Page 19 of The Cinderella Prince

Crossing my arms on my chest, I waited for Tristan to turn around. The last time I had seen him, he had sent me away to wash the dishes. I inhaled the air I needed to apologize to him properly. If he wasn’t interested in my apology, I wasn’t entirely sure I was interested in what he had to say.

“Listen,” he began.

Before I could make up my mind, words broke through my sealed lips. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t have a friend spy on me. We’re not in seventh grade, Tristan.” Regret followed those words very quickly, but I clamped my mouth shut and lifted my head regally.

Tristan’s features grew still. I might have been speaking to a rock. “Alright. If that’s how you want to be.”

A pout formed on my lips before I could stop it.

Tristan inhaled after a moment of silence. “And Rome’s not spying on you. I told him you were new here and thatmaybe you could use someone to watch your back.” He shrugged. “Whatever he offered was genuine.”

“How touching,” I said, fully aware that sarcasm was the lowest form of comedy and yet unable to stop myself. “Then I guess there’s nothing to talk about. I should get back to the dishes.” If he didn’t understand it, it would have surprised me. But this guy saw way more than his face betrayed. It was in his eyes, this depth of knowledge and this skill of observation. He knew I was lashing out, and it only made me feel more petulant.

Angry with myself far more than I could be angry with Tristan, I turned on my heels and stalked off, leaving him behind before he could say whatever he had come to say.

I hadn’t known this about myself any more than I had known I could be truly hardworking and enjoy it. It appeared I was a spiteful prick. He hadn’t let me apologize, so I refused to be roped into a situation when I might be tempted to try again.

It would have been easy to lean against the rusting bring-and-mortar wall and lose myself in his warm, brown gaze. It would have been all too easy to lean in and inhale the fresh scent of mountain dew and peak of spring that seemed to follow him everywhere. And what then? What would happen on the day Alexander found me here? What would happen when I opened myself a little more to Tristan and found myself utterly consumed by him, only to have to return to Verdumont and marry Élodie?

For my own sake and his, I needed to put Tristan out of my mind.

Tristan

“He’s infuriating,” I grumbled to Roman over the dinner table after Lane and Oakley took their feud into their shared room. “And he’snotmy boyfriend.” That bit, I growled at my friend. Where did he even get that idea from? “I told you. He kissed me and freaked out. That’s not a mess I’m willing to touch with a stick.”

Roman snorted. “And yet, I need to watch his back.”

I narrowed my eyes at my friend. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“Tsk. Don’t be like that, Tris. It doesn’t suit you.” He got up and began collecting the tableware. He shot me a mischievous look. “I don’t mind keeping an eye on him, buddy. I’m just stating the obvious.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not obvious to me,” I muttered, getting up to help with the dishes.

Roman put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back into my chair. “No way. You cooked, and one of us will clean.” He carried the dishes to the sink.

I got up anyway, incapable of sitting down while others worked around me. Instead of helping out, I leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed my arms on my chest. “I feel like something’s wrong there.”

Roman gave me a semi-sad and semi-knowing look as if to say I always found something wrong around myself. And that may have been the truth, but it didn’t change the factthat I couldn’t get out of this dead end until I saw it through.

“I know his family’s rich, Rome,” I said. “You don’t need to be a genius to see it in the way he holds himself. Besides, he told me so. And what’s he doing now?”

“Stealing jobs from honest Americans,” Rome said in that supreme tone of sarcasm that flew over people’s heads.

“He’s working every day in the one place I don’t want to share,” I said a bit sulkily.

“Which is just crappy luck when the place you don’t want to share happens to be a bar with doors wide open.” Rome chuckled at his own wit, then sprayed me with drops of water from his fingers. “Cheer up, Tris. If you really want to know what his deal is, he’s across the street.”

I shook my head. “Absolutely not.” I had tried. I had tried and failed, and that was it. But because Roman couldn’t wrap his mind around my sudden stubborn streak, he just shrugged and busied himself with the dishes.

After I realized there was nothing more to say, I turned away and went into my room. Before I knew what I was doing, I pulled the curtain away from my window and looked down. The dusk glow gave the street a vibrant golden look. Everything was dry and begging for rain. Dusty leaves of the few trees dotting the sidewalks and the cracks in the soil around those trees all needed a good rainstorm to wash away the heat of the summer.

But there, just across the street, the door to Neon Nights was shut, and movement through the bar was slow and steady. Sundays were lazy, especially after the heavy hitters like the Saturday night drag show. I’d missed lastnight’s show. Something told me that I would either go there and be disappointed or enter the bar and be distracted from the show altogether.

It’s my home, I growled to myself.

I didn’t know it until I was back in the living room and Roman yelled, “Atta boy,” after me, but I had changed my mind again and headed out. Before it all even sank in, I was downstairs, then in front of my building, then crossing the street.

As I entered the bar, I realized the severity of my mistake. It was Sunday. The bar was practically empty. Even Mama Viv was out. The few tables with people sitting around them offered no friendly faces I could join and get out of the confrontation I’d signed up for. Now, when Cedric looked at me from behind the bar, a cloth and a glass in his hands, a cool look of disinterest in his eyes, I knew I was stuck.

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