Page 176 of Rise of the Queen

“He still very much pines for you,” I said, smiling at him. “We noticed it when we were checking everyone out last night.”

“Oh,” he said, almost shyly.

“I don’t want to embarrass you about it. We just thought you should know that he’s still carrying that torch for you,” I said.

“You’ve changed since you discovered your gift, Stephen. You have a quiet confidence to you that’s very noticeable now. I’m sure he finds that attractive,” Adrik said.

“I do?” he asked.

“You do,” Adrik said.

“You’ve always been hilarious, but you kept it hidden away. You’re letting everyone see it, as well as your intelligence now. It’s no surprise he’s still wildly attracted to you,” I said.

“‘Wildly attracted’ is putting it mildly,” Andrei said, smirking at Stephen.

“Huh. I had not noticed,” he said.

“How could you? You’re always with us. Getting cock-blocked,” Ivan said, laughing. It caused another round of laughter from everyone.

I snapped my fingers, pointing at Ivan. “I told you I was holding you guys back from getting laid!” They could all feel my amusement at the situation, so none of them took me seriously. It did remind me, however, to ask Viktor about Ilya. “Have you talked to Ilya? Did he call Jessica after the fundraiser?” I asked him.

His deep laugh filled the kitchen. “He did. They’ve already gone on at least one date.”

“You guys are going to have to cycle through to Vitaliy’s team if you ever want to get laid,” I said. “We’ll come up with an exchange program. It’ll work out smashingly well.”

Once the laughter died down, Stephen said, “Seph, you’re not keeping us from anything. Stop thinking that. We choose to hang out up here over doing other stuff.”

“You keep saying that. I still don’t entirely believe it, but I love you for saying it anyway,” I said.

“I mean, our dinner conversations alone are more interesting than anyone else I’ve ever dated,” Stephen said.

“Now I know you’re lying. You can’t tell me we have better dinner conversations than Vlad. I mean, the ambience of his dinners alone wins everything. Who doesn’t want impaled boyars around the feast table?” I said.

Stephen laughed loudly. “I rest my case,” he said.

Viktor chuckled. “Vitaliy asked Ilya about Vlad.”

“Shut up.”

“He did. Ilya said he’d never met him, but he knew he was a friend of Stephen’s,” Viktor said, causing all of us to laugh even harder.

“Did he believe him?” Ivan asked.

“Ilya thinks he was mostly satisfied with the answer, but just the fact that he asked him about Vlad means he’s curious about this weird character we keep referencing,” Viktor said.

“We should just pay someone to pretend to be Vlad. Make him into a real person for Vitaliy,” Misha said.

“Give him a pet red panda while we’re at it,” Adrik said.

“You have the money. You can make this dream a reality,” I said.

As everyone sat around the kitchen, laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity we’d created for ourselves, I couldn’t help but loveevery single one of them a little bit more. They were so much fun. The joy that they brought me on a daily basis was something I never would’ve thought possible when I first met them all.

“I love you all so much right now,” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard.

Stephen got up and walked to me, sliding his arm around my shoulders. “See why I want to hang out with you guys and not anyone else now?” he said, kissing the top of my head. I grabbed his arm, keeping him with me for a few moments.

As we calmed down, the conversation turned back to more serious matters. “We heard from the mayor about Dr. Moretti. Eric is ready to charge him for creating brawn. He won’t be charged for any of his back-room procedures as of now, because no one can remember him, but Eric feels certain that he can make the charges stick for the brawn and he’ll go away for a very long time,” Viktor said.

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