Page 35 of Royal Rising

But…

“Yeah,” he says heavily. He finishes the burger in about three bites, and all I can do is watch him, and try not to picture my life without Kalle.

Because if he marries, I won’t be part of the package. I won’t be…

I stare at my crossed arms and blink furiously. “Married,” I manage. “Huh.”

“Yeah.”“Like… now? And who would you marry?”

Kalle shrugs helplessly. “I don’t do relationships. They never work so getting married would be… Yeah. No.”

“You’ve never tried to make one work,” I point out, trying to get back my sense of equilibrium at the thought of Kalle with a wife. “Your father obviously wants to be around to see you get married, so it makes sense.”

He scrubs at the back of his neck and I worry about the skin back there. “I dunno. The thought of dating—”

“You’ve been dating for years.”

“None of them mattered. I wasn’t looking for a wife.”

Things start to get blurry and I know it’s because of this conversation. At the thought of Kalle… I rest my back against the door to steady myself. “And you think you should look for one now.”

It’s not a question. It’s a statement, and all I can think of is that Kalle is about to tell me that he’s going to marry Fenella Carrington.

She’s practically royalty; her father is one on the one percent list in the United States, so it makes sense.

But Kalle and Fenella… it doesn’t make sense to me.

There’s never been a woman with Kalle who has made sense for me.

“Maybe?” That is definitely a question. Kalle falls back to asking questions when he doesn’t want to answer them, and so I know…

My heart gives a thump of disbelief. Of disappointment.

“Well, then. Who?”

“I don’t know,” he says, with frustration.

“You have to have an idea.”

“I really don’t.”

“You have to. If you think you can just up and get married… If you could have any woman in the world marry you, who would it be?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just—You.”

My heart jumpstarts as if Kalle had given it a shot of adrenaline. “I’m sorry—what?”

Kalle stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, and then he gives me such a smile of relief that I’m reminded of how my baby nephew looks when he’s done a load in his diaper. “You should marry me.”

“No.” Even as the word escapes like a puff of cold air from a freezer, I know that’s not what I’m supposed to say. But this isn’t what Kalle should be saying either. Because friends like us don’t get married.

And friends don’t ask friends to marry them like that.

I can’t have heard him correctly. There’s no way Prince Kalle of Laandia… there’s no way my best friend Kalle Erickson…

There’s no way either ofthemwants to marryme.

No way. But still—

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