“Since you’re bringing up your past, I think now might be a good time for me to ask, how do you feel about that, Keegan?”
“His past?” Keeg asked, though he must have known what she was referring to.
I wanted to warn him to stick to the script and everything would be fine.
“Yes,” Gayle went on. “I’m sure you know about his scandals and history with addiction. How do you feel knowing you’re going into a relationship with a man who has this kind of history behind him? Do you really think you’re mentally equipped to handle something if it were to come up?”
Keegan thought for a moment. “That’s in his past, and I think everyone deserves a second chance. I’m not sure what you think I can’t handle because of my age, but I think like most people, I have to deal with life as it happens. There are things I had to deal with as a kid that I wasn’t ready for back then, but I didn’t have a choice, and I had to deal with them anyway. That’s life, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t a response we’d rehearsed, yet it was perfect, and I could see Gayle’s impressed expression as she nodded.
“You’re talking about your own loss of your father?”
“That’s obviously not the only thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, “but yes, that’s one of them. A big one. I just don’t think you can judge a person’s strength by their age. I think you have to judge it based on how they respond to shit when it hits the fan. Oh, fuck.”
As elegant as his response had been, I could tell he had surprised himself.
“Sorry, Nance,” he said quickly to the screen. “Are you guys gonna bleep that out or something?”
Gayle tossed her head back, laughing. It wasn’t a manufactured laugh, a performance she would sometimes put on when I tried to be clever during an interview. It was apparent she was as amused by Keegan’s innocent remark as I was.
As Gayle recovered, she snapped off-screen and a makeup artist passed her a tissue, which she padded against her eyes quickly before handing it back to her.
“We don’t bleep over here, but that’s probably the most precious remark you could have made after such a very mature response to my question. I think it’s easy to see the sort of charm that captivated our dear prince.”
Keeg’s face was bright red under the lights, and I couldn’t help but snicker as he attempted to bury his face under his hat.
“So this brings us back to the real issue a lot of people are concerned about right now,” Gayle continued. “King Lucas just came out this past week in support of your relationship.”
Without a damn word to me about it beforehand, of course.
“As you can imagine, critics of the royal family are saying this seems to time perfectly with the Equal Marriage bill coming up for vote in December. What do you say to those who suspect this is a publicity stunt attempting to continue Queen Tara’s work on LGBTQ+ rights.”
“I would say to them, regardless of what is going on in my personal life and what the Crown stands for, I believe the people should encourage their legislators to vote for what is moral. Two consenting adults choosing to be together isn’t a party issue. It’s a prejudiced relic handed down to us by regimes this nation broke free from long ago. As Keeg said before, everyone deserves a second chance. I think this is Parlaisa’s second chance to make the right choice.”
An improvisation on my part, and I felt another squeeze against my hand.
Keegan’s support.
And as I looked to him, I could see his confidence had returned.
Mad as I had made my brother or the critics in this country, we were doing the right thing.
When the interview came to an end, Gayle and her crew packed up as Bryan and Frederick congratulated us on a job well done, noting both of our improvisations as brilliant and perfectly timed.
“I had a good partner in crime,” I said, acknowledging Keegan’s help.
However, there was something about it that grated on my nerves.
I enjoyed having Keegan all to myself, at least for some time, but the more people saw of him, the more he would become public property, much like the rest of my family. He would be a chat piece they would discuss in ways that annoyed me just thinking about them, but it was what we’d both signed up for.
And it was too late to back out.
After we finished up, we headed out to the car, where Keeg and I sat in the back as my driver, Marco, drove us to the palace.
“How’d I do?” Keegan asked.
“That was incredible work.”
