The Royal We by Heather Cocks, Jessica Morgan Page A

curly hair glued to Gaz’s crotch. “The Heart of the Ocean was not green and she did not have pubic hair in that scene.”
    “Well, we never saw for certain,” Gaz offered. “Anyway, it’s for modesty. The bloody stocking stretches too thin—I had to put something there or you’d see all my bits.”
    “I can’t believe that your objection to this is on authenticity grounds,” I said to Cilla, stealing a sip of her dramatically steaming glass of pitch-black punch.
    Cilla uncapped my Sharpie and wrote Gaz is a genius on my shirt.
    “There. The first enormous lie of the night,” she said.
    Gaz tacked onto the end of her sentence: at pretending he is not dynamite in the sack .
    “Much better,” he said.
    It took me fifteen minutes to find Clive and Lacey, and then another fifteen to get a drink (so I got three, for maximum efficiency). The more the cocktails flowed, the less little and white the lies scribbled on my shirt became—someone wrote Bea is SO NICE on my breast—and the sweatier and looser our dancing was: me, Clive, Lacey, Damian the Incredibly Hot Chemistry Student, and whoever else happened to be in our radius, including a guy dressed as Captain Hook whom I’d noticed staring at me with increasingly sexy intensity. I was wrestling with whether to strike up a conversation when the pirate beat me to it, putting his lips right to my ear.
    “Yer makeup’s runnin’ down your face, innit,” he yelled.
    I ran a finger across my cheek and it came away dark from rivulets of sweaty mascara. I had to laugh. This was exactly what I deserved for breaking a promise about Clive that I’d barely even made to myself.
    I waved at Lacey. “Be right back,” I shouted, mopping at my face.
    But as I headed out to the nearest bathroom, I caught sight of a familiar figure turning tail and sprinting up the main stairs, and like a magnet to metal I shot toward it.
    “Hey,” I called out, but Nick was already most of the way upstairs. I followed him straight to his own open door, which I caught before he could close it behind himself.
    “Welcome back,” I said.
    He jumped. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your ponytail,” he said. I could swear his eyes flickered to my cleavage and then immediately away. “What’s that costume?”
    “I’m a Little White Lie,” I said, catching my reflection in his mirror and wiping again at my cheeks. “Feel free to add one. I suggest, ‘I have every intention of going into this party.’”
    “I am going,” Nick said, but it was thin.
    “Bullshit,” I said. “You’re hiding.”
    Nick turned away and stretched, his shirt riding up slightly and revealing an appealing side-ab muscle.
    “You’ve seen the papers. My head’s been a bit scrambled,” he said. “I thought getting torched with you lot would make me feel right again, but I’m not quite sure I’m ready yet.”
    I imagined India having a drunken Where have you been?!? hissy on the dance floor. I wouldn’t want to deal with that in front of two hundred people, either, especially after a half-baked paternity crisis. Nick just looked so downtrodden; I felt suddenly, fiercely protective.
    “Come on,” I heard myself say. “We’re getting you out of here.”
    “But I just got here,” Nick said.
    I put my hands on my hips. “Right now, ‘here’ is alone in your bedroom,” I said. “Tell me something. When did you last have any fun?”
    “You’ve been out with me—I’m terribly fun.”
    “Sure, you are fun, but that’s not what I asked.”
    “I do have a good time,” Nick insisted. He sat down on the bed and tugged on his hair. “I just sometimes get tired of it being contractually obligated. Being a prince involves a lot of luxuries, but getting to be in a bad mood is not one of them.” His face was downcast, but then he shook himself. “Ugh. Poor little royal boy. I’m sorry I even said that. I should be smacked.”
    I closed his door. “Listen, I don’t know if you’re