Page 10 of King of the Crease

“I wish I got to see you more often,” I say. “I miss you.”

Truly good friends are more precious than gold. Millie is my closest friend emotionally and farthest away geographically.

“Stay,” she says suddenly with a surprising urgency flickering in her eyes. “Stay in Sourwood.”

Millie has always had a fondness for jokes, so I assume she’s kidding. Yet she has a no-nonsense glint in her eye.

“Stay here through Christmas. No security detail. No black SUVs. No royal business. No Agnes and Alfred. Live in Sourwood and experience life as a normie for a few weeks. Think of it as a royal Rumspringa. You can crash in our guest bedroom.”

“I’m a crown prince. I can’t crash in someone’s guest bedroom.”

“His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas can’t. But Nick, my friend from university, can.”

“Nick…” I laugh out of nervousness, perhaps worried that my best friend is losing her marbles. “Are you crazy, Millie?”

“Never call a woman crazy. And no, I’m not. You can wear Adam’s clothes.” She reaches over and musses up my neatly combed hair. “That’s better.”

“I think people can still recognize me with messy hair.”

“Oh, honey. Nobody here knows who you are.” She pats my hand to ease whatever bruising my ego just took. “Most Americans can’t even find Ardenia on a map, much less pick out its prince. I think you’ll be fine.”

“We’re one of the ten biggest copper exporters in the world!”

She nods at me not unlike parents do when their child presents them with a mangled drawing of a bunny rabbit.

“Anyway, you’ll go to the grocery store. You’ll stand in line. You’ll complain about parking. It’ll be so much fun!”

I know she’s being sarcastic, but that does sound somewhat fun.

“You can shovel snow and have mundane conversations about the weather.”

“So people actually talk about the weather? That’s not made up?”

“Jesus, you really do need to touch grass.” She snorts a laugh, and her cackle is infectious. Even though this idea of hers is a total impossibility, it’s fun to dream. “We’ll decorate the tree and shop at holiday markets and see an old Christmas movie in town. All the things you can’t do as a prince.”

Millie is perkier than a bouquet of helium balloons. She’s bouncing in her seat. “And also…Sourwood has a bunch of gay guys. There are multiple two-dad families at my kids’ school. I worked on a PTA committee with one of them, and he…well, that dad kind of had a stick up his ass the whole time, but the rest are cool.” She puts her elbows on the table and leans in, wiggling her troublesome eyebrows at me. “Maybe you can get some more sexual experience while you’re here.”

Heat flares up in my cheeks, turning what feels like my whole body red. “Millie.”

“Santa comes more often than you do.”

I glance up the stairs to make sure her kids aren’t in earshot.

“You know I’m right,” she says with a satisfied grin. “Be a small town ho-ho-ho. We can make you a profile on all the apps. Scratch that—our mayor did that a few years ago and it turned into a whole scandal. We can find you hookups the old fashion way. Are gay men still having anonymous sex in truck stops and airport restrooms?”

“Millie! Now can I call you crazy?”

“I’ll settle for unhinged.”

“You’re actually serious about this plan of yours?”

Her mischievous smirk would not budge. “Can you fake an American accent?”

“I don’t know!”

“With all the episodes of Friends you watch, you’re probably better than you think.”

It’s times like these I hate how well she knows me. Millie is a steamroller with no chance of stopping. She’s giving me hope, my chest lighter for the first time in months. The thought of walking about town anonymously, of making out with a dashing man…it fills me with joy. But it’s all false.