Page 36 of Problematic Summer Romance

“Look at you, being all Citizen Kane,” I say, ignoring the way my stomach flips onto itself.

He glances up, still scowling, and gestures for me to sit on his right. I don’t know why, but I do just that.

“Maya?”

“Yup?”

“Does physics have an explanation for why humans insist on being such fucking shitheads?”

“Not as far as I know. But I could inquire.”

He grunts, closing his laptop. In the morning, the silver strands throughout his hair are even more visible.

“Is it work stuff? The…active-deal thing?”

“No.” He shakes his head. Runs a palm across his clean-shaved jaw. I’m tempted to prod, find out more, but Lucrezia comes in in a flurry of loud, drawn-out vowels, her hands curling warmly around my shoulders. As one of the precious few who refused to drink Axel’s death juice, I skyrocketed to a very high place in her esteem. She beams, then says something aboutcaffèwhile pointing at me, and when Conor nods, she ruffles his hair in a way that seems a bit too familiar, even for a touchy-feely nation.

“You don’t happen to be her love child, do you?” I ask, taking a sip of water.

He shrugs. “Knowing my father, it’s very possible.”

Ithinkhe’s joking. “What do you mean? You…Did you not just meet her?”

“I used to come here as a kid. It’s one of the many properties my father owned.”

“Oh. When did he sell it?”

“He didn’t.”

“But you said ‘owned’?”

He leans back. Studies me for a long beat. “Did you not hear?”

“Hear…what?”

“My father died.”

“What? When?”

“A few months ago.”

“I…” Don’t know what to say. Because the daymydad died, I felt as though I would vanish any minute. I had been, first and foremost, his goblin princess. If he was no longer around to call me that, that meant that nothing could tether me to this world. I could see no path forward. The pain was staggering. Incomprehensible.

Conor’s father, though…

“Congratulations,” is all I can think of saying.

After a beat, Conor smiles, looking pleased and surprised. “Thank you, Trouble.”

“I would have sent you a celebratory edible arrangement. I’m not sure why Eli didn’t tell me.”

“Probably because it was widely covered by international media.” He sounds gently amused.

“Your dad was that big of an asshole, huh?”

“Regrettably.”

We regard each other. Between us, only a table corner and a whole lot of silence. “So,” I ask, tearing off a piece of bread. The crust is as thin and crispy as the inside is airy. “Who’s the new owner of—”

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