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And it’s not satisfying at all, like I thought it would be to see Royal Dutton knocked down a peg.
“Royal.”
“What are you doing here?” His eyes scan over me, sending unexplainable heat through my body before his eyes settle on my face.
“Thought you might want to get dinner.”
“I just want to get some sleep, Soren.” He looks so damn downtrodden, and I can’t take it.
“It was a good weekend, Royal. We should celebrate.”
He shakes his head. “Good? It was terrible. I’m sure your fans are thrilled about how damn bad I raced this weekend.”
I frown because he’s probably not wrong, and I have absolutely no delight. “You finished fourth today. Do you know how incredible that is?”
“Fourth is not first.”
I huff and roll my eyes at that, wrapping my hand around his wrist and pulling. “That’s it. I cannot take sad sack Royal. This is pathetic. We’re going to dinner.” He doesn’t fight me as I yank him into the hallway—even though I know there’s no way I’d have been able to if he didn’t let me—and the door closes.
“Where are we going?” he asks, annoyance in his tone.
“Somewhere we can walk. You need to walk off this weird sad shit you’ve got going on. It’s not you.”
“You don’t know me,” he says as we head toward the elevator.
“I know you’re terrified of heights,” I shoot back, and I swear I see a hint of a smile move across his lips.
There we go.
He rolls his eyes, but the amusement is there, and I’ll take it. We walk to a nearby restaurant and are seated by the hostess before we scan over the menus. Royal is still quiet, which is unsettling.
But it’s my job to make people talk. I can do this. Even if I don’t quite understand why I’m working so damn hard at it.
Before I can ask anything, though, our waiter approaches with a friendly smile on his face. He’s young and good-looking. But when his eyes light up, I know instantly he recognizes one or both of us. “Oh my God, you’re Soren Adams!”
Okay, it’s me. It’s really not all that rare, but it is kind of odd when I’m sitting with a professional racer. “Hi,” I say dumbly, and I feel Royal’s eyes on me. “I am.”
“I knew it.” The waiter looks like his eyes might pop right out of his head, and I can’t believe he hasn’t even taken a second look at Royal. “Oh my God. I’m a huge fan. I follow you like, everywhere. I live for your Insta lives! I can’t believe you’re here. What brings you to Bristol?”
I nod in the direction of Royal, who’s still watching me. “Race this weekend.”
“Oh, that’s right.” He waves that off, not looking at Royal. “I don’t really follow racing. I mean, it’s just going round and round in circles for hours. I don’t get it.”
“Yeah sure, that’s all it is,” Royal says, his tone pissy.
Finally, our waiter seems to notice Royal, his eyes turning to him, and his cheeks pink a little. He must recognize Royal now, but probably more for his bad-boy persona and the constant gossip about him. “Sorry about that. I’m sure it takes a lot of skill,Mr....?”
Yeah, he just knows him as the hot guy who gets into trouble a lot.
“Royal,” I say, and the waiter’s eyes move to me. “Royal Dutton. He’s a damn good racer and has a lot of talent.”
My cheeks heat as I once again feel Royal’s gaze on my face, but I stay focused on the waiter. “I can’t believe you’re here with him. I saw you were interviewing that hot racer from the underwear ads...” He looks sheepish for a moment and glances at Royal. “Sorry, that’s how I know you and didn’t really catch your name.”
Royal grimaces but doesn’t say anything, and I just want to order food and work on getting him out of his shell again. I want to hear him make a joke about filling out the underwear nicely—which he does, by the way—or anything, but instead, he just sits there quietly.
“Anyway...” The waiter must sense his mood and turns his attention back to me. “You’re really here. I thought for sure you’d go back to focusing on football. I mean, it’s in full swing now.”
I cringe at that and shake my head, my throat suddenly going dry as I think about football and the reasons I stopped covering the sport as much. “I needed a change.”
