Page 8 of Royal Rising

“Prince Mathias asked me to dinner, yes,” she confirms, and I wish with all my being that she’d bumped intoanyone—even her uber crush, Ryan Gosling—crossing the town square this morning.

“Prince Mathias, huh?” Dillon asks, glancing at me and back to Edie.

“Yes.” She lifts her chin proudly. Edie isproudto be going out with Mathias Erickson, sixth in line to the throne of Laandia, and it’s not because he’s a prince.

She likes him.

The knot in my belly tightens even more.

“I always thought you and Maj…” Dillon begins.

Edie stops him with a hand. “Don’t start.”

Everyone says it and even more think it. Thewhy aren’t Kalle and Edie togetherhas been a constant question since we started hanging out as friends, back when we were sixteen.

And it’s one that is becoming more and more difficult to answer.

Edie gives the official response. “We’re friends.”

“Yeah, but friends… you know,” Dillon points out.

“We don’t,” I growl. Even if we did, it’d be nobody’s business but ours. But we haven’t. Never. Ever. In the sixteen years of friendship, I haven’t made a move on Edie. Not even when I foundher crying after being dumped by Greg Kaan a week before the prom. Or that night when she studied for her mixology exam by lining up the cocktails on the bar for us to taste test.

And I was tempted that night. I’m not sure what exactly stopped me, only I did stop before I found out if Edie’s lips were as soft as they looked.

She’s got lipstick on tonight, a soft pink colour that shines in the bar lights. I can’t look at it or I’m going to start thinking—

“You can’t walk over to Nonna’s looking like…”Gorgeous.The word pops into my mind, fully formed with a dozen descriptives following. Likebreath-taking.

Beautiful.

“What’s wrong with the way I look?”Crap. Now I’ve made her mad, difficult to do with Edie, even for me.

“Nothing,” I growl. “Just—Mathias will expect you to be driven.”

She frowns. “I told him I’d walk. How would you know what he expects? You said you don’t even know him.”

I turn away so she can’t see my expression, which probably mirrors my face when I tried Chef’s cabbage and sausage pie the other day. “I know enough,” I tell her, not doing anything about the mulish tone in my voice.

“It might be nice to share some of thatenough.”

I don’t bother to answer because there’s no point in telling Edie what I know about Mathias. I can only hope she’ll figure it out for herself. “You’ll turn an ankle on the cobblestones with those heels,” I point out, taking another quick peek at Edie’s bare legs in the process.

Other than the wedding, I think I’ve seen her in a dress maybe one other time; twice if you count my mother’s funeral, but I wouldn’t have noticed if half the town had come buck naked that day.

Edie has amazing legs; slim but strong with surprisingly delicate-looking ankles that would snap like a twig if she tripped wearing those shoes. The cobblestones through the square are a bit uneven, never fixed after the winter thaw and— “Dillon?”

“I’d be happy to escort you,” Dillon supplies, sliding off his stool. “Since you helped me out with Wordle.”

“I don’t need…” But she stops herself with a shake of her head. She’s worked at The King’s Hat since we opened and she knows enough not to argue with me when I’ve got my mind set.

Only I’m a little confused as to why it’s so set on Edie tonight.

3

Edie

Mathias smiles at mefrom across the table.

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