Page 28

CHAPTER 27

DECK

SACRIFICING THE SAUCE.

As soon as Lizzy was out the door, I began texting her a list of things I would need.

I had no idea how long we would be gone. I guessed maybe forever. But I couldn’t take everything I owned, even if everything I owned reminded me of the freedom and wonder of a life lived away from being royalty.

Declan: 12 pairs of boxer briefs. Please get the bright pink pair. It’s my favorite for workouts.

Five T-shirts. Be sure to get the one with the panda breaking a chair over the other panda’s head and the one that says "pew pew" in the Star Wars font.

There’s a bunch of jeans in my closet. I hate most of them, so pick the ones you think you like best. Can princes wear jeans?

I really had no idea what proper attire for a prince in his home kingdom might be. I hadn’t played that role in a long time, and none of the clothes I’d worn when I was ten would fit me now.

The list got longer and longer as I thought of things I would miss. When I got to Chick-fil-A sauce, Lizzy stopped me.

Lizzy: Declan, we should not take perishable goods.

Right. No Chick-fil-A sauce. Dammit. We didn’t have Chik-fil-A in Murdan, though.

Declan: You sure no sauce?

Lizzy: No Sauce.

I waited, wondering what Lizzy would encounter at my house. Would there be armed assassins waiting for me? Would she be okay? And after I thought about that, I wondered how Lizzy even knew where my house was, since she had never been there with me.

But then again, Lizzy wasn’t Lizzy. She was Eliza—an elite member of my father‘s guard. Eliza had killed people, I guessed. Did that change the way I felt about Lizzy?

The whole thing was super confusing. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about anything at this point. The only thing I was sure of was that I was worried about my dad. And about Lambert, if I was telling the truth. I wanted to call him, but I also didn’t want to tie up my phone in case Lizzy needed me.

Then again, would Lizzy really need me? Would a woman capable of the things Lizzy was capable of ever need a man? The woman I had come to know had never made me feel inferior in any way. Well, maybe that one time when she flipped me onto my back on Arndt’s lawn. But honestly? That was kind of hot.

Still, Lizzy might’ve been more man than I was.

For a lot of guys, their masculinity might have felt challenged. But I poked around at mine, and either it wasn’t as sensitive as some dudes’ or it just wasn’t very well developed, because it didn’t feel challenged at all.

More concerning was the lie. I understood why Lizzy had to lie. But that didn’t mean I had to like it. And it left a whole lot of questions in places where growing certainty between two people becoming intimate really belonged. Without that certainty, how did I know if we were compatible? How did I know who this woman really was?

We’d been close when we were nine. What did that mean now? I sighed deeply, leaning back into Lizzy‘s very squeaky white couch. The squeaks and groans of the couch seemed sympathetic with my own groans of despair.

The only thing that was certain was that I was going home.

Not to visit.

Not to check in.

But possibly, to rule.

Lizzy was back not an hour later. She came upstairs, telling me she had packed three suitcases for me. If I couldn’t fit what I needed in three suitcases, I probably didn’t need it.

"Are you ready, Your Highness?"

I stared at Lizzy. I wanted her to be Lizzy, the PR lady. I didn’t want her to be Eliza, the terrifying operative. I was kinda hot for them both, but that really wasn’t the point right now.

"Hey, can we quit with the Your Highness stuff?" It was the least I could hope for.

Lizzy stared into my eyes for a long beat, and I could see uncertainty working through her dark gaze. It wouldn’t be appropriate now that I knew she knew who I was. But I didn’t care. "Is that what you really want, Your Highness?"

"For God’s sake, yes."

"OK. Are you ready to go?"

"Would it matter if I said no?"

"Kind of. You’re supposed to come of your own free will. If that wasn’t the case, I would’ve knocked you out and hauled you onto the plane the first day we met."

"Very reassuring."

Lizzy gave me a half-smile and shrugged, and I found myself willing to go. Because she was going with me. That didn’t change the confusion I felt, but at least I wasn’t alone.

As we moved toward the door, my gaze slid frantically around Lizzy’s impersonal apartment. "Isn’t there something you should take? Like… like this candlestick?" I held up a tall brass candlestick that had been sitting on the long table behind the couch.

It was nothing personal—I knew that—but it seemed like in order for Lizzy to have been a real person, a person who I’d become involved with, she needed to have some kind of attachment to this place. Maybe to this candlestick. Hopefully to me.

"The only thing I really need is coming with me," Lizzy said, her eyes softening.

"I hope you don’t mean your gun."

She laced her fingers through mine then, and my erratic heartbeat calmed a little. "Come on, Declan. We need to get to the plane."

Lizzy drove this time.

She spent a whole lot of time looking in the rearview mirror, which made me think we were being followed. She told me it was just standard practice when it was possible we might be followed. I did not want to be followed. I did not want any more men attacking me in parking lots. Or following me through 7-Eleven. Or blowing up my truck.

And I wondered—if I accepted the rulership of my kingdom, would that sort of thing be my day-to-day? I didn’t remember trucks blowing up being a common part of royal duty, but I’d been pretty young.

We arrived at a private airfield an hour later. It shouldn’t have surprised me to see a jet with my family crest on the fuselage waiting for us.

Lizzy parked on the tarmac, having been waved through the security gates when she showed her ID. It became clear she had called ahead. The guards waved us in, and once my door opened, they were at my side, escorting me to the jet.

I felt like… royalty. And I didn’t like it.

Lizzy took a few more moments to join me, helping the men on the tarmac load my bags into the aircraft. Then she made her way up the stairs, and the door was sealed behind her.

"We’re really doing this, I guess," I said, telling myself more than her. None of it seemed real. I was just a hockey player. I had a game next week.

"Shit," I said. "I need to call Coach."

"There’s Wi-Fi on the plane," Lizzy said. "You can call him now."

"What do I tell him?"

Lizzy thought about that for a moment, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth and gazing out the window. "I think you can tell him the truth."

"I doubt he’ll believe me."

"Well, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter."

I stared at her. Of course, it mattered. It was my reputation. My career. Everything. And I was just supposed to walk away, letting Coach believe I’d said I was committed and then simply changed my mind?

I turned away from Lizzy, walked down the aisle, and took the last seat on the left side of the plane. I strapped myself in and pulled my phone from my pocket. I inhaled deeply and called Coach.

"Declan," his gruff voice came through the line immediately. "Is this about your truck exploding? What the hell happened?"

“It’s kind of about that, yeah.” I tried to figure out what I was supposed to tell him. How could I explain any of this?

“Are you okay, son?”

Shit. The last time I’d seen Coach, he smiled at me. And now he was calling me son? I had finally found the place on the team I was looking for. He finally trusted me—was beginning to rely on me even.

And I was running away. Because I had to.

“Kind of. Not really,” I said, hesitating. “The thing is, Coach, I’m gonna have to go away for a little while.”

“Deck, it’s the middle of the season.” He didn’t have to say anything more. Any committed player knew that leaving in the middle of the season wasn’t an option.

“I know, and I’m so sorry. My dad… my—” My voice actually cracked as I tried to say the words, as I tried to tell Coach the only truth I thought he’d understand. “My dad is really sick. I don’t think he’s gonna make it. I haven’t seen him in five years, and I need to go home.”

Coach was silent, and I imagined he was working through all the things he might say. For a man who leaned toward gruff and unapproachable, he’d already shown me that he had a sympathetic and rational side. And that’s what he brought out now.

“I understand, son. You take the time you need. The Wombats will be—what the hell?” I didn’t know what was happening. One second, Coach sounded like he was going to be okay with me taking some time, and the next, he was screaming into the phone.

I heard a string of profanities laced with words I would never have put together myself, but which I filed away for creative cursing later. Every third word was Wombat, and I began to wonder if maybe Lizzy’s mascot had finally arrived.

“This thing is an ankle biter!” There was some shuffling and grunting on the other end of the line, then a door slammed. A moment later, Coach came back on. “We have a mascot now, Deck. Did you know that? They’re calling her Wilma. But she’s a freaking terrorist. The thing keeps getting loose, and it’s been trying to burrow into the carpet in my office. Whenever I try to stop it, it bites my ankles.”

So Wilma had arrived. I was bummed I wasn’t going to get to see her.

“That’s not good.” I was trying really hard not to laugh. I didn’t think laughing at his predicament would make Coach more sympathetic to my situation.

“It’s not.” Coach took a few deep breaths, and I waited. Then he said, “Look, Deck, I have to get going here. This place is a fucking zoo, and I’m not saying that figuratively. You take the time you need, and just get back here as soon as you can. But family first, son. Always.”

The line went dead.

So I hadn’t told him the truth. I hadn’t told him the whole truth, but I had told him as much as I could. Some part of me was certain I’d be back. Because I couldn’t fathom giving it all up when I had worked so hard for everything I had.

Still, I knew who I was. I knew what I’d been born into. And even though I had outrun those expectations for more than a decade, they had finally caught up with me. I shoved my phone back into my pocket just as the plane taxied for takeoff.

Lizzy didn’t get up and join me in the back of the plane, and I didn’t move to sit with her. I needed some time.

I needed time to understand my feelings about her. About her lie. About why she lied. About my own future. Nothing was what I had thought it was, and to say I was feeling disillusioned would be a massive understatement.

Once we were airborne, I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. Soon, we would be in Murdan.

And I would be the prince again.

And possibly the heir.