Page 33 of Tall, Royal and Grumpy

KAI

Esmeralda walked ahead of me up the dozen or so uneven stone steps. Up to the old, mossy platform of a watchtower that had been taken down sometime in the seventh century. It sat on the far right of the stretch of land behind the forest, bordered by a black iron railing on all four sides.

“Wow.” She gasped in awe, leaning forward against the railing. “That view. It’s stunning. You can see right to the edge of Pavilion City.”

It took a second for me to focus on the view that I could usually spend hours looking at and not on her. “Hmm, it is.”

Below the edge of the land my home sat on was a view of Pavilion City that seemed to stretch right into the horizon. It was stunning, as Esmeralda had said. A picture-perfect mix of a million shades of green forests and parks between old, traditional red-brick buildings, faint streaks of roads, and the newer high-rises that didn’t take away from the skyline. They only made it sparkle with colour when the sun set behind them, something that would start happening soon.

She smiled, all glittery and awestruck, and my entire bloodstream rerouted directly and solely to my ears. “Do you come here often?”

I pulled one hand out of my coat pocket to tug at my left ear. “When I have time.”

She hummed on a nod. “What else do you do when you have time to yourself?”

“Nothing in particular. I read on occasion, check on Bucky and the horses and exercise them.”

She reached out and squished the fabric of my coat around my bicep like she was honking a horn. “And what about this? Did these muscles just magically appear out of nowhere?”

It didn’t make sense for me to feel proud that Esmeralda was pointing it out because weight training had never been for my appearance. But that’s exactly how I felt. Oddly satisfied that she’d noticed.

I couldn’t help it, I flexed. Pointlessly, because my coat was too thick for anything to be seen, but I spread my shoulders to their full breadth anyway.

I cleared my throat. “I weight train in the palace gym. Every morning. Monday to Friday. Before breakfast… I swim too.”

Her gaze snagged on the movement of my torso, lingering for a few seconds too long. She noticed I caught her looking and her cheeks warmed to a deep shade of rose pink. Fuck, she was cute.

“I see,” she uttered, her voice hitching just a bit as she turned her flushed face away.

A sweet excitement rung through my chest. Something that felt a lot like hope. Which was a shock in itself because I wasn’t even bloody sure what my own interest in her even was.

I tugged at my ear again. “What about you? What do you do when you’re free?”

Esmeralda began explaining the million things she managed to do when she had time, though her favourite was reading. At one point, I internally questioned her sanity when she said she did maths exam papers for entertainment. Otherwise, I listened to her babble off onto random tangents.

She couldn’t have been talking for more than ten, fifteen minutes when I heard the faintest sound by my right ear.

Pat.

Pat. Pat…pat…pat. Pat. Pat.

I squinted up at the grey sky as the raindrops hit my coat, cheeks, and hair repeatedly. A low growl gathered in the back of my throat as I sunk into my coat. My hoodless coat.

The weather forecast hadn’t predicted it was going to rain, so why?

I blinked. Wait, did I even check?

I stopped ransacking my brain for the memory when a fluttering laugh lifted from Esmeralda. She was holding out both of her hands before her. “It’s raining.”

Shit. She didn’t even have a coat on. Just a short jumper that wouldn’t keep her dry. Why hadn’t she bloody worn something more substantial?

“Come on.” I grabbed one of her outstretched wrists. “We have to go back now.”

“What? Why?” she complained as I dragged her to the stairs.

“Because it’s raining, and you don’t have a coat on.”

“But I like rain. And I’m not cold.”

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