Page 111 of The Prince of Broken Crowns

His gaze flits to mine. “It hurts. I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine,” I assure him, feeling like a total dumbass over my reaction.

He returns his attention to the sliver. Strands of his hair fall into his eyes, and I have the overwhelming compulsion to sweep them out of his face. Thank God, I don’t.

Moments later, he gets the sliver out.

“There you go.” He straightens as I remove my hand from his lap. He tosses the tweezers into the bag then picks up the box of cookies, grabs one, and reclines back in the seat.

I do the same thing and gaze up at the stars as I take a bite of my cookie. My mind is racing over the lingering fluttering feelings inside me. I attempt to shake them off, to no avail.

I need a distraction.

“Do you know any constellations?” I wonder as I take another bite of the cookie.

“I don’t. Noah used to …” He trails off, and when I look at him, he’s stuffing half of a cookie into his mouth.

“Do you miss him?” I angle my knees inward.

He chews for a moment. “I do. I hate that I do because it makes everything so much harder. We’ve known each other forever, though, and he, Finn, and I hung out together all the time. And then we didn’t. It almost felt like I lost a part of myself.” His dark eyes land on me. “Have you ever felt that way before?”

My chest constricts as I answer, “Truthfully, no. I’ve never really connected with anyone on that level. I loved my aunt, but she was constantly bouncing in and out of my life, so it got normalized for me.”

He brushes some crumbs off his lap. “You never had any friends you spent time with?”

“Nope. I sort of bounced around between groups, but my wanting to get out of northside wasn’t that common.” I pick at the sprinkles of the cookie. “And I mean, I get it. It’s hard to dream big when you’re constantly being kicked around and told you’re worthless. Again, another normalization.” I stretch my legs out. “I was seen as the crazy one. Even me wanting to go to college got me so many flabbergasted looks.”

He stretches out his legs, too. “Do you know what you want to be once you graduate?”

“Nope, I’m just in a general program right now, but I want to find something. I’m not very good at anything, really. Well, besides running, but that’s not a career.”

“Your grades had to be good for you to get in here.”

“My grades were great, but again, I’ve never stood out with anything.”

He smiles musingly. “You know how to hand guys their asses.”

I snicker. “True.”

“You should’ve heard Finn while we were in jail,” he tells me while bouncing his knee up and down. “He was rambling about you like you were some foreign creature.”

“I am a foreign creature,” I agree. “At least, it feels like it. I walk around here, pretending like I belong, but everyone knows I don’t. And I don’t care. Well, not entirely. But it’d be nice to belong for once, you know.”

“I actually do.” He rests his head against the back of the chair and gazes up at the stars. “I feel like, from the moment it became known that I’d be marrying Isla, I was the betrothed Averson brother. I mean, arranged marriages happen in this world, but they’re still rare enough that you become kind of like a circus freak. It didn’t help that my father had a scandalous affair and the entire city wanted to read about it.” He rolls his eyes. “There’s always a story about my family that’s plastered all over the headlines. Like when I got released from jail and the paparazzi were waiting. My father found out, and it was a disaster.”

“Jesus,” I mutter. “I love my privacy. I have no idea how I’d live like that.”

“It sucks,” he agrees, lifting his head and sitting up straight. “If I ever got out of this arranged marriage, I’d move somewhere where no one knew who I was.”

“See? You do think about your future sometimes.” I devour the rest of my cookie then prop my arms on the armrest between us. “So, what would you do in this alternative life?”

He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “This is a dangerous road you’re making me go down,” he says with a tight smile. “It’ll make me dream of things I can’t have.”

“Dreams can’t come true unless you dream them,” I point out.

“All right, I’ll play.” He considers this. “I think maybe something in sports, like a coach or maybe a physical therapist.”

My lips curve upward. “I could see you as a coach.”

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