Page 19 of How to Date a Prince (Being Royal #1)

Chapter Fifteen

I hole up in a study lined with books for the afternoon, left mostly alone to draw and sketch and paint studies of my proposed project for hours.

And I definitely don’t obsess alternately over Thomas and Katie, albeit for different reasons.

The cameras show up, but watching me draw is only so exciting for TV.

I answer a few questions, and then the crew and Colin leave, and I’m left in peace again.

I’m so absorbed I even forget I’m on a reality TV show.

By the time the sun’s set, I’m wedging clay and feeling a lot calmer, sleeves rolled up, humming along to the music playing on my laptop.

Out here, I feel free, like I do when I’m alone in the palace basement at the potter’s wheel in the middle of the night.

Clay doesn’t care who I am or about the kingdom, for that matter.

The kiln successfully completed its test fire. A potter’s wheel has been set up by a window. I have a sink with a silt trap, plenty of clay and materials to work with. I walk around, turning on lights, and set up my laptop to play a mix of pop and rock music.

It’s easy to lose track of time like this, prepping clay to throw.

I’ve decided on a set of dinnerware: plates, side plates, bowls, serving platters.

I’ve made these kinds of things before, but never as a coordinated set.

I’ve painted details in my sketchbook for the design.

Though I know I can pull this off, the issue is time.

Clay needs time to cure before the first firing, then the painting, and another final firing.

But I feel reasonably confident I should have a shot at staying in this week.

For some reason, Gav’s voice comes again to me then. “Own it, Auggie.”

Throwing plates, I have no idea how much time passes as I sing along to the music, and I lean over, rapt as each plate comes to life, spinning under my fingers at the wheel. I squeeze the sponge from an excess of water and gently touch the rim to smooth it out.

I’ve thrown six more or less identical plates, and I’ve moved on to a pair of large serving bowls. I’m on bowl number two, sometime after midnight, when a head peeks around the partly open door, scaring the hell out of me.

“Fuck.” I jump, knocking the side of my bowl, and it collapses into a spinning mess on the wheel.

“Hey.” Thomas holds up his arms in surrender. “It’s only me.”

I stare. Then scowl. “Avoidance doesn’t work one bit if you show up in my bothy.”

I sit up, lifting my foot from the pedal as the ruined bowl slowly stops rotating. “At the very least, you should… knock or something. And shouldn’t you be sleeping?” I ask pointedly. “Not startling the competition like you’re some kind of ghost. It’s late.”

“Boo.” Thomas leans in the doorway. He holds a guitar case.

His gaze is… well, I don’t know what it is, exactly, but I can tell he’s missing nothing.

Taking in the sight of me in my clay-splattered apron, my hands and forearms also generously covered in clay and related slurry.

I reach for a towel to try to wipe them off.

I don’t make a sign of moving from my stool. “I thought we might try to talk again.”

I fold my arms across my chest. “Why?”

After all, this is my shed by all rights, and I’m defending my territory.

Thomas props his guitar case against the edge of the stone entry. “Because it’s a good idea if you’re worried about getting filmed together. We can come up with a strategy, if you like.”

I look from the guitar to him, down to my ruined pot. At least the guitar case tells me what he was up to. My frown returns, complete with furrowed brow. “A strategy?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head to clear it. “I had a strategy.” Then I sigh. “Maybe I overreacted a little. Like you said.”

“Maybe.” Thomas continues to gaze at me from where he remains in the entryway, the door open for the summer’s night breeze.

“Are you out crooning to the sleeping birds?” I ask, fully lifting my head at last.

Thomas grins. “Yeah. With them dead asleep, they can’t complain about me ruining their vibe. Or their pots.”

“Fair.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll take over at dawn, and order will be restored in the world once again,” he says easily. After another long moment of lingering in the doorway, he nods at me. “Mind if I come in?”

“Is this like inviting a vampire over the threshold? I mean, come in if you want.” I eye him.

“I promise I’m not a vampire.” He lifts an eyebrow at me. “And, by the way, you have a great singing voice. Does your adoring public know?”

“Certainly not. And I don’t have an adoring public.”

Thomas’ grin gets bigger. “That’s what you think.”

“You made me ruin my pot.”

“Sorry.” He looks entirely unrepentant. “What’re you doing?”

“What does it look like?” I reply archly.

“Sewing, I think.”

I shake my head. “I can’t help you if you’re that confused.”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” he asks, leaning against the door.

“Oh, I don’t sleep. Not well, anyway.” I consider my ruined pot and remove it efficiently from the wheel as a lump of collapsed clay.

“I really am sorry about your pot. I didn’t think you’d jump.”

“Yeah, well. I thought I was alone.”

Thomas is quiet long enough that when I look up again, he’s pulled up a stool opposite me like it’s time for a confessional with Colin. “You’ve got to sleep sometime.”

“Eventually. Guess I’ll keep throwing pots till I get sleepy.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“Tired is not the same as sleepy,” I tell him, matter-of-fact. “Trust me. But don’t think I’m going to give up my project secrets simply because I’m tired.”

“Never.” His eyes dance. “Mind if I watch?”

“Are you some kind of late-night pottery voyeur?”

“Yes. Pretend I’m not here. Also, I liked the singing. I like seeing you happy.”

“Happy and I aren’t often on speaking terms.” But right now, I’m quietly ecstatic as I look at Thomas. His gaze is soft. And I can’t help but smile to have him here all to myself, like my wanting manifested him.

“Huh,” I say finally.

“Listen.”

I glance up at Thomas. My hair falls into my eyes, and I push it back with my wrist. I get a bit of clay on my face.

“I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to… well, admire.” He reaches out to lightly wipe the clay from my cheek.

I gasp at his touch, searching his eyes as I press my mouth into a line.

Once I break his gaze, I reach for another piece of prepared clay.

I put my foot back on the pedal but don’t press yet as I smack my clay onto the wheel.

Ignoring him for a minute, I focus on the task of starting to center my clay.

Hold your ground, I tell myself. Just hold on. I grit my teeth. It’s impossible wanting Thomas. He’ll side with Wilson or overthrow the kingdom, natural first moves when hanging out in a shed together late at night.

“You’ll tell the entire country I’m gay on your new app?—”

Thomas’s dark eyebrows shoot up. He instantly frowns. “What do you take me for? Definitely not.”

“Fine. Then what are you doing out so late?” I relent at last.

“Practicing far away from the house where no one will hear me,” Thomas tells me.

“How’d it go?”

“Pretty good, yeah. I scared only one deer.”

I can’t help it: I laugh. “You need better fans.”

“She ran far, I’m afraid. Probably doesn’t bode well.”

I shake my head, but I’m smiling as I run my hands over the lump of clay that turns in my hands. And I start to work, raising and lowering the form until it rises once more, eventually taking shape into a large, low bowl.

Thomas gives a low whistle when at last I finish.

“It’s not perfect, quite.” I frown down at the form, pressing the pedal to spin once more. I work on smoothing out the side to my satisfaction when I finally stop again. “There. Better.”

“That’s fucking impressive, by the way.”

“It’s practice. You could do this too.”

He shakes his head. “Practice. And talent.”

The music plays on as we look at each other. Talent again. My lips twitch as I invoke my inner Taylor.

“Tell me.” I remove the piece from the wheel with a slice of the wire to remove the base. “Have you been spying on all of the competition?”

He laughs with delight. “Only you. Sorry to disappoint.”

“You must know what the others are working on, at least.”

“Well, yes. Because I talk to people, Auggie.”

“Ouch.”

Thomas grins, watching me move the pot to join the other pieces under plastic on the shelf. He then comes over to inspect the pieces.

“This is really cool.”

“Thanks.” And I can’t help the smile that comes.

“You’ve got me beat, I think.”

I shake my head. “Singing or playing guitar is more personal. This… I can make and then step back, and everyone looks at the work and not at me. It’s not the same.”

“Well, maybe. But it’s still beautiful. And it’s still very much you.”

My heart pounds. “Um, thanks?”

We’re standing so close I can feel the warmth of his body in the cool summer air. It’s taken till very late for the heat of the day to let up, but it feels like another heat wave’s picking up in here between us.

“Auggie,” he whispers eventually, searching my eyes. “I want to kiss you.”

“If I had a pound for every time I heard that—” And then I lean forward, brush his mouth with mine, and gasp at the contact. And then I’m kissing Thomas Golden, and I want to laugh at the surrealness of it. His mouth seeks mine in matching want, searching.

Thomas slides his arms around me, his hand on my arse and another at the nape of my neck, fingers buried in my hair. He’s holding me in such a way that I swear I can feel his heart pounding too. But he’s someone I can’t have?—

“Stop thinking,” he growls.

And I stop thinking. I kiss him again, our breath hot against my skin, and right now, Thomas is everything. And I kiss him more deeply as I wrap my arms around him, forgetting the clay all over me as I catch his face between my hands. He presses his hip into me, and then I groan softly.