Page 83 of Protecting Mr. Fine

“I know. And I’ll email you the information, if you want, so you can check it out in peace, but she reminds me a lot of you. Grew up like you did, has incredible talent on mandolin, and her voice is likefuckingwine, you know? I was hoping you could talk to her. Encourage her to pursue it.”

Bodhi knew me well enough to know I appreciated discovering new voices, but I was too overwhelmed right now to consider what he was saying. “I’ll… I… you can…”

Noelle seemed to pick up on my stress and asked Bodhi to go get me a glass of water. As soon as he walked away, she put her arm around me and murmured reassurances. “Where’s Ryan?” she asked, patting my back gently as she looked around. “Isn’t he your primary?”

I pressed the button on my watch again. I wanted everyone to stop touching me. Bear was right. This was too much.

Where was Bear? How the heck had Noelle gotten approved to be here? Why had Boomer askedBodhi, of all people, to keep an eye on me? Why was the queen of Ventdestine acting like I was her new best friend?

Lou nudged Noelle away and put her hand on my lower back to steer me toward the door. “I’ve got this. Mr. Barlo needs to get ready for the concert now. Please excuse us.”

“The princes and princess wanted to take a picture,” I said, feeling overwhelmed. “I don’t want to disappoint them.”

Suddenly, I saw Bear hurry into the room, looking around frantically until he spotted me. He was followed by Kasper and the king, who were both talking as if nothing in particular was wrong.

And nothingwaswrong. I reminded myself I was at a VIP reception in a room full of well-vetted people. There were cameras everywhere and security personnel from my team and the Ventdestinian royal guard.

It was fine. I was fine.

Bear finally arrived at our small group and slid his arm around me protectively. “Lou, go find Boomer and lock down the route so we’re clear to get to the dressing room.” As Lou left, he turned to me. “We need to go.”

“I want to take a picture with the royal teens first,” I said, forcing myself to seem unaffected. If he knew how not-fineI was, he’d whisk me out of there embarrassingly fast, possibly even causing a scene. “And then we can go. Okay?”

He studied my face. “Did you eat the fish?”

It took me a minute to remember our code word. “No. I didn’t want any. I’m fi—uh, full. I’mfull.”

As usual, when I was lying, Bear didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked like he was two seconds away from spiriting me out of the room, and damn the consequences.

“Oh, Ryan,” King Gerhard said. “One other thing I wanted to mention to you, if you have a minute?”

Bear hesitated, glancing from me to Gerhard and back, clearly torn.

“Please,” I said in a soft voice hopefully only Bear could hear. “Let me take the picture, you talk to the king, then we’ll go.”

Bear nodded reluctantly. He exchanged a wordless look with Kasper, who seemed to immediately understand what Bear was asking. With the slightest of nods to Bear and a friendly smile for me, Kasper smoothly stepped in and set a hand on my back to guide me over to the queen.

Gisella apologized again for bumping meandfor pulling me over without waiting for security to escort us. “You’d think at my age, after twenty years in a public role, I’d have learned to look before I leap, but no.” She shook her head at herself. “No better than my children sometimes. Thank you for agreeing to take the photo. I remember when I was their age and went to see the Spice Girls. I would have completely lost it if I’d had a chance to take a photo with them.”

I posed with the kids while Carina chattered happily about all the American things she wanted to see next summer. “We’re going to America next month, too.” She pouted. “But no Disneyland.”

Gisella rolled her eyes. “We have a brief visit to America in early December since we’ll be official guests at the tree lighting in Washington. We’re also going to New York?—”

“To skate at Rockefeller Center,” Auden chimed in.

“And shopat all the toy stores,” Isak added.

“You could come with us, Zee!” Carina begged. “We can go ice-skating together and see the big tree.”

I smiled at her and shook my head. “I’ll be with my friends in Wyoming then. The tiny town where they live has a Festival of the Bells a couple of weeks before Christmas. I’ll be playing there and then staying there for the holiday.”

Carina turned to her father, who’d walked up to join his family, and grabbed his hand in both her own. “Papa? Can we go to Wyoming for the Festival of the Bells after New York? I’d like to see Zee play.”

When the king glanced at me, I shrugged and smiled. “Majestic would love to have you, I’m sure. It’s a welcoming town with beautiful scenery and Christmas decorations, and there are plenty of large homes to rent.”

King Gerhard pulled Carina into his side affectionately and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We will see.”

All three of the kids started begging him, but I barely paid attention because Bear had slid up beside me. Just being in his presence, being able to smell his clean scent and feel his warmth, made my tense shoulders drop several inches.

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