Page 64 of Royal Rising

“We had drinks with Mabel Crow.”

He looks at me closely. “Yeah. I saw that.”

“We had shots. Kate says she believes Gunnar that nothing happened. She apologized to Mabel.”

“We,” Kalle repeats, already finished half his sandwich. “Youwere drinking. You don’t usually do that.”

This is how we’re going to talk about this—standing in the weak candlelight so that looking at Kalle is like watching a night scene on TV in the bright sunlight—you can’t see much at all. “You can say it’s been a weird day.”

“Storm bothering you?”

I give a choked laugh. Maybe he’s really concerned or maybe he’s being deliberately obtuse. I’ve never been one to beat around the bush and I’m not about to start now. “I’m talking about how you asked me to marry you earlier today.”

The only sound is the hiss of the candle flame and Kalle setting his plate on the counter. “Ah.”

It doesn’t matter if Kalle won’t bring it up. There’s two people in this conversation and I’ve never held back from saying what I feel. “Yeah. Ah. Is that all you’re going to say?”

Kalle looks like he’s mulling it over. “Yeah?”

“Seriously? That’s all? We’re not going to talk about it?”

“’Bout what? You said you didn’t want to marry me. No means no. What else can I say?”

His face is expressionless and I think for a moment that he did make a mistake. That it was a total fluke and he didn’t mean it at all.

And then he rubs at the back of his neck. Kalle has got so many tells and I can see through each and every one of them.

He really thinks he wants to marry me, and that does strange things to me.

And the worst is the leap my heart gives, like it’s ready to jump off a big cliff.

“Tell me where that came from,” I say in a quiet voice, trying to steady Kalle as well as my now leaping heart. “Tell me why, out of nowhere, you think you should be looking for a wife.”

But more important is what I don’t say.Why do you think it should be me?

Because I am not queen material. I’m the girl you want to manage your bar, that you hang out watching television with, that you joke and laugh and maybe have a dance with.

Not the woman that you hold close and look at like she means everything to you.

Kalle looks at me and I can see there’s more behind his eyes. But all he says is, “You should go to sleep.”

There’s more going on but he doesn’t know how to tell me.

That realization calms me a little, but I don’t stop wanting more.

I know he’ll tell me. He always does.

But it’s not going to be now. “I’m going to crash on the couch.”

“That’s silly because you don’t fit on the couch. Take my bed.”

“I’m not kicking you out of your bed.”

“You can sleep—stay—with me.” The words come out wrong, too high-pitched. We’ve shared a bed before, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

The problem is that Kalle has just opened a door that had been locked and double-bolted.

I don’t want to be queen.

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