Page 4 of Prince Material (The Prince Pact #2)

“ Stroopwafels . Two thin waffle cookies with caramel syrup in between.” His face lit up. “Actually, I have some in our room. It turns out Walmart here sells them, which made me very happy. Want to try one later?”

The offer caught me off guard. I usually avoided getting too friendly with roommates. It complicated things, created expectations I couldn’t meet while maintaining my focus on studies. But something about Floris made it hard to keep my usual distance.

“Sure,” I heard myself say. “Thanks.”

His genuine smile, so different from his usual polished one, made something flutter in my chest. I quickly looked back at my laptop, reminding myself why I was here.

Civil engineering. Preventing disasters.

Making Dad proud. I couldn’t afford distractions, even tall, charming Dutch ones with kind eyes and intriguing food.

But one cookie wouldn’t hurt, right?

“So what else do you miss?” I asked. “Food-wise, I mean.”

“Proper bread.” He sighed dramatically. “Dark, dense bread that doesn’t taste like sugar. And hagelslag .”

He sounded like he was choking with two harsh g-sounds. “What now?”

“Chocolate sprinkles. But not like the ones here. Ours are different. We eat them on bread for breakfast.”

I stared at him. “You eat sprinkles. For breakfast.”

“On wholewheat bread with butter!” he defended, as if that made it more reasonable. “Don’t judge until you’ve tried it. Though I suppose it does sound a bit ridiculous when I say it out loud.”

“Says the guy who questioned our portion sizes and how unhealthy our food was,” I teased. “At least we don’t eat dessert toppings for breakfast.”

His laughter was surprisingly warm and real, nothing like the polite chuckles I usually heard from him. “Fair point. Though I maintain that your vegetables are still guilty of war crimes. Plus, you eat donuts for breakfast. Those have got to be worse than hagelslag .”

We were quiet for a while as he ate.

“So,” Floris said finally, pushing his tray away, “what are you working on?”

I tensed slightly. “An assignment for Advanced Structural Analysis. Professor Gibbons likes to give us assignments right out of the gate.”

“Ah.” He nodded sagely. “That explains why you look like the numbers personally offended you.”

“They might have.” I glared at my laptop. “There’s this one problem that’s being particularly stubborn. We have to calculate the load-bearing capacity of a bridge, but the numbers feel off.”

“Want another set of eyes? Maybe I can offer a fresh perspective?” When I hesitated, he added, “No pressure. Just offering.”

I studied him for a moment. Most people didn’t volunteer to look at engineering problems for fun, but then again, Floris had surprised me more than once already.

Like finding him watching that documentary about climate change yesterday evening.

That had been about the last thing I had expected of him.

“The Party Prince”, the European tabloids called him, but so far, I saw little evidence of him partying.

“Sure. Why not?”

I flipped my laptop open and he moved his chair around to my side of the table, suddenly close enough that I could smell his cologne: something subtle and expensive that made me think of crisp, autumn mornings.

His shoulder brushed mine as he leaned in to look at my screen.

For a minute or so, he said nothing as he read through the problem and studied the numbers on the screen .

“Where is the bridge located?” he asked.

As soon as he asked it, the missing part popped into my brain like a jack-in-the-box. “Environmental loads. I didn’t properly account for those. It’s located near San Francisco.”

“Earthquakes.” He nodded. “Plus probably changes in temperature? Not sure how cold it gets there during the winter.”

“The wind is a factor too. They even had a tornado warning recently, so I’d have to take that into account as well. I did the standard environmental load, but in this case, it should be much lower considering the circumstances. Thank you.”

“You did the work yourself. All I did was ask a question.” He smiled, and this close, I could see the faint freckles scattered across his nose. “Well, since I’ve saved you from a mathematical crisis, want to try those stroopwafels now?”

I glanced at my watch and realized with a start that we’d been talking for almost an hour. This had been… nice. Easy, in a way conversations rarely were for me. “I should finish this first.”

“Right, of course.” The mask slipped back into place, but not completely. There was still warmth in his eyes as he gathered his mostly untouched food. “Thanks for the cultural exchange. Even if your country’s idea of cuisine is deeply concerning.”

“Save me a cookie,” I said quickly, somehow uneasy with the hint of disappointment on his face.

His smile was back. “Will do. See you in a little bit?”

I nodded.

His long legs ate up the ground as he walked away, my eyes glued to his back. Should I have said yes? But if I had, he would’ve lured me into more conversations and then I would’ve had to scramble to finish this project.

I needed to focus. I had goals. Important ones.

Getting distracted by my roommate’s infectious laugh and the way his whole face transformed when he talked about something he loved wasn’t part of the plan.

Even if he did look unfairly good in that blue henley that brought out the green in his eyes.

Even if those jeans clung to his round ass and made it pop.

Nope. Not going there.

Maybe there was more to my roommate than met the eye, but I couldn’t afford to find out.