Her phone buzzed, and Sam yanked off a glove to fumble in her bag. She expected a text from Nina, who kept reminding Sam that she was welcome back in the dorm room anytime, no matter how often Sam kept assuring her that she was happy here.
When she saw the name on the screen, her heart skipped. It was Marshall: Heading back from the beach, call you in twenty?
Sam liked the message, only to pause when she noticed the news alerts on her home screen. Most of them were coverage of Daphne and Jeff’s engagement party.
“You okay?” Liam asked, watching her.
Sam had slowed to a stop. A gossiping group of friends passed them, and then a couple holding hands, but none of them paid her any notice; they were too absorbed in each other or in navigating through the cold.
“My brother and Daphne had a big engagement party tonight. I wasn’t included, obviously,” Sam explained.
Liam huffed sympathetically. “Have you tried talking to him since that day at the palace?”
“I’ve called Jeff and Beatrice a few times, but they never pick up. And when I text they send awkward responses.” Sam laughed hollowly. “When I asked Jeff if I could come over, he replied, ‘Things are a little hectic right now, sorry I haven’t replied sooner.’ It’s like I was a bad date and he’s trying to ghost me!” she exclaimed. “Then he told me again to go to Grandma Billie’s.”
“Okay, I have to ask,” Liam chimed in. “Why do you call her Grandma Billie?”
“Her name is Wilhelmina. Billie is a logical nickname.”
“Right,” he agreed, in a tone that made Sam want to smile.
She couldn’t go to her grandmother’s house, no matter how much easier it would make things for her family. Now more than ever, she needed to prove that she could stand on her own two feet. She wasn’t just some spoiled princess who’d run away to Hawaii when things got tough. She would stick around, even if her family didn’t want her, even if it felt difficult. Because that was what you did for people you loved: you stayed with them through the good and the bad.
She expected Liam to change the subject, but his next question surprised her.
“What’s it like having a twin?”
Sam thought about it for a long moment, considering. “It used to be simple.”
When she and Jeff were children, they had done everything as a unit, had shared the same tutors and the same friends and played in the same coed soccer league. They ate the same snacks, buying peanut butter crackers and passing the bag back and forth wordlessly between them. When they were very little, even their clothes had matched, everything color-coordinated or monogrammed.
“I once met identical twins who told me that having a twin was like looking in a mirror all the time,” Sam said slowly. “For years I felt like that with Jeff. Not physically, of course, but Jeff and I…we lived the same experience. And now that’s changed.”
At some point their paths had parted ways. Jeff was getting married and Sam was cut out of the family, and she didn’t know what to do without the easy camaraderie she had once taken for granted.
“Don’t you think it’s a good thing that you’re becoming your own people?” Liam asked. “That’s the whole point of growing up, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. But a good thing can still hurt.”
Samantha had always assumed she would have Jeff to lean on, to prop her up. He was the person she had marched into this life with, the two of them tangled together from the very beginning. She had never imagined circumstances that might break her bond with her twin—yet those circumstances had arisen anyway. And it was her fault.
Sam cleared her throat. “What about you and your brother? Are you alike?”
“Not at all. Parker is so detail-oriented and serious; he’s nothing like me. Like my parents, he’s a tax accountant,” Liam added ruefully. “You’ll see when you meet him.”
The promise implicit in that statement brought an unexpected smile to her face.
They headed through the back door and paused in the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I could make us something,” Liam offered, leaning against the counter.
Before Sam could reply, her phone buzzed with an incoming call. Marshall.
“Sorry,” she called out, already kicking off her heels and running into the hall. “It’s my boyfriend!”
“Okay, um, see you later,” Liam replied, a little awkwardly.
Sam flung herself into her room, lifting the phone to her ear. “Marshall! I’m so glad you called!”
“Hey, Sam. How are you?”
The mere sound of his voice curled around her like a quilt, soothing and steadying. She sat back onto the air mattress and closed her eyes, wishing he’d gotten a smartphone so that they could chat on video. More than anything, she longed to see the emotions darting over his face.
“I’m okay.” Suddenly the force of it all crashed over her, and she let out a breath. “Jeff and Daphne had a big engagement party tonight, and I couldn’t go.”
She heard a rustling sound on the other end of the line and wondered if Marshall was getting undressed. Or maybe he’d already showered and was pulling a clean shirt on, then falling backward onto the bed…
“Sam, you wouldn’t have liked that party anyway,” he said gently.
“It’s my brother’s engagement party!”
“It’s a stuffy state occasion,” Marshall insisted. “Jeff and Daphne probably didn’t get to invite many of their real friends. That ballroom was packed with people they had to include, judges and nobility and whoever else is on the palace’s list. As for you…” She could almost see him shrug. “America has never had a former princess before. There’s no precedent for this.”
“I hate when you’re reasonable,” Sam joked, but he had cheered her up, at least a little.
“I’m guessing your night was more fun than if you’d been at that party. What did you do, anyway?”
Sam bit her lip; she hadn’t yet told Marshall about her job at Enclave, or about living at Liam’s. She hadn’t meant to be deceitful. It was just so hard to get him on the phone—they’d only talked a couple of times in the past week—and whenever she did get to hear his voice, she’d found an excuse not to bring it up.
But now that it looked like she was crashing here indefinitely, she needed to tell him everything.
“I actually tended bar tonight,” she admitted. “At a club on the east side.”
Marshall chuckled. “Good one, Sam.”