Page 18 of The Cinderella Prince

My heart clenched, but I growledat myself and flipped the square blocks of cheese on the grill. Whatever he wanted to say about the other night, he was welcome to keep to himself. I wasn’t interested.

Except that night, when all the work was done and when I showered for bed, sleep abandoned me. Worries about the twists of fate that changed our lives on the whims of gods seeped into me. I fretted and sweated and failed to keep my eyes closed, for whenever I closed them, I sank into the depths of icy water, only to retrace all that had led us to that moment, to that bridge, to the truck driver falling asleep at that exact minute…

If something was wrong with Cedric, and if something happened because I’d been too hurt over a rejection, then I would never forgive myself. I would never be able to live with myself after.

CHAPTER 6

Lies and Truths

Cedric

Days blurred in my memory.However much I tried to remember the sequence of events, it only took three or four days for my mind to mash all of it together. If I couldn’t be sure what day it was, I could very well be certain of how tired I was throughout.

My sleep at night had never been more guaranteed. There never was any room for insomnia. My body craved the bed at the Henriette Hotel, and my head seemed to always beg for the pillow.

Mornings always came too early. Spending another minute in bed was always the most precious commodity I had in life. Many moments started to feel more important than they ever had before. Within the first week of plunging into the thick of it at Neon Nights, I moved from total certainty that the work would kill me to appreciating the minutes of calm and quiet that had once reeked of boredom.I valued my breaks and didn’t cry when Mama Viv put me to scrubbing floors or hauling crates of beer.

In morning shifts, breakfasts were as hellish as that devastating Burger Bash had been, but Millie was a feisty chef with a sharp tongue and no mercy. She also had a knack for motivating the staff. They all relegated the simpler tasks to me, but the trick was that the simpler ones were usually the same ones that involved carrying heavy things from one place to the other.

Zain Amari delivered fresh produce first thing in the morning. He was younger than any of us working at Neon Nights and had the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen. Perhaps it was the poorly concealed wonder at seeing the glitter that made the bar into what it was. Perhaps he was just a very easily dazzled person. Either way, Zain never lingered for longer than he had to, and there was a shyness to him that added a skip to his stride when he was on his way back to his father’s traditional produce store a few blocks away.

Zain’s arrival always signaled the beginning of my work. The produce he brought needed to be stacked in the particular ways the chef insisted on. If I ran out of things to do in the back, then I helped Bradley or one of the other servers to clear out the empty kegs, wash the tubes and taps, and bring in the new batches of the many beers Mama Viv served.

“Darling, you’re a far tougher nut than I’d given you credit,” the formidable drag queen told me one morning after the breakfast rush. “I owe you an apology.”

I waved my hand and shook my head. “Not at all. I owe you thanks for giving me a chance.”

“I find it odd,” Mama Viv said pointedly just as I thought the conversation was over. “You don’t look like someone who would blend in so easily and do everything they ask you to do.”

“Looks can be deceiving, Mama Viv,” I said. A drag queen should know. Mama Viv nodded deeply. Pride told me to insist that I could do more, but the truth was that my legs ached in that sweet, tired way that begged for bed and promised a sense of satisfaction at the end of a long day.

The only real trouble in my life was the looming threat of Alexander coming through the doors one day and finding me sweeping the floors. But I hadn’t turned my phone on even for a second, and I hadn’t used my card. I spent what I made, thinning the little wad of remaining savings on prolonging my stay at the Henriette. It was not a wise decision, and Mama Viv never failed to remind me that I was living beyond my means.If only you knew how far below the means I lived, I would always think and never move to withdraw more cash.

The thing I had once said to Tristan seemed to become truer with every new day. I could be independent if it came to that. I could survive without playing by my family’s rules and the centuries of tradition built by those who couldn’t have imagined what the world would look like today.

I had a point to prove to myself and my older brother. I’d include my parents in that statement had I imagined they cared enough.

Roman Lowe was one of the workers who swept in every so often to do a shift for a few dollar bills. He wore cuts and bruises the way other people wore jewelry. Scruffy and wiry, he was unmistakably defined under histight clothes, and he bristled on occasion to scare others away, but he was generally a lighthearted, fun-loving guy. And from what I gathered, he was the closest to Tristan among them all. So when Roman had a sudden interest in how exactly I was doing, I suspected Tristan was behind it.

“Seriously, dude,” Roman said on one occasion. “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask me. I know everyone around here.”

It’s either that, or he’s selling drugs, I decided, but the latter hardly fit with the justice warrior and near vigilante that he was when he clocked out.

The only odd thing about it was Tristan’s absence.

When I had taken Mama Viv’s offer, I had prepared myself for having to live with Tristan. My impression had been that Tristan used Neon Nights as his second home or that he didn’t make a distinction between the two whatsoever. I had even convinced myself of all the upsides to that.You get to apologize and make sure he knows it’s not him, I’d told myself. And then he never showed up again.

And for that reason alone, it was a surprise to see Tristan march in on Friday morning. He wore a loose, sleeveless shirt and tight shorts, visibly ready for a run. The last time I had seen him, he had been standing practically naked, and it had taken me all my strength not to fall apart right there and then. He had been gorgeous. So this morning’s look only spiced the image that lived in my memory.

“Hey,” Tristan said as soon as I turned to face him. He waved at Bradley behind the bar, but he very visibly marched toward the stage that I had been sweeping. “Got a minute?”

I blinked at him, then looked at the remaining work. “A minute,” I said.

Tristan gestured at the door leading to the hidden terrace between Neon Nights and two other buildings that closed around it.

I was reluctant to follow. Mama Viv employed me, so I could respect her telling me what to do and where to go. Tristan, however, presumed a lot. He strode away, and I found myself following while complaining about it quietly.

As I followed Tristan out of Neon Nights, I ran a mental checklist of things I needed to do. I had already accepted Zain’s delivery, stocked the fridges, swept most of the floor, and needed to wipe the tables and make sure chairs were all clean before the crowds arrived for breakfast.

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