“My fam and I got matching tattoos.” He pushes his sleeve up and shows off a big creepy creature that looks like the monster fromStranger Things.“No regrets!” he says, and once again I’m jealous of his certainty. My phone buzzes and I can’t suppress my curiosity any longer; my eyes stray to the screen, desperate to open the newest alert.
“My mom won’t stop texting me,” I lie again.
“Nervous parents?” He nods sympathetically. “My mom said if I don’t respond to her texts within an hour, she’s going to call campus police.”
The fizzy, restless feeling is back with a vengeance.
“Do you want to dance?” I shout over the music. Ethan nods enthusiastically, so we both ditch our drinks on a nearby table (I’m not coming back for mine) and I drag him onto the makeshift dance floor. I drape my arms across his shoulders, crossing them behind his neck. He rests his hands politely on my hips and we sway easily with the music.
“I’m glad I met you,” he says, his lips inches away from my ear.
“Mm-hmm!” I respond, suddenly conscious of the unbearable heat in this room. His hand slips from my waist to my lower back. I make eye contact for the first time since we started dancing, and my heart sinks. I’m hip to hip with a guy who is cute and nice and not ridiculously off-limits, and all I feel is the hollow realization that I’d rather be anywhere else.
He leans in, his lips a breath from mine.
I jump out of his arms. “I can’t. I, I—” I look around, hoping Naomi will swoop in and save me.
“Hey, it’s fine.” He raises his hands in the air as he steps back.
“I wish—” My voice cracks. My mind fills in the blank.I wish I could forget this summer. I wish I could move on.
“Do you have a boyfriend or something?”
Or something.
“I have to go.” I push my way through the crowded dance floor and flee outside to the empty porch. The late-summer air fills my lungs as I sink onto the steps and drop my head into my shaky hands.
Why does this keep happening?
When I’m alone, all I want is to be with people. When I’m with people, all I want is to be alone. Nothing feels right, becauseIdon’t feel right.
With a glance to see if anyone is paying attention to me (they’re not), I open the alerts for “Comet, dog.” I felt like a stalker setting it up, but Comet ismydog, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep tabs on him. The problem is, I get sent way too many articles. I should have thought about that before naming my dog after the biggest global event of this century.
My inbox is now filled with unopened articles that mention Comet, which means he must have made a public appearance today. I pick the first one and open it. A video is embedded at the top of the article, and I’m surprised to read that it was filmed in Canada. I suck in a breath.Is it possible— I cut myself off before I can follow that thought to its natural conclusion and press play.
The video follows a procession of black vehicles, focusing on a Bentley as it pulls up to a curb filled with people waiting behind a line of steel crowd-control barricades. The car door opens, and Comet bounds out first, tugging my heart across the border. He waits patiently next to the open door, and my stomach twists in miserable anticipation. A moment later, the newking Theodore Geoffrey Edward George steps out, one hand holding Comet’s leash, the other raised to the crowd. Every time I see him (when I’m checking in on Comet, obviously) I’m surprised to see that his hair is still the same shade of brown he got from a box of drugstore dye.
If I cared enough to read into things like this, I’d wonder whether he’s also haunted by memories of this summer.
I study the figure on my screen, taking stock. I’m always measuring the boy I see in photos against the one I knew in real life, and today he looks startlingly like the Theo who kissed me on a beach in Greece. He has an effortless smile, a perfectly tailored navy suit that makes him look slightly older than his nineteen years, and an air of easygoing importance. He looks handsome and charming and loose. More notably, he lookshappy.
It knocks the wind out of me.
The headline readsKING THEO DESPERATE TO IMPRESS, but I don’t agree. He’s surrounded by guards as he approaches the Canadian prime minister. They shake hands, pose for a picture, exchange smiles and pleasant greetings, and Theo looks like a fucking natural. He was born and bred for this exact moment: charming the crowd, acting as a familiar face in times of change and uncertainty, and reminding all the royal watchers out there why they’ve obsessively followed his family’s every move for generations. The Commonwealth may be in upheaval following the untimely death of the Queen and the almost-apocalypse, but some traditions are constant. Steadfast. Unshakable. Less than two weeks before his coronation, Theo’s presence is a reminder of that.
That’s what I see, anyway. My knowledge of the royal family consists mostly of what I learned when Theo and I spent a weektogether on a mad dash across Europe, and the stories he told methen—of a boy trapped in a life he couldn’t stand—hardly fit with what I’m seeingnow.He looksdestined,not stuck, and his future is clear as day. I feel a hot stab of envy.
I lean in, my nose inches away from the screen, trying to get a better look at his expression. Theo glances at the camera and grins like he wasn’t thrust into a life he was dreading, like his mom didn’t just die of an undetected heart defect.
My stomach drops.
Once upon a time, somewhere between a storm on a ferry in the Mediterranean and a flight home to Chicago, I thought I knew what made him smile. But maybe I was wrong.
Back in June, when a comet was on course to hit Earth and end life as we know it, Theo was on the run from his obligations. He was willing to give up his life to avoid becoming king, but by the time I found out that he was sacrificing his spot in his family’s cometproof bunker, it was too late. I was already halfway in love with him (or so I thought) and I couldn’t let him keep running. I sent him straight into the waiting handcuffs of the royal security detail, and I assumed he’d hold it against me for the rest of his life.
But maybe he likes being king more than either of us expected. Maybe now that he’s the one in charge, he no longer feels like the monarchy is antiquated and unfair.
While I’m pondering his unpredictable feelings, I can’t help but wonder how he feels about being myhusband.
