Page 55 of Royal Crush

“Humor me.”

He sucked in air through his nose, then gave a little puff. Sugar hit me in the face, filtering up my nostrils and making the back of my throat taste sweet. I grinned at him as I broke it in half and peeled away the paper.

“Mm. Thank you, but I don’t chew gum.”

I normally didn’t either. I hadn’t in years, but now was a good time to give it a try. I spit the Ninja Turtle gum into thewrapper and popped the gum cigarette in my mouth. It was hard as a rock, but the taste was worth it. It was every moment I’d ever been allowed to feel like a child—which had been so few and so fucking far between.

Instead of turning back around, I rested my forearms on his thighs and leaned against him. His chair rocked back a fraction against the brakes, and he met my gaze. I had a feeling no one did this with him. I doubted anyone had ever been allowed, and I had no idea why I was now.

“Can I see your apartment?”

“No.”

He looked hurt

“There’s no working elevator, and I’m not going to be the dickhead who leaves your chair downstairs and carries you.”

His expression softened. “I trust you.”

“Enough to carry you, but not enough to get the right kind of ice cream?” I asked with the hint of a smile.

He blinked, then burst into laughter. It was lighter than I’d heard it before. Freer. His eyes crinkled in the corners, and somewhere beneath all his fucking pomp and circumstance, I heard the man who was himself without title or past.

“Exactly.” He sobered after a few more giggles, then lifted a hand and hesitated before laying it against the side of my neck. “I want to see where you live.”

“It’s shit, Camillo. And I mean that. It’s clean, but there’s nothing nice about it. The grout has mold stains, and I never clean the baseboards. And I think there’s, like, four days’ worth of dishes in my sink.”

“I can do dishes.”

“First of all, the prince of fucking Caverna is not doing my washing up. Secondly, do you actually know how to wash dishes?”

He didn’t look upset. He probably got those questions all the time. “My mom wanted me and my brother to be able to do things. She knew life for us would be…weird. We’d always have a cleaning staff, and we’d be raised by nannies more than her. And everyone would know our faces all the time. I think she wanted to know that she could create a few tiny parts of us that were normal.”

“So, dishes?”

He shrugged and stroked the side of my neck with his thumb and didn’t stop when I leaned into it. “And laundry. Every Thursday, I’d come home to an unfolded pile of laundry on my bed, and I had to put it all away before I was allowed to turn on the TV.”

“Harsh.”

He laughed, softly this time. “It taught me that I was very particular about how things are hung up.”

“I barely have a closet. Also, I never fold anything.”

He looked affronted.

“What? I don’t. It’s not worth it. I bought this super-cheap portable steamer online, and I just give everything a de-wrinkle before I have to leave. Everything else just gets dumped in a drawer.”

“I—” He stopped and shook his head.

“What?”

“I want to see it.”

I glanced over my shoulder. I could just make out my front door from where we were sitting. “Will Cillian murder you if we walk?”

Camillo sighed. “He won’t know. And no. I’m allowed to do things. I haven’t had death threats against me in years, and I think a lot of people have forgotten who I am.”

My gut twisted, and I sat up a little higher on my knees. “You know that’s going to change, right? If this show is a success.It’s going to be like the accident all over again when it was all anyone wanted to talk about.” I vaguely remembered when it hit the press, but Camillo and I were nearly the same age, and I was deep, deep in a hole of my own destruction then.

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