“I have a friend I thought I was in love with,” I say, and immediately hate myself for telling him this at all. But I’m supposed to bebondingwith him, right? Luring him into something like friendship. “And it was a whole years-long pining fiasco. It’d been… it’d been something that wassupposedto work. We’re both Holiday royals, prince and princess happy ever after shit.”
Loch scratches the back of his neck. “Do I know her?”
“Iris Lentora. Easter.”
“Ah. I’ve heard of her.”
“Anyway. I got drunk. Confessed my feelings. Realized halfway through that I was in love with the idea of a fairy tale ending, but I wasn’t in love withher.So that’s my type, I guess. Fantasies.”
All those fantasies have someone else in them, though. But I have no clue what type of person I want them to be—I only know what type of person theyshouldbe. Someone kind and calm because I’m such a mess, and I need that balance. Iris was the blueprint; I think I was interested in my other two exes because they reminded me ofher, and she was who I wassupposedto want, so I went after them for that familiarity. But I don’t remember being upset when it ended with them, and even this mess with Iris—I miss her friendship, which we’re repairing, but I was never brokenhearted. Just humiliated and ashamed.
Have I ever been interested in any of the people I’ve been with? Or did they… fit a mold?
I refuse to keep talking about myself in this capacity so, distantly, down a long, echoing tunnel, I ask, “And what’s Prince Lochlann’s type? Snobbish and endless credit cards?”
We’re next in line, the group in front of us arguing over who gets what bib number.
Loch chuckles. “Dead on. Spoiled Cambridge lads with trust fund money to burn.”
“I don’t buy that for a second.”
His eyebrows go up.
“Because you thinkI’mspoiled and stuck up,” I explain, “and you treat me like you want to strangle me with my own intestines half the time—”
“Lovely image, that.”
“—so I honest to god cannot imagine you giving the time of day to a guy who’s spoiled and superficial. I think the stress of being in a relationship with someone like that would give you an ulcer.”
“I’m Irish, boyo. Talking shite is how we flirt.”
“What kind of guy are you into, then? For real? What kind of man would sweep Prince Lochlann off his feet?”
There’s a pause. Long enough that I know I don’t imagine it. It drags across that spot on the back of my hand.
But his humor slides away in an abrupt rush. “Certainly not hopeless romantics like your sorry arse. That’s what you are? A hopeless romantic?”
“I guess—”
“So you will stay away from Siobhán.”
I recoil. “Jesus, the more you order me around like that, the more it makes me want to woo her to piss you off.”
Loch doesn’t say anything. He sure as helllookslike he wants to, like there are a hundred threats rolling through his head and he can’t decide on one.
The group in front of us leaves and Loch shoots forward to accept a clipboard from a race attendant. I reach for one too, but he smacks my hand away and scribbles out a form for me.
“What is your problem?” I snap.
He attaches one bib to his sweater and slams another against my chest, arching over me as he presses the paper to my thin tank top.
“Cover up that coffee stain on your shirt,again,ya clumsy arse.”
“Youbumpedmethis time—”
“I have a job to do. Stay away from me ’til the race.”
And he cuts off into the crowd. Leaving me there, holding that bib, scowling after him.
