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Hand-feeding the prince biscuits in public?
Scandalous.
I blinked, then glanced over at Dante, who paused his eating, appearing just as surprised. I wasn’t accustomed to someone hand-feeding me food. Well, not since I had been a baby. I had to admit I was a little perplexed at the moment, almost paralyzed, as I decided my next course of action.
Grace waggled the biscuit insistently under my nose. “Come on. You’re going to love it.”
It had been far too long since I’d enjoyed a truly satisfying meal among regular people. The constraints of royal dining—multiple courses, countless pieces of cutlery, an army of hovering staff—often made eating feel more like a chore than a pleasure.
“I’m getting a cramp in my arm,” Grace said. “Live a little.”
I glanced around the bustling restaurant. Friends and families laughed over heaping plates, licking their fingers, and savoring every morsel. What must it be like to live so freely?
No scrutiny, no expectations, no pressure.
Just joy, apparently.
Grace frowned, then leaned closer and whispered, “You’re not allowed to act like a normal person or touch food with your hands and get your mouth dirty? Is this one of those royal protocol things?”
She was about to retract the piece of buttermilk biscuit away from my mouth, but I reached for her wrist to stop her.
Grace’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
I honestly found it refreshing that she talked to me like I was someone asking for directions. No titles. No pretenses.
Just two people having a bite to eat.
I leaned forward and bit the piece of buttermilk biscuit from her hand, chewing, nodding. “You’re right. That is fantastic.”
“See?” she said, smiling proudly, then reaching for a piece of chicken. “You need to loosen up.”
Maybe I did.
Diving into the food, I had launched myself into heaven as we ate in silence for a few minutes. Everything I sampled was delectable.
Grace watched me and shook her head in what appeared to be astonishment. “I never imagined a prince chugging sweet tea and chomping on fried chicken.”
“I’d hardly call that chomping,” I said, then whispered, “And I may be royalty, but I’m still a man who enjoys the simple pleasures in life.”
“Clearly,” she muttered, watching with raised eyebrows as I took a bite of the perfectly seasoned collard greens with smoked turkey.
They were so good I took several more bites, never having tasted something like this in my entire life.
Dante froze, then his eyes went wide as he tapped his mouth.
I blinked at his strange behavior, but then realized it was possible I had something on my face? Maybe some cheese from the macaroni on my nose? I grabbed my napkin and gave it a good wipe.
Dante continued to give me an awkward glance.
Then he subtly gestured to his teeth.
I started manically prodding each tooth with my tongue, desperately trying to dislodge whatever was there with what must have been an odd display of tongue acrobatics. I nodded to Grace when she looked over and pointed to my mouth to acknowledge I was fully aware of my public oral emergency and was in the process of rectifying the situation in a timely manner. But Grace must have wrongly interpreted the sign because she suddenly stuck out her tongue and probed her own teeth like a large brush at one of those American drive-thru car washes.
Was that what I looked like?
I shook my head vigorously and pointed at myself, signaling it was my issue, not hers. But Grace misinterpreted again, looking even more mortified as she felt her face for imaginary food particles. She brushed her fingers under her nose as if checking for bats in the cave, then she started swiping at her face, signaling with her hands like a catcher at a major league American baseball game.
Utterly confused, I continued to search around again with my tongue, surreptitiously making weird sucking noises as I went quadrant by quadrant searching for the runaway particle. Luckily, I finally found the leafy culprit and extracted it.
