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The phone rings. Once, twice, three times.
My stomach drops.
But then, “Frederick?” My mum’s voice is tight with concern. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t. I was sitting here at the kitchen table drinking my tea and missing you. I thought I dreamed your call into being.”
There’s a smile in her tone now that it’s relaxed. It’s just like Mum, and suddenly, my insides ache with what I’m about to tell her. How will she feel about me moving so far away?
“You’re sure you’re all right? You never call this early.”
“Yes, Mum.” My eyes catch Chloe again, her hair spinning out and afire as she dances under the lights. “More than fine, actually.”
“Oh?” There’s a muffled sound on the other line. “Hang on, your father’s just shuffled into the kitchen. I’m putting you on speaker.”
Talking to Mum is one thing. To my father? This conversation just reached epic proportions. But it has to happen, for all our sakes, and it might as well happen now. “Hey, Dad.”
“Frederick?”
I can picture him, his bed-head hair slightly askew, more than grown out from his military and advisor days, as he lowers himself slowly into a wooden chair in their tiny kitchen.
“It’s me.”
He harrumphs in that way of his—the one where you never know if he’s agreeing with you or disapproving.
“Where are you?” Mum asks. “I hear music and laughter.”
“That’s a funny story, actually. I’m at Topher and Lauren’s wedding.”
“I thought that wasn’t until next month,” Dad says.
“Chloe got this crazy idea to throw them a surprise non-official wedding in a small town in California, actually. She executed the whole thing and got the townspeople involved. It was brilliant to watch.” I pause, swallow. “She’sbrilliant.”
There’s no response from my parents for a few long moments. Then, Mum says, “She’s beautiful too, don’t you think?”
“Mara!” my dad grunts. “She’s the princess. That’s inappropriate.”
“Well, she is. Intelligent too. And kind. And Frederick has eyes. Plus, she’s more of his best friend’s sister than she is the princess as far as he’s concerned.”
I smile. My parents bicker in the most amusing way.
“That’s not what her father would say if he heard you talking like that.”
I wince at the truth in my father’s words. But the king and his opinions are a problem I don’t have the capacity to deal with right now. “Mum, Dad. Can I just …” Oh, I can’t sit here any longer, the pent-up energy roiling inside of me. So I stand and hurry off to the edge of the clearing. “I need to tell you something.”
“What’s happened?” My father’s tone turns sharp, suspicious. Not of me, but of anything outside of his knowledge and control. Which, let’s face it, has been everything as of late.
“Nothing.” I pace. “And everything.”
“We’re listening, dear.” Mum uses her soothing tone, the one reserved for Father when he’s in one of his fits of frustration. She’s got a pitch for every one of his moods, and knows him so well that I think it’s just natural for her to bust them out without thinking. “Go on.”
There’s so much to tell them, but I start at the beginning. “I never wanted to be a bodyguard.”
I wait for shock and outrage, but there’s only silence. So I go on. “I only did it because Dad wanted it so badly. And because I knew that Matthew …” My voice breaks, but I plow on. “That Matthew wasn’t here to carry on the tradition of serving the crown. And of course, he would have been a brilliant advisor. He would have served proudly, so how could I do any less in his absence? If I’d had my way, I would have stayed in the armed forces or taken a year off to travel the globe or, I don’t know, done something super bizarre and gotten a job in tourism. Something outdoors.”
“You never said.” That’s Mum, and she sounds sad.
