Page 32 of American Queen (New Camelot Trilogy 1)
I’d been home frequently to visit Grandpa, but something about that summer felt different. Maybe it was the ten solid weeks in America looming ahead of me or maybe it was the fact that Grandpa was traveling for work and I had the Manhattan penthouse mostly to myself, but I felt displaced and lonely. So when Grandpa invited Abilene and me out to Chicago to stay with him while he worked on his latest green energy acquisition, I jumped at the chance, finding a flight the very next day.
My plane landed at the same time as Abilene’s, and when we met each other, we fairly collided into an embrace, jumping up and down.
“My God,” Abilene said, pulling back, “you finally figured out how to do your own makeup.”
“Nice to see you too,” I teased.
She smiled, her eyes flicking from my hair to my bright pink dress, but there was a new shadow in her smile.
She’s jealous of you.
I shook the thought away. She looked gorgeous in her short shorts and halter-top, hair glossy and red, and her pale shoulders smattered with freckles. That old fight couldn’t reach us here, now, not when we hadn’t seen each other in so long and had an entire week to spend together. I slung my arm around her shoulders, having to reach up as I did so since she was a few inches taller than me, and squeezed her into my side. “I missed you, Abi,” I said. “I wish we were going to the same school.”
Abilene rolled her eyes but put her arm over my shoulders too. “If you want that, you’re going to have to come to Vanderbilt. There’s no way I can handle another rainy summer in England.”
“Girls,” Grandpa Leo greeted fondly as we walked into the penthouse suite after a sweltering drive from the airport to the hotel.
We ran to him and hugged him like we were seven years old instead of twenty, exclaiming over his bald head and bushy beard and thin face.
“You need to eat more, Grandpa!”
“You need to shave!”
He waved us off like we were fussy saleswomen. “I’m fine. And I hear that the beard thing is in for women right now. Is that not true?”
Abilene and I wrinkled our noses and he laughed. “Well, never mind then. Consider it shaved. I have to head out for lunch with some old friends—do you girls want to tag along?”
“I’m going to take a nap,” Abilene declared. She flopped dramatically onto the hotel suite’s couch, as if she’d been traveling all day instead of riding on a plane for an hour.
Grandpa looked over at me. “Well, Greer? You know I always like to have you and your eyes with me at these kinds of things.”
I was tempted to stay at the hotel too, but I knew Abilene would make good on her threat to nap, and I had no desire to knock around more empty rooms alone. It’s why I came to America for the summer, after all, for conversation and connection, and as much as I wanted to spend time with my cousin, I wanted to escape my thoughts more.
“Of course I’ll come,” I said.
Grandpa beamed at me. “I’ll grab my briefcase and then we can go.”
Abilene pretended to snore, and when I went over to give her a hug goodbye, she kept her eyes closed in fake-sleep. “Don’t get into any trouble without me,” she said. Her long dark eyelashes rested prettily on her freckled cheeks, a ginger Sleeping Beauty.
I poked at her side. “You are pretty much the only reason I’ve ever been in trouble.”
She smiled then, a cat’s smile, eyes still closed. “That’s what I’m saying—I want to be there for any trouble you find.”
“At a lunch with Grandpa? Hardly likely.”
She yawned for real, settling on her side. “Still, though. Share any cute boys you meet.”
Lunch was at a well-lit, modern cafe inside the Chicago Art Institute, and it was the usual handful of politicians and businesspeople discussing election cycles and policy. Grandpa Leo, sober for thirty years, automatically slid me the wine the waiter poured for him without asking.
I listened politely, white wine bright and crisp on my tongue, watching everyone’s faces and gauging their tones, dutifully recording mental notes to report to Grandpa later. Half my mind had already drifted back to Cambridge, back to the classes I’d enrolled in for the next session, back to the beaten, dog-eared books stacked next to my air mattress in my grimy little flat.
Until I heard Merlin’s name from someone at the table.
My head snapped up in alarm, and sure enough, Merlin Rhys himself was strolling up to the table, tall and dark-eyed and clean-shaven, his expression open and more amiable than I’d ever seen it. Until his gaze slid over to me, that is, and then the openness faded, leaving something tiredly resigned in the lines of his face. I could see it clear as day: he hadn’t known I’d be here and he didn’t want me here, for whatever reason.
I ducked my head with embarrassment, even though I’d done nothing wrong.
Why didn’t I stay at the hotel? I berated myself. If I’d known for one second that Merlin would show up…
