Page 98 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

Danny stares at Luke with eyes almost as wide as saucers. I have no doubt that the same expression is mirrored on my face.

I’ve rarely heard Luke talk so much about his own feelings, and the idea that I could be central to them really has struck me dumb.

“I don’t know what to say,” I tell him honestly as his dark eyes bore into me. “I… It’s all so new, what we have, and it’s… It’s not official. None of it is. It just happened.” As I talk, I’m all too aware that I’m basically outing myself as the chiefs’ number one groupie to Danny and I don’t dare look in his direction. “You were always so detached, so distant. It felt like you wouldn’t be interested.”

“I understand,” Luke says, so painfully calm. “If it were a choice between the chiefs, I do realize these days that I would be picked last. I am a loser, after all. Lost my guards. Lost my crown. Lost my claim to the throne.Loser Lukeis what they will call me.”

“Don’t.”

Luke cocks an eyebrow at me, as though I’m being precious. “Then what else would you call someone who has lost his divine purpose in life?” he asks. “I understand, Jessa, why you would not select me after I have expressed interest in you. Rory is Rory, that is a given, and Finlay can barely enter a room without starting a new revolution. He is exciting. They both are. So whywouldyou choose a loser like me?”

Again, I calculate it in my head, the stages of grief. It seems Luke has swung over to depression and self-pity.

“You’re not a loser,” Danny snipes on my behalf, apparently offended by the notion. “Look at you. Have you been near a mirror lately? You might not be a prince but you still look like one. You might not have money but you still have connections. If you want to know what a real loser looks like, I’m here for you to compare. Try out the life of the son with a physically abusive father who lives a million miles away on a cold rainy farm and, before last year, had no friends apart from comic book heroes, and who ended up incessantly bullied by people likeyou.” Danny says all this in one long, heaving rush, breathless and shaking by the end of it. “Thenyou canget back to me, you stupid, whiny idiot.”

Luke glares at him, his eyes flashing, as though he’d rather not be jerked out of his self-pity by tough love. Or, indeed, tough hate.

“But I will say,” Danny continues, with considerably more delicateness, “thank you. You spoke up for me when apparently no one else but Jessa did, and that means a lot. That takes courage.”

Luke’s gaze drifts lazily to the side, as though Danny’s words are barely worth raising his eyes for. “It was for entirely selfish purposes, Hamilton. Do not become overly sentimental.”

“What will you do?” I ask Luke, hesitantly glancing across to the TV screen. Benji’s face is on it once again, a madly grinning selfie from a protest site, giving a peace sign and wearing a T-shirt markedAntiroin blood-red. “If Becca and your mother are leaving the country…”

Luke toys with the tip of his silver spoon, an entirely human gesture. “I refuse to be chased by a mob from the country of my birth. No,” he answers adamantly, the resolve hardening on his face. “I will stay here indefinitely. But unlike Rory’s idea of keeping me safe, I will not be kept indoors as a prisoner. The idea of residing full-time in a property belonging to Oscar Munro sickens me.”

“But you’ll be seen,” Danny reminds him. He gestures at Luke with fluttering hands. “You’re way too distinctive.”

Dark, indolent eyes land on Danny. “Distinctive?” Luke asks in a testy voice.

“I mean, no offense, but youhavechosen to hide out in a country with probably less than one percent black people.”

The indolent sheen from Luke’s eyes vanishes, and his gaze sharpens to something more lethal. “No offense taken,” he answers in a stiff, clipped tone, diplomacy barely disguising his offense. “What bright ideas do you have, then?”

Danny stands from his chair, looking excited for the first time since arriving. “A disguise! We could dress you up, make you look more… normal. The hair, though,” he adds, and here his eyes drift up to Luke’s short fluffy afro, “the hair should go. Everyone would recognize it.”

Luke grazes the top of his afro with uncertain fingers. “I would not be averse, if necessary.”

With a look of divine inspiration on his face, Danny leaves the house for almost an hour, grabbing some money from a dish labeledFor Emergenciesin Finlay’s handwriting. He returns as Luke sits stationary, poised in the armchair, his eyes fixed on the TV screen as new casualties emerge in the headlines.

After the image of HRH Prince Lucas Milton in his pale pink pajamas, the afternoon provides yet more sights I’d never have expected to see in my life.

It starts with Danny pulling out a box and showing it to Luke. Luke takes it in his hands, seeming displeased, and eventually passes it over to me.Professional Hair Clippers for Men, the box reads, alongside a picture of a man holding black clippers to his scalp with a scarily intense focus.

“It would be a sacrifice, of course,” Luke points out, his eyes flitting to the box, as though we haven’t properly acknowledged how big a step this is for him. There’s the brief, blood-curdling flashback of Arabella hacking at my roots, forcing onto me an uneven zig-zag of a hair amputation that’s only just begun resembling an actual suitable hairstyle.

“A major one,” Luke continues as Danny peruses the instructions and ignores his complaints. “But I suppose I cannot keep staring at four walls all day long. A prince values his freedom as much as the common man. You understand me, Jessa, do you not?”

I nod. But idly, I wonder how long it takes for someone to cast aside the main tenet of their identity. Weeks, months, years? Never? Perhaps once a royal, always a royal, and Luke will forever insist on being the highest of high-status — in his head, if not outwardly.

The clippers suddenly leap into life in Danny’s hands, and Danny, looking as though doing the ex-prince’s hair is the most exciting moment of his life, gives Luke an enormous, beaming smile.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Luke says, backing away from Danny and the mechanically whining hair clippers. “I am being perfectly serious.”

“One minute and it’s gone,” Danny says, adjusting the settings so that the clippers buzz with a slightly less fearsome vibration. “You can have your freedom. Just say the word.”

Without saying anything at all, Luke’s face settles into one of unhappy resignation. He turns away from Danny and lowers his head, like he’s awaiting the first touch of the clippers.

“You do realize I’m not your barber,” Danny says, suddenly nervous. “It won’t be perfect.”

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