate grievances or pestering me about Derek updates, they make good company. Sometimes, I help them with their school assignments and give them pointers for how to study for a certain exam. After all, I took all the same courses not all that long ago. Occasionally, they invade my room and we binge-watch Friends. Most of them have never seen it. Which one is Phoebe, again? Dear God, is it really up to me to properly educate this nation’s youth?
I don’t think it was Derek’s intention to give me this much space after our chat in his room. It’s not as if we’re avoiding each other. We text whenever we can, we play phone tag, and we see each other in sporadic bursts.
One day, on my way to the parade warehouse, I see him with a group of suited men and women walking down Castle Drive. I stop, transfixed by the sight of him at the helm, speaking to the group while pointing out something on the horizon.
He glances in my direction as they pass and winks at me without breaking stride.
My legs turn into Jell-O.
The next day, he knocks on the door of my dorm at 6 AM.
I assume it’s one of the girls—in need of a tampon or a shoulder to complain on—and I politely tell them to scram before I tuck my head underneath my pillow.
“Whitney, open the door.”
When my sleepy brain connects the dots—that sounds like Derek, that IS Derek, Derek is OUTSIDE—I fling my pillow across the room and make a mad dash for the door. It’s whipped open, he’s tugged inside by the lapels of his suit jacket, and we kiss like we’re addicts breaking our sobriety streak. The sign proclaiming the days since our last hit reverts to zero.
