Twenty-Seven
AURELIA
Friedrichand I have been subsisting on stolen moments and a constant text thread for the last couple of weeks. I know he’s busy with dating and all that hullaballoo, plus a trip to Germany for the king, but I’m starting to feel the strain of not seeing him and not feeling his hands on me.
I’m taking out my frustrations, mental and sexual, on several balls of dough meant for loaves of bread for the women’s shelter that Aunt Sarah supports. Margaret keeps a safe distance, eyeing the object of my ire with mild concern from across her kitchen island.
“Are you really sure you’re okay, love?” she asks as I give the dough a particularly hard swing at the counter.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” Dropping the thoroughly beaten dough balls into bowls, I cover them with a thin cloth and set them aside to rise. I wipe thesheen of sweat from my brow with my shoulder, my hands still covered in flour and dough.
“Cause you just manhandled that dough like it took your baby sister’s lunch money.”
I do a bad job of suppressing a snort, half laughter, half derision. My friend gives me the searching side-eye that she knows always breaks me.
“Fine,” I huff. “Friedrich and I haven’t, you know, had a lot of time lately. I just…”
“Aww! You miss him,” Margaret coos.
“I don’t miss him, I just?—”
My phone pings, cutting me off, and I jump to pick it up, but Margaret snatches it away. She wags a finger at me.
“Uh-uh, Germy Gertie. Go wash your hands first.”
“Read it then.”
Margaret opens my phone and grins as she goes through my texts.
“Out loud, Margaret,” I grumble.
“Oh, right. It’s just, he’s so damn sweet.” Margaret swoons and then reads, “‘Miss Aurelia.’ It’s so cute he calls you Miss.”
I shoot her a look, and she waves me off and continues. “‘I’d like to invite you to the palace this Sunday afternoon for my mother’s birthday luncheon.’ Family dinner? Oh my god.”
“Oh my god,” I agree, a little in shock. “What do I say?”
“Yes, of course!”
“I don’t know, Margaret.” I bite the corner of mylip and scrub my hands even harder. “We’re just a casual thing, and lunch with the parents is definitely not casual.”
“He says there will be family and a few close friends there. Perhaps he’s including you in that group of close friends.”
“I mean, maybe…”
“Aurelia, you have to go. The prince has invited you to a meal in celebration of his mother, whom he adores, with the people most important to him, which means he considers you among the most important people in his life.”
I groan, my mind racing in several different directions. “That’s just it, though. How can I be an important person in his life and a casual acquaintance who he does casual sexual things with?”
“Maybe because he sees you as an actual friend.” Margaret fixes me with a hard stare. “Besides, I’m sure you won’t be the only non-family member there.”
“Yes, but he’s not sleeping with Miles.”
“He’s not sleeping with you either.”
I groan and dry my hands before taking the phone from her to read the text myself. My whole heart is screaming for me to say yes. To meet his mother and father, to sit at a table and talk to his siblings, to do whatever it takes to get a little time with him, more than the occasional orgasm and run we’ve been relegated to over the last week. But my brain is trying to be the sensible organ and keeps screaming that this is too much, too far, too intimate. Are we both letting thingsget too close? Too familiar? Too couple-y?Oh my god, are we a couple?
Another text comes through, and my irrational heart wins out, swayed by my traitorous vagina.
