Page 66 of Royally Drawn

“Oh my God, I brought so much wine—too much wine per Nat!”

My Aunt Kiersten burst into the kitchen. In a few moments, I spotted Uncle Olav dragging in an entire case of wine.

“I told you even before she did!” Olav said.

The two of them almostalwaysspoke in English with one another. Unless they were arguing, they never spoke the native language despite Aunt Kiersten’s impressive fluency.

“It won’t go to waste,” Mamma said in Norsk.

Peder and my mother defaulted to his mother tongue. I blamed that on my Norwegian grandmother. After Dad died, we moved in with her, and she only spoke her mother tongue. The twinsstilldefaulted to Norsk when they could out of habit—marked by their rearing in Norway. At five, we attended a public engagement where the twins spoke in Norsk to one another. The press tore into our mother over it.

“Keir, my God, you look thin. How are you?” Aunt Kiersten gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I think I weigh the same as last time,” I said.

“And no plus one?”

Peder snickered. “Ask any of the boys that question. It will be a sad result.”

“No,” I said. “I am seeing someone, but she’s already invited.”

The four of them turned.

“And?” Uncle Olav was a serious gossip. He wanted to know. “Well, who is she? Do we know her?”

I grimaced. “I think you know her, yes.”

“Why?” Aunt Kiersten looked elated.

“We aren’t dating. We’re just… getting to know one another. I was hoping to go out with Cici and Isak tomorrow. I didn’t know you planned to go, Peder.”

“Oh, we’re all going together with them,” Peder said. “It’s quite alright.”

Uncle Olav considered who would be going out on their sailing yacht. I saw the wheels turning. I nervously plated cheese, trying not to think about it.

“It’s got to be a bridesmaid,” he said. “But given you are related to half of them?—”

“Only Betty and Leah,” Kiersten said. “That leaves Cici’s friends and…”

“Oh, it’s Edina. Makes sense,” Olav said.

“Not this time, no,” I answered.

“There was a first time?” Peder asked.

“I’d… rather not get into it. She’s been talking to an Aussie she met in Aruba. It’s not her,” I said.

“Katrine willlovethat,” my aunt laughed. “She did that to herself by marrying a celebrity. Edinawouldtake after her.”

“It’s the Deschamps girl?” Uncle Olav asked. “Oh, she’s too young for you. No. I don’t much like it.”

I cringed internally and tried not to show my disappointment.

Aunt Kiersten gave her husband an audible slap on the arm. “Darling, you should talk. TEN YEARS. Ten years. And I was twenty-one when it started. We’ve been married for thirty-odd years. What’s the harm?”

“She’s what? Twenty-five?” Mamma asked.

“She’s twenty-one,” Uncle Olav said. “We attended her twenty-first birthday shindig. Is that how you met?”

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