Page 18 of Royal Cocktail

“Thank you for trying to butter me up, but no.”

Leopold had learned that, not long ago, The Fix on Sixth held a Man of the Month calendar contest in order to raise money to save the bar. Leopold didn’t know the whole story, but obviously the bar had been saved. And since then, the bar had started a ritual of taking posed pics of willing customers and tacking them up on a poster-sized calendar. One for every day.

It had become a thing at the bar. Unlike the calendar, the men weren’t shirtless and the pictures weren’t published anywhere. But sometimes customers photographed the board and shared the candid photos all across social media. For that reason, #TheFixOnSixth was conveniently displayed over the image board.

It was, on the whole, a great promotional strategy for the bar, and while Leopold respected that, he did not want to participate. What if some royal-watching customer came over to check out the board? What a ridiculous way to have his cover blown.

Except there was Skye doing puppy dog eyes at him with so much exaggeration that he had to laugh.

“Oh, come on, Leo. It will be fun. Don’t you want to memorialize this month?”

“Desperately,” he said, making her laugh from the leer in his voice.

“Okay, disappoint me.” She exhaled an exaggerated sigh. “It’s not like I won’t judge … you for the rest of eternity … for this moment.”

Now, he really was laughing. This woman matched him so perfectly, their senses of humor lining up like a covalent bond. Or back to quantum entanglement.

He saw Tyree approaching with a camera, and knew that he was sunk. Besides, he’d already conceded in his head. As far as he was concerned, what Skye wanted Skye got, and she obviously wanted him to do this silly thing.

“Hey, Leo.” Tyree reached out for a high-five, his large hand practically swallowing Leopold’s. He lifted the camera. “Are you going to be joining our calendar board today?”

Leopold put on his best smile even as he watched Jürgen scowling at him from across the room. “I guess I am,” he said.

A few minutes later, he had a copy of the photo that Tyree had selected from the dozen or so snaps he’d taken.

“I love it,” Skye said, pulling it off the photo printer. “Can I keep it?”

“What? My first cover shoot and you’re taking the evidence?”

She pressed it against her heart, and when she said, “Please,” it didn’t feel like teasing.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Of course, you can.”

“Thank you.” She hesitated a moment, then held it out to him. “Will you sign it?”

Wasn’t that an inconvenient question?

“Great big famous cover model that you are, I want to get a piece of that.” She added a leer to her voice that made him laugh.

“Do you?”

She looked him slowly up and down, making every atom in his body accelerate its spin. “Yeah,” she said, her voice low and a little shy. “I really do.”

“Skye…” He didn’t know what to say. He saw the want in her eyes; he heard it in her voice. And oh, but he wanted it, too.

He held out his hand. “Let me have the picture.”

She did, and he borrowed a Sharpie from one of the passing servers. He wrote the first thing he thought of—Love, Leo—then passed it back to her.

He watched as she read it, her hands trembling slightly. Her teeth grazed her lower lip, and she looked up at him through lowered lashes. Then she rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek, and he felt like nothing he could do as king could feel better than this.

“Thank you.”

“Anything to make you happy.” As he spoke, he realized just how true that was. For no reason other than to make her happy, he’d just shared a part of himself with the world. Not that he expected the photo to get out, but there was a bit of a risk, and he’d taken it for her. He was tumbling off into space, and he knew it.

The weird thing was, he loved it.

They ordered another round of drinks, then sipped their Loaded Coronas. He told her how the research with Professor Malkin was going, and she asked all the right questions. Then he listened as she talked about her summer job at her father’s firm and the federal clerkship she hoped to get after graduation. A one-year term on the Second Circuit in New York, after which she'd return home to Austin and the family business.