“What if it’s not enough?”
“Then I’ll tell you. And you’ll listen. Because that’s who you are.” I squeezed his arm. “Now eat your pancakes before they get cold again, Sir.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Majesty, Sir,” I used my firm voice. “You need to eat. And you need to decompress. So talk to me and eat, please.”
He chuckled, shook his head, and picked up his fork reluctantly, cutting a piece of pancake. “You’ll pay for that later, beautiful. What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything. Everything. Tell me about your first time teaching a class.”
He took a bite, chewing slowly. “It was a disaster. I’d prepared for weeks, had everything organized. And then the first student asked a question I hadn’t prepared for, and I completely blanked.”
“What did you do?”
“Admitted I didn’t know the answer. Said I’d research it and get back to them.” He took another bite. “Lex said that was the best thing I could have done. Showed honesty instead of trying to fake expertise.”
“He was right.”
We kept talking, and slowly I watched him relax. The tightness around his eyes eased, his shoulders dropped, and he actually started eating with appetite instead of just mechanically.
“Your turn,” he said after a while. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
I thought about it. “Remember when I told you I was engaged once?” After he nodded, I added, “Well, what you don’t know is that he broke it off two weeks before the wedding.”
Majesty’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. “Two weeks?”
“Two weeks. We’d sent out invitations, booked the venue, ordered the cake. And he just... changed his mind. Said he wasn’t ready. That he didn’t think I was the one.”
“Cami.” His hand found mine under the table. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was two years ago. I’ve dealt with it, gone to therapy, all of that.” I shrugged. “But it made dating hard afterward. Made me question everything about myself.”
“He was an idiot.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we just weren’t right for each other and he was brave enough to say it before we made a bigger mistake.”
“Still. Two weeks before the wedding is cruel.”
“It was. But it also led me here. To you and Lex. So maybe it worked out the way it was supposed to.” I reached over and stole a piece of his bacon, swiping it through the syrup on his plate.
“Hey!” He tried to grab it back, but I was faster, popping it in my mouth.
“Mmm, bacon and syrup. You should try it.”
“I will not mix bacon and syrup. That’s a crime against breakfast.”
“You literally have chocolate chips in your pancakes. That’s also a crime.”
“That’s art.” He stole a piece of my french toast in retaliation. “See how you like it.”
I laughed, and just like that, the heavy mood lifted. We finished breakfast, stealing food from each other’s plates and arguing about proper breakfast combinations.
When we were done, Majesty helped me into my coat. “Ready for part two of our day?”
“What’s part two?”
“You’ll see.” He took my hand and led me back out into the snow.
