Page 26 of Royal Rising

I ignore the sarcasm. “The day after I finally master the clutch, Bob gives me the keys and sends me out to practice with Edie. She was so cute back then.” For a moment I’m caught in the past, sixteen-year-old me trying so hard to impress Edie, the onegirl in town who didn’t give a damn about me or my family. She knew who she was and refused to bow to anything or anyone.

“Have you seen her lately?” Dillon demands. “She’s still really cute.”

“Got a crush, do you, Dillon?”

“You’d be an idiot if you didn’t. She’s a good woman, one of the best.”

“She reminds me of my mother,” I say suddenly. “In a good way. Not a… creepy way.”

“I figured it was the good way. How does she remind you of your mom?”

Dillon wasn’t working security when Mom had the accident, but people talk about her enough, so he could imagine what she was like.

Except for me. I don’t talk about her. But something about the rain and the castle looming ahead of us brings it out of me. “She was smart, with all these different interests,” I begin. “She was into everything we were, but more. She’s the reason Odin got into the heritage stuff, got me coaching to give back. She’d set up daily breakfasts for kids at the schools, actually went in to do some counselling because that’s who she was. She worked as a therapist before they got married.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dillon says quietly.

“Yeah. Yeah, she was amazing. She didn’t take any crap from anybody, just like Edie. Did you see her wade into that fight last night?” I shake my head. “Fearless. My mother was like that. She stood up to Dad about a couple of things, and she’d bring him back to the real world when he’d start getting too big for himself. Edie does that for me, too. Plus, Mom loved that Edie called DadMaggot by accident when she was a little girl, and kept calling him that. It was awesome. King Maggot.”

I laugh quietly to myself, the memory still funny, but like a lot of things about Mom, it’s taken on a tinge of sadness, like one of those Instagram filters that turns the picture blue.

“Anyway,” I pull myself back and continue. “That day, Bob gave me the keys and sent us out. We were driving on one of the roads behind the castle, out toward the farms, in the middle of nowhere; I was driving and there was this huge turtle on the side of the road.”

Dillon peers out the window. “I see no turtles. You may proceed.”

“I didn’t know what it was, but Edie started yelling about turtles, and I don’t know, I panicked because I thought I was going to hit one. I swerved, hit the shoulder, hit the other shoulder, and then the ditch. I landed us in the ditch.”

“Always a great way to impress a girl.”

“Tell me about it. We weren’t hurt but I had no clue how to get the truck out of there. Edie was so calm and pushed me out and just drove it out. I was freaking because I knew Mom was going to tell me to stand down and not let me drive at all because of the other stuff, but we got home and Edie stepped up and in this voice—I swear she sounded just like my mother—told Bruce and my mother thatshewas driving. She wouldn’t let me say it was me. Shot down all my arguments, and that was that.”

Dillon grins. “Sounds like an Edie thing to do.”

“It was such an Edie thing to do. But because of her, I focused and paid attention and practiced at the arcade, in one of those driving games with the steering wheel, and I got better. Once Iknew I wasn’t going to embarrass myself, Edie was the first one I took for a drive. No turtles this time.”

It always gets me that for as long as I’ve known Edie, we don’t share a lot of firsts.

“The two of you have been friends for a long time,” Dillon says as we pull up to the castle.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, you ever think—” Dillon continues.

I cut him off. “What are you, trying to be some kind of matchmaker? Edie and I are just friends.”

“I hear that a lot. But have you really looked at her lately? Like, last night when she got all fixed up for her date with the prince?”

I did look. I couldn’t help myself.

Because she looked amazing.

I’ve seen her fixed up to go out with other guys before and it never hit me like a kick to the crotch like it did last night. She was almost… glowing.

Because of Mathias.

So it’s got me thinking. “Yeah,” I concede. “She looked good.”

Dillon looks sideways at me. “Shame it was because of a guy like the prince.”

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