Maya: HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEWS???
Maya: You are SO in the clear after this.
Maya: SQUEE! Call me NOW!
Maya: Or like…at a decent hour if you get this after two a.m. my time.
Maya: I promised I’d meet my mother at church tomorrow. I have to catch the train to Jersey at the ass crack of dawn, even though Deedee and I were out dancing until one.
Maya: But OMG, we had so much fun, Em! We have to go dancing as soon as you get back.
Maya: Or maybe I’ll fly over and we can go dancing in London on New Year’s Eve!!! Doesn’t that sound amazing?!
Maya: God, life feels so…alive right now!
Maya: It’s probably the champagne. And I’ll probably regret it tomorrow. Or…today. Shit, I have to be up in five hours!
Maya: Okay, scrap calling me, just text when you’re awake. I’ll have my cell on silent so it won’t disturb my beauty sleep.
Maya: Love you, bye!
Maya: And congrats again!!!
“Congrats?” I mumble with a frown. “On what, you maniac?”
But I should know better than to expect clarity from drunk Maya. She rarely parties, but when she does, she hardy parties.
She really should have known better than to promise she’d go to church with her mom after a Saturday night on the town.
Sending her “no hangover” vibes across the ocean, I tap back to the main message screen, hoping my other texts will be more illuminating.
But the missive from my mother—“Oh, honey, can you believe this? What’s happening to the royals these days? Are they on drugs? You aren’t on drugs, are you, sweetheart? Have you met the prince? Is he well? Mentally? Text me when you wake up.”—only give me a slightly clearer picture.
“Something about the prince,” I murmur, keeping that in mind for googling purposes as I check to see what Isabelle’s had to say.
Isabelle: OMG I’M DYING!! This is so much more embarrassing than anything you and Oliver have done. Like, ten times more embarrassing. Maybe a hundred. Is that man okay?
Isabelle: Seriously, is he okay?
Isabelle: Have you met him?
Isabelle: I mean, you know I’ve always thought he was crazy hot. And he’s still hot, but that was…weird. He might be having some kind of breakdown. Should Oliver check on him, do you think? If they’re friends?
Isabelle: Are they friends? If so, I NEED YOU TO INTRODUCE ME, EMILY! ASAP. I mean, yes, I’m engaged, but I had SUCH a crush on him growing up.
Isabelle: Is it mortifying that I had posters of a man who’s distantly related to your boyfriend all over my bedroom as a teenager? Probably, right? Don’t tell Oliver, okay? Just in case. Anyway, I hope you’re having a great weekend! Call me when you get these. And good luck at the Fletchers’ pitch tomorrow!! I’ll be rooting for you.
I’m putting the pieces together—this must be about Prince Ronan, first in line to the throne, and my sister’s one and only childhood crush—when Oliver mumbles against my shoulder, “What’s up, buttercup? You’re tense.”
“I woke up to a bunch of texts and thought we were in trouble again,” I say, opening a search window and typing fast, “but it looks like…”
I trail off as the results load.
“Oh my,” I mutter, my eyes going wide. “Oh my God…”
“What? What’s happened?” Olly sits up, peeking over my shoulder at the screen. “Oh, fuck.” He chuckles as I scroll down a page of truly wild photos. “What the hell was Ronan smoking last night?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, clicking on another headline—PRINCE IN BEASTLY SCANDAL: Ronan’s Midnight Ride Shocks the Nation. “But it must have been something serious. Wait, it looks like there’s video.”
