“You’ve talked to Sam recently? How’s she doing?” Jeff asked, concerned.
“She’s been better, I think.” Nina decided to change the subject. She had no desire to get into all the complications of Sam and Marshall’s relationship, not with Jeff. It hit too close to home. “You’ve been busy. I saw you had another few events this week.” Jeff had been all over the papers lately, playing catch with the students at an elementary school, unveiling a new statue in John Jay Park.
He shrugged. “I’m just glad to be useful to the monarchy for once.”
Nina’s chest ached at those words, and she paused in the doorway to Sam’s sitting room. “Jeff, you have always been useful to the monarchy.”
“Sure, as comic relief,” he said easily. “When my family needed someone to go to a dive bar and play darts with the locals, or hand out the trophy on the PGA tour, or salsa dance with the Princess of Mexico, I was the one they called in.”
“You are a good dancer. Remember that time at the beach house when you danced so hard, you literally danced yourself into the pool?” Nina reminded him, striving for levity.
He chuckled. “I’m lucky none of you got that on camera. Otherwise it would have become a GIF I could never escape.”
“It would top all those ‘Ten Reasons We’re in Love with Prince Jefferson’ lists.” Nina instantly felt weird; why had she said love to Jeff? Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice.
“Anyway, I recently met with a few military aides about an upcoming event, and it made me wonder if I should get more involved,” he went on.
“As a military liaison?”
“I was thinking more like active service.”
Nina blinked. Jeff was still talking, saying how the men in his family had traditionally served in the armed forces, that he would probably enter training after he graduated.
“Jeff. That sounds dangerous,” she squeaked. “You could be hurt!”
“So could everyone who enlists in the army. It’s a risk I’m willing to sign on for.”
Nina was startled by the seriousness in his voice. It was a tone she’d never heard from Jeff before.
She looked up at him—and while she still saw echoes of the boy he’d been, mischievous and playful and spontaneous and warm, she also saw the man he was becoming.
“Anyway, it wouldn’t be for another few years. These things always take time,” he explained.
Nina’s throat closed up. She should tell him how proud she was, and afraid—that she cared about him too much to let him step into harm’s way. But before she could articulate any of that, he smiled.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to unload on you. I just…” He hesitated. “There aren’t many people I can talk about this kind of thing with.”
Of course. People were always flocking to Jeff, but they didn’t actually want a real conversation. They had no interest in his worries or fears or plans for the future. They wanted a breezy, three-minute exchange—wanted him to crack a joke, chat about sports or a party—and then they wanted to move on, so they could tell everyone for the rest of their lives that they’d met a prince. They wanted a piece of him. They had no desire to get to know him.
He was constantly surrounded by people, yet it had to be lonely.
“I’m always here if you need to talk,” she promised.
“I know you are.”
Nina wasn’t sure how to reply to that, so she didn’t. She and Jeff seemed to linger in the silence, to dwell in it, as if it were drawing them closer to each other.
“Anyway,” he said at last, “tell me about this party that’s so formal you need to borrow a dress of Sam’s. Why am I not going?”
“You are going. It’s Gabriella’s birthday party.” Nina disappeared into Sam’s closet, emerging a moment later with the dress Sam had mentioned, a short fuchsia thing with lace that spilled over its off-the-shoulder neckline.
“Oh good, I’m glad you’ll be there,” Jeff said excitedly. “Though I have to admit, I didn’t know that you and Gabriella are friends.”
Nina quickly shook her head. “We’re not. Daphne invited me, actually.” She tried to sound offhand, but her voice betrayed her.
Jeff beamed. “That’s awesome! I was so glad when Daphne asked for your number; I’ve always thought the two of you would get along. You’re actually more like Daphne than like Sam.”
“I don’t think so,” Nina said faintly.
“You’re both so smart, and organized, and independent. Sam…” He shook his head. “She’s way more a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type than a plan-ahead type.”
Nina forced herself to smile. “Maybe you’re right. Daphne and I really bonded at the library event.” Over our mutual hatred of Gabriella.
They headed downstairs; Jeff was still at her side, clearly determined to walk Nina back to her car. When they passed one of the sitting rooms, he paused. “Remember when we used to come in here to duel?”
“Of course I remember. We pretended that we were pirates.”
“Or revolutionaries fighting George III, or King Benjamin at war with the Spanish.”
Jeff walked over to the wall, where rows of épées, their points dulled with rubber tips for safety, hung on wooden plaques. He grabbed two and handed one to Nina. “Let’s see if you’ve still got it.”
“Right now?”
“Scared you’ve lost your touch?”
“Not a chance.”
Nina hung Sam’s dress over the back of a couch, then turned to face Jeff. It had been years since she’d done this, yet her body slid instinctively into fencing position: her left hand tucked behind her waist, her right foot forward.
Jeff lunged forward. “Take that, you British scoundrel!” he cried out, just as he used to when they were kids.
Their blades met with a resounding crack as Nina parried his blow. “Why am I the British in this scenario?”
“I figured you’d rather be British than a pirate,” Jeff breathed, whirling aside.
“You thought wrong!” Nina clambered onto an ottoman, then jumped off when it creaked dangerously beneath her weight. She and Jeff were still slashing at each other with unabashed enthusiasm. “I’ll show you, you plague sore, you moldy rogue!”
He stumbled at that. “Moldy what?”
“I’m in a class on Shakespearean dramas right now. No one knew how to insult like Shakespeare.”