“I’m agreeing with him because he’s right about the distance, and because this path gives us easy access to fresh water.”
“You lost even without the wife vote. Deal with it,” Victoria tells Henry. She looks between the brothers. “No more whinging from you two, understand?”
They both look chagrined as they nod.
I raise my hand. “Just to clarify, I’m not actually his wife.”
“Probably for the best. Given that we wouldn’t have been on that plane if it weren’t for you, the press will blame you for all of this,” Victoria says.
“Enough. I tricked her into marrying me. It’s my fault. Now let’s go,” Theo says, the mention of ourmarriagesending little electric prickles down my spine. It’s taken a heroic effort on my part not to broach this particular subject, but I’m not going to miss the opportunity now that I have it.
I let the others take the lead and fall into place next to Theo. “Speaking of our wedding…” He visibly flinches, and I pivot to the least awkward question I can think of. “Do you have any idea who mailed me our marriage certificate?”
“Eleni?” he suggests. Eleni was the daughter of the Greekfamily we stayed with, and one of only three people in attendance at our midnight wedding.
“I think so, too. Do you think she knew you were the prince the whole time we were in Greece?”
Theo holds back the branch of a fern to let me walk around without getting smacked in the face. “I hope not. It’s bloody embarrassing to think that I was running around pretending to be Blaze Danger if everyone knew who I was.”
“Maybe she had no idea until she saw the marriage certificate with your name on it.”
“That must have been a proper shock.”
I stop him with my hand on his chest and block his path. He has a dusting of facial hair on his cheeks, highlighting how hollow they’ve gotten in the past few months. Now that I’ve had a couple of days to desensitize myself to his face, I also notice purple shadows under his eyes. “You think it was a shockfor her?”
He winces. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
I look ahead and realize we’ve widened the gap between ourselves and the rest of the group. The distance makes me feel bold. “Were you ever planning to tell me that you signed your real name, or were you going to pretend it never happened?”
He blows out a breath. “It was the first thing I thought about when the comet was destroyed. I felt like the biggest arsehole on the planet. And then my mum died, and I was gutted. Couldn’t think about anything else. Didn’t get out of bed for a long time.” His voice strains, and it makes my heart ache.
“Penny did her best to be there for me, but she’s busy with the little ones, especially since Mum passed. She’s literally all they have now. Eventually Graves kicked me in the arse and told me that I had to start making public appearances, do my first royal tour, and prove that the monarchy is still strong despite being led by a depressed teenager who doesn’t want the job.” He half laughs and half groans as he drags his hands over his face. “As much as I hated him, forcing me into action did help. I had no choice but to do the job.”
I feel a small sting of jealousy; Theo and I both spent the summer spiraling in an existential crisis, and I can’t help but be envious that he didn’t have to sort through a mile-long course catalogue and more than 116 different undergraduate degree programs to find his way out. I know he feels stifled by the lack of options, but I feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of them. It’d be kind of nice for fate to step in, block off all other paths, and point me in the direction of destiny.
Or at least tell me whether or not I’ll ever actually need that 8:00A.M.psych class.
“You really did look happy in Canada,” I tell him.
He barks out a laugh. “That’s ’cause I was drunk. I’ve been at least a little bit drunk in every appearance since her death.”
“That’swhy you looked so happy in all those pictures?”
He arches an eyebrow. “You were looking at my pictures?”
I scowl at him. “I was looking atComet.”
His lip twitches. “You’re a bloody awful liar, Wheeler.”
I put a hand on my hip. “And you never looked me up online?”
“What is it you Americans say? ‘I plead the fifth’? Although…” His eyes fill with mischief. “Ihavealways wanted to spend an American Fourth of July on the beach, eating hamburgers and waving sparklers, the full monty.”
I squint at him. “Are you drunknow?”
He laughs. “No. But I was self-medicating for most of the summer. It was the only way I could deal with what I did to Mum. I couldn’t face any of my choices. Couldn’t even call you.”
I blink, confused. “Theo, your mom had a heart defect. Her death had nothing to do with you.”
