“I’m sure you cared.”
“Umm...no.”
I laughed. “You couldn’t have been heartless!”
“When I would break something or get in trouble, I would always look at how I could blame Arthur. And he just enabled me by taking the blame.”
“Why do you all do that? You younger siblings are the worst. I feel for your brother now.”
He laughed.
We spoke until after the sun came up. And before I knew it, my eyes felt heavy, and my mind was full of nothing but his voice.
“Go to sleep,” he whispered.
“I’m not sleepy.” I yawned.
“Yes, it definitely sounds that way.”
“Fine. Thank you for talking to me.”
“I did not do it for free.”
“What did you do it for then?”
“Lunch or dinner, either one, it does not matter. Just spend whatever is left of the day with me on a date.”
Cheesy.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Goodbye!”
“Goodbye,” he said back.
“I’m waiting for you to hang up,” I said to him. Why was I having such a hard time hanging up?
“It is rude to hang up on a woman.”
“Really?”
“Oh, dear God.” He gasped suddenly.
“What?” My eyes popped opened.
“My sister forced me to watch a movie like this once. The two of them argued over hanging up for at least three minutes. I became so annoyed, and I said, who acts that way in real life? And my sister said people who like each other.”
I was very much awake now. “Is that your way of saying you like me again?”
“No, I am saying we like each other.”
I could see the smirk on his lips in my mind. “Do not confess my feelings for me. I will do that myself.”
“Then I will confess mine. I like you, Odette Rochelle Wyntor.”
I didn’t reply.
He sighed. “I guess I overplayed my hand—”
“I like you, too, Gale with too many middle names for me to say right now.”
He roared with laughter. “Now, was that so hard?”
“Bye!” I snapped, hanging up on him. I rolled over, grabbing the sheets, and put the pillow over my head.
Was I turning into a sixteen-year-old girl with crush all over again?
Yes. I think I was.
“I can’t believe you are still wearing that.” I pointed to the wig on his head when he came to pick me up that afternoon.
“What, are you jealous?” he questioned, flicking the hair over his shoulder.
“Yes. That’s it exactly.” I laughed, closing the door behind me as I came down the stairs, but I didn’t notice the black ice and slipped. I tensed, stretching out my hands to catch myself. However, two large arms wrapped around me and held me still.
“Are you all right?” His deep voice was directly at my ear and made me shiver much more than the cold.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“It is not funny when you are the one slipping, now is it?” he replied, letting me go slowly, and I remembered snickering at him last night.
“You can hold a grudge.”
He nodded. “Yes, and for years. So, do not break my heart, Ms. Wyntor, or I will never forgive you.”
First, my mom, and now him. Since when was I a heartbreaker? He was the one standing in front of me as if he had walked off the pages of a GQ cover shoot. From his coffee-colored, wool coat to his white sweater and suede shoes. It made me wonder if he put attention on how he dressed or if this was casual for him. Meanwhile, I was just wearing a long sweaterdress and coat.
“The real reason I am stuck with this wig is Iskandar would refuse to let us out if I did not wear it,” he said as Iskandar held open the door for us.
“You were recognized, sir. We must be careful,” Iskandar said to him. “Good afternoon, miss.”
“Didn’t I tell you that you can call me Odette?”
“Yes, miss,” he said again.
“He’s a stickler for the rules,” Gale said as I got into the car.
I waited for him to get into the car before asking, “What rule says he can’t call me by my name?”
“He has apparently concluded that you will be my wife, so calling you Odette would be the same as calling me Gale. It is too personal,” he explained.
“Yeah, us guards and palace workers can only call you miss, ma’am, or Your Highness,” Wolfgang interjected from behind the steering wheel, which made both Gale and Iskandar look at him.
However, funnily enough, Iskandar looked more annoyed than Gale did. Iskandar began to speak but only to Wolfgang. His tone, the glare, and how Wolfgang sat up straighter told me he was definitely in trouble.
“Sometimes, I feel bad for the kid.” Gale snickered, whispering to me, “Wolfgang knows the rules, but he gets so excited that he forgets himself. Each time he does, Iskandar the Rock tells him the page of the rule book he is breaking.”
I sat up to see, but he didn’t have a book on hand, and I then realized. “He memorized all the rules, by pages?”
Gale nodded. “He graduated first in his military class. He is the fifth generation of his family to do so. To people like him, the royal protocol and family are a religion. As playful as I am, I never tell him to forgo protocol. It would be like telling the Pope to stop quoting scripture.”
Was the whole nation loyal like that?
Would I be able to live in that type of world?
I wanted to experience a normal date, and there was nothing more normal than going to the movies. I had it all thought out. She would pick some sad, romantic woman’s film. We would hold hands, and I would try to distract her a bit. However, the moment she chose some Stephen King horror film, I instantly regretted my decision to come.
“Enjoy your movie,” the lady said from behind the counter.
“Thank you!” Odette said happily, turning back to me.
I smiled, trying not to give away the fact that I hated horror movies with a passion. “Do you want popcorn?” I asked her.
“They sell kettle corn.” Her eyebrows wiggled with excitement, which helped defuse the tensions in my shoulders.
Instead of worrying about the movie, I focused on the fact that American food sizes made no sense to me. Odette clearly said a medium, and yet they gave her a bucket the size of her head.
“This is a medium?” I questioned.
“Yeah? Do you want a large?” she asked in return, clearly not understanding what I meant.
“If this is a medium, what does a large look like? Do they give you the machine?”
She glanced down at the bucket and then chuckled. “Sometimes, I forget you’re from Europe. Everything is so small there.”
“No, everything is proportional there.”
“Dude, are you getting the popcorn or not?” Some teenager asked, bored with me, reminding me of the customs agent when I first came here.
“We will just share. Can I get a Sprite also? Do you want one?”
“Yes, thank you...” my voice trailed off as I saw the massive cup they put the drink in. All I could do was look at her.
“Stop judging us. See, this is why Americans feel like you are all stuck up.” She giggled.