The Royal We

by Heather Cocks

  I cursed under my breath. “I’m supposed to be on the phone with Lacey. She’ll kill me if I’m any later than I will be already.”

  Clive made a move toward me, but Joss stuck out a hand and grabbed him.

  “Oi, not so fast! You owe me a pint because you never wore that shirt I made you.”

  “It said SKIRT on it!” Clive protested.

  “Well, I’m still practicing,” Joss said. “It looked like shirt if you squinted just right.”

  She dragged him off, and Cilla corralled Gaz, with a backward wave at me that suggested my situation had been discussed.

  Left alone together for the first time since Fawkesoween, Nick and I smiled gamely at each other, pulled our coats tight, and began the walk to Pembroke. Cornmarket Street was lit with the glow of warm lamplight from upstairs windows, the occasional peal of laughter echoing from passing couples huddled together against the chill. A wave of intense happiness washed over me, and I told myself to carry this moment as a talisman of a time in my life when I was both truly content and lucky enough to realize it. In a very short time, Oxford had stamped itself on me, and everything back in the States—for the first time, I didn’t use the word home in my mind—felt so far away.

  “…although in Julian’s defense, he didn’t know Gran kept Sergeant Marmite’s ashes in any of the urns on the floor,” Nick was saying.

  I jolted. I had been too busy enjoying being with Nick to listen to Nick.

  “Works every time,” he said triumphantly. “I knew you’d vanished on me. Where did you go?”

  “I was just thinking how much I love being here,” I said.

  An unreadable look washed over Nick’s face. “Bex,” he said.

  And then the clouds parted like they’d been slit with a letter opener, pelting us with massive drops of a cold November rain that wasted no time leaking through the soles of my flimsy old sneakers. We broke into a run straight down St. Aldate’s toward the intersection that divided Christ Church and Pembroke. India’s home and mine.

  Water streamed down my face. “This is my first hard-core English rain,” I called out to him, my words almost drowned out by the rhythmic pounding of the drops and our feet.

  “It reminds me of the first time we met,” Nick panted. “You looked so put out from that tiny drizzle, I didn’t have the heart to tell you how bad it would get.”

  “Please,” I said, grinning even as the rain got blown up against my teeth. “Winter at Cornell would make your face crack.”

  We ducked down our cobbled drive and stopped outside the main doors, still giggling and breathless. The porter was long gone, so I had to fumble for my keys; Nick pulled off his coat and held it over us so that the contents of my purse wouldn’t get drenched. Not many guys would think of a girl’s handbag. If I hadn’t already started swooning for him, that would’ve sealed it.

  “You’ve got some mascara on your cheek,” Nick said, his teeth starting to chatter. “Very Fawkesoween of you.”

  He reached out to wipe it away, which meant half his coat-canopy sagged, so I tilted up my face and scooted closer to stay under it. His expression changed as he moved a wet hair off my cheek. My skin felt warm even with the cold rain hitting one side of it.

  “We should get you inside,” Nick said, his lips so close to my face that his breath and mine were basically the same puffs.

  “India is waiting,” I agreed.

  “And your phone call.”

  But we didn’t move. A jolt passed between us. I thought of high school English, and that part of the Keats poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” about how the breath right before you kiss your beloved is the sweetest one of all, because you realize you’re about to get exactly what you want.

  Then something in my periphery twitched, and I jerked my head sideways. Pembroke’s main drive bent around and connected with a slim back street alluringly named Beef Lane, at the corner of which I could swear a camera lens was poking out at us.

  “Nick,” I said, nodding toward it. “I think we’ve got company.”

  Nick whipped his head around and squinted. “Are you fucking serious?” he said.

  The heat between us evaporated as his coat fell down to his side, and I felt the frigid raindrops crash anew onto my head. As if he were conjured by magic, PPO Twiggy crept up Beef Lane and shoved the camera lens with his hand, as PPO Stout blocked me from sight and unlocked Pembroke’s door in a fraction of the time my freezing, stiff fingers could have done it.

  Nick looked shaken and irate, the very image of a guy whose careful bubble had just burst. But he had nothing on the murderous expression on Twiggy, who had a cameraman by the scruff of the neck and was waving Nick over, his face scarlet with rage.

  Lady Bollocks appeared in the open doorway, ready to pop open an umbrella. She stopped short at the kerfuffle.

  “Now you’ve bloody done it,” she said to Nick, not unkindly.

  “Can you get her inside, please, Bea?” Nick pleaded.

  “Wait, is that seriously the paparazzi?” I asked.

  But he’d already turned to go, Stout by his side. Bea all but lifted me inside the college and closed the door. I skidded on the wet stone entry and had to stabilize myself on her arm.

  “Did they see your face?” she demanded. “What have you done?”

  I was too breathless to do anything but stare blankly at the closed door. Bea grabbed me and forcibly turned my face to her.

  “Were you snogging him?” she snapped, eyes narrow, which was their default state where I was concerned. “I could throttle that boy, carrying on with the Sofa Queen in public. You’d best hope you’re not the ruin of him.”

  And she barged out the door, leaving me hot and bothered in several senses of the word.

  * * *

  The camera crew turned out to be from Prince Charming Productions, owned by Nick’s uncle Edwin, who is something of a gadfly and entirely a fool. After quitting the British Royal Navy claiming that he had raging seasickness, and then catting about being of extremely little use for two decades, Edwin was told in no uncertain terms that he had to do something. Evidently he chose the movie business, and planned for the first Prince Charming production to be a documentary about growing up royal, including candid footage—so he called it—of Nick being a university student. A documentary he’d told no one about, much less gotten approved.

  “It was all a terrible misunderstanding,” the round, red face of Edwin had told the BBC. “The camera wasn’t even on. We’ve all had a tea and some biscuits and sorted it out.”

  The papers had a field day with this, until a pop star on Celebrity Lawn Darts came down with necrotizing fasciitis. Never a speck of footage emerged, but Nick vanished to Clarence House yet again, presumably to figure out if further PR spackle was required, and I hadn’t seen him since that evening. I could still feel his hands on me, and I wanted to feel them again. It was like reverse electroshock therapy: one jolt and I was out of my mind.

  “So, you two were just huddled up in the doorway. How close was he to you, exactly?” Lacey asked for the umpteenth time, on our umpteenth phone call, the week after Edwingate.

  “Pretty close,” I said. “And he touched my face, and then it was like we froze.”

  Lacey sighed dreamily. “Oxford is so romantic,” she said. “I went out the other night with a guy who spent the entire time talking about Tom Brady, and you’re five seconds away from making out with a prince. It’s really not fair.”

  “I wish I knew what to do,” I said, getting off of my bed and going over to my window. “The old Bex would just march up and kiss him, but I can’t seem to find her right now.”

  “That’s because you actually care what happens for once,” Lacey said wisely.

  “But what if he doesn’t care?” I lamented, pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the window.

  “I know it’s scary,” Lacey told me. “But you can’t pretend you don’t feel anything, Bex, and you’ll be miserable if you do.” />
  I hung up the phone and tapped it lightly against my chin, then wrapped myself tighter in my giant woolen cardigan and poured another glass of boxed wine—the official drink of emotionally confused women on a budget. Suddenly, a soft knock came at my door in the cadence Nick usually used. With embarrassing speed, I leapt up and threw open the door, and Clive saw every inch of how far, and fast, my face fell when I realized it was him.

  “And there it is,” he said, pained.

  “What do you…um,” I stammered, unable to salvage it.

  Silently, Clive pushed inside, at which point I noticed he was clutching his laptop. He opened it, tapped a few keys, and turned it so I could see what was on the screen: a grainy still of Nick huddled up with a woman right outside the Pembroke door. You couldn’t see my face, but the intimacy was as screaming as my red scarf.

  “I knew that camera was on,” I said. “Where did you even get this?”

  “I have sources,” Clive said. “The only people who’ve seen these are in the very innermost circle.”

  I stifled the urge to tell him to cram it. Clive did so love being in the know.

  “I owe you an apology,” I said instead. “I’ve been a total jerk. I should have talked to you about…well, I should have talked to you. Period.”

  “No arguments there,” Clive said, closing his laptop with a click.

  “But I swear this was totally innocent. It was pouring and my hair was stuck—”

  “Come on, Bex,” Clive interrupted with a reproachful look. “I’m obviously not a prince, but I’m not stupid.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. Clive deserved the honesty I had been too scared to give to myself.

  “I care about you, for whatever that’s worth,” I said. “But yeah, there’s something there with me and Nick. At least on my side.”

  Clive sat down on the edge of my bed, deflated. He’d known the score, but it didn’t sting any less to hear it.

  “Congratulations,” he said. “You just added yourself to a long list of girls who’ve decided Nick is their destiny.”

  “I know, it’s predictable as hell. I hate that,” I said, sitting down next to him. “Girl goes to England, girl meets prince…”

  “…Girl sleeps with his friend a lot…”

  “…Girl fucks up royally. Pun intended, I guess,” I said with a wry but unhappy smile that Clive did not return. “Look, I don’t know if you and I would have worked out even if Nick didn’t exist. But he does. And I guess I kept thinking it would be easier if you and I could just…drift apart. How do you break up with someone you’re not officially dating?”

  “But just fading out, Bex?” Clive asked. “You knew I liked you. You knew it wasn’t just sex for me. You had to know.”

  I closed my eyes. Clive’s Little White Lie drifted past them. He had told me. In that way and a thousand others.

  “I did know.” I felt like a jerk. “And I tried to pretend I didn’t, because I was having fun and I wanted it to be simple. And when it wasn’t anymore, I chickened out. I’m sorry, Clive. I am the worst. I never meant to hurt you. You really are great.”

  Clive cleared his throat and blinked hard, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “Right. I’m just lovely,” he muttered.

  In that instant, I realized the first guy I hooked up with in England was, basically, the man version of my beloved Chicago Cubs: never the big winner, no matter how promising it looked. I was hit with a flood of sympathy for him, and anger at myself. Why hadn’t I sacked up earlier and been honest?

  “I’m not in love with you or anything,” he said suddenly.

  My lips twitched. “Nor should you be. I snore.”

  “Yes, it’s untenable.” He shot me a rueful grin. “Mostly I just thought I’d gotten to a good thing first and might get to see where it went,” he said. “And this is where it went.”

  Clive put on his glasses again. “But you’ve got bigger problems than me, anyhow,” he said. “You’re up against at least three other posh, moneyed girls the papers have already latched on to, and they know what they’re doing.”

  I didn’t expect Clive to hug me and wish me good luck, but the emotionless speed with which he transitioned into business mode startled me even more than his frankness.

  “You’re also too trusting,” he added for good measure. “You got lucky this time, but what if that had been a paparazzi camera?”

  “There is nothing going on in that photo,” I reiterated.

  Clive rolled his eyes. “If you say so. But it doesn’t matter, anyway. To an outside eye, it’s Nick kissing some random tart in the street.”

  “Gosh, ‘random’ seems kind of harsh,” I joked.

  “And you’re completely naïve if you think that footage wouldn’t have gotten picked apart,” he rattled on. “They’re going to eat you alive.”

  “Okay. I think you are getting way, way ahead of yourself here. I don’t even—”

  He held up a hand and took a folded square of newspaper out of his shirt pocket. “You should also know that the Mail columnist is reporting that Nick got a Lyons ancestral ring for India.”

  He had come armed and ready. My hands shook slightly as I unfolded the paper to reveal an article headlined GOING FOR (BOLING)BROKE. Nausea hit me as I tossed it onto the bed, next to Clive. I’d gone and uncorked myself and now the jealousy was flowing.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Clive said, sounding satisfied.

  “I’m glad to see you’re enjoying this,” I said. “I guess I deserve that.”

  “I’m not,” he insisted, softening. “But this is what you’re up against.”

  “It’s just a rumor. The Daily Mail is full of them.”

  “India is Richard’s pick,” Clive reasoned, standing up and stretching. “Someone is working hard to make this happen. And if it’s not Nick, it’s the family. Which is actually worse for you. You can’t compete with that. You’re an American and you don’t have any kind of background. Will the Queen even agree to meet you? And if not, what then? You mess about for a bit in secret? Regardless, it all ends the same way: He marries someone else.”

  “I’m not looking to—”

  “And neither is he, yet, but he will, and he has to. It’s his job,” Clive said. “And then you’ll be out in the cold.”

  I must have looked miserable. Clive may have enjoyed that, but to his credit, he reached down and tucked my hair behind my cheek with a sad smile, bringing with it the memory of Nick so recently doing exactly the same thing and inspiring completely opposite feelings.

  “You always would have been my first priority,” he said.

  I felt remorse, but not regret. “You deserve better than what I can offer,” I said softly.

  Clive nodded, resigned, and turned to leave. “I’m not rooting against you, Bex.” He paused, searching for words. “His world is messy. It’s not like being with the homecoming king, or…whatever you have in the States.”

  “I know,” I said, touched. “Thank you. And—”

  “Right, I know, it’s not me, it’s you,” he said, allowing himself the levity as he walked to the door. “It probably is you. Fortunately, I covered my bases and have plans with another girl in twenty minutes. Good luck.”

  As the door closed behind him, I flopped onto the bed, my head spinning. Then I grabbed the Mail article. It was much easier to scrutinize it now that Clive was gone. There was a photo of Nick and India leaving Clarence House a day or two earlier, his hand on her back, and two different shots of India and Prince Richard in recent months, looking very compatible. I didn’t believe for a second she and Nick were getting engaged. Bea was right; it was too soon. And it seemed impossible that the Nick I knew—the one I’d seen almost every day for so long, the one I would have sworn was about to kiss me—was in so deep with a person he barely mentioned to me. Even with the evidence of a united front plastered all over the papers, a voice in the back of my head kept telling me I couldn’t have devel
oped my feelings for him in a vacuum. I wasn’t a stalker sociopath inventing stories and scenes and memories, seeing things the way I wanted to see them instead of for what they were. Was I?

  Then again, India was there, and I was here. Maybe Nick, right now, was assuring her of exactly what I’d been assuring Clive: that nothing had happened, that the grainy still from Edwin’s camera was grossly misleading. Maybe, unlike Clive and me, they’d both believed that. And maybe Nick’s universe, the whole machine of the monarchy, was bigger than some fleeting foreign friend in his residence hall who liked crappy TV shows and Cracker Jack. Clive was right—it was absurd to imagine me in all of that. India was the crystal decanter of brandy, while I was wine poured from a plastic spout, and Nick and I were doomed before we even started. I curled up with my glass of Shiraz and cried.

  In the dramatic film of my story, the camera would have pulled back on me lying there, fetal, weeping all over my quilt, then cut to me bravely soldiering forth until my prince returned and swooned at my sexy dignity. In the rom-com, I’d go get a sassy new haircut and realize Gaz is the love of my life. In reality, the crying and wine slurping lasted about ten minutes before I sat up and glared into the mirror at my red, puffy face.

  “Get a grip,” I said.

  I may not have come to England to fall in love, but it had happened anyway. And I’d never been the sort of girl who willingly took a seat on the bench without fighting for a starting spot; I wasn’t going to let England change that about me, too. If Nick didn’t want me, that was his call, but I couldn’t just sit back and wait to see if it occurred to him to pick me. I wasn’t going to play dirty, but I was going to play.

  Chapter Nine

  Nick comes from a long line of people who love a grand romantic gesture—the grandest and arguably most romantic being the statue that the first Queen Victoria commissioned of her cherished husband Prince Albert, sitting golden and humongous across from his eponymous concert hall. King Arthur II delivered his proposal on a white horse—the 1930s version of Lloyd Dobler hoisting the boom box in Say Anything—and Queen Victoria II sent her beloved Smudgy a daily carrier pigeon bearing one letter on a scrap of paper, which all would have unscrambled to profess her desire for him to get on with it already, but poor Crown Prince “Smudgy” Sigmund of Germany was never one for puzzles and died of a dog bite before he solved it. Still, I now understood where all of these people were coming from: Keeping the secret of my feelings for Nick was torture. I wanted to confess myself and either move on to the euphoria or the Grief Ice Cream phase. But above all, I just wanted to see him.