Page 56 of The Princess Trap

“…Demetria?” Ruben frowned. “What does Demi have to—”

“You know, people you care about,” Hans said. “Would you want her to meet a python?”

“I—what?”

“Would you lock Demi in a room with a python?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“No! You wouldn’t! No-one would. That’s all I’m saying.”

Ruben stared at his friend. Hans was almost… emoting. And right now, he looked panicked. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Look, don’t worry about Cherry. You have a whole year to convince her that you’re the love of her life.”

“Well, I don’t know aboutlove—”

“Shut up. A whole year, Ruben. If it’s meant to be…”

“I don’t know aboutmeant to be—”

“Shut up.” Hans opened the door and strode out into the hall . “Come on. Let’s go.”

Ruben felt slightly dazed. He wasn’t entirely sure what that conversation had been about, or if they’d agreed on anything, or why Hans kept using words likelove.

But he and his best friend were okay again. So he shrugged it off.

Chapter Eighteen

Cherry was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her laptop resting on her knees. There was a white ear bud in her left ear and a pink one in her right, and a smile on her face.

“Ooh, shit. I felt that.” Maggie’s voice came through the pink ear bud. A sickeningcrunchcame through the white one, as Jessica Jones crushed some gang member’s fist with her bare hand. Then Maggie said, “Would you fuck Jessica Jones?”

Cherry thought. “Hypothetically.” Her mild interest in women had never developed into anything more concrete, but Jessica was cute enough.

“What if she, like, accidentally killed you?”

“Ummm…” That was actually a good point. “Okay, maybe not. Imagine the obituary. Mum would die of shame.”

“Exactly. I’d fuck the actress, though.”

Cherry hesitated. Talking about sleeping with a fictionalcharacter was one thing. Talking about sleeping with an actual person, even if they’d never meet, felt the tiniest bit more… real.

And for some reason, kind of like a betrayal. Which was weird. Very weird.

“What?” Maggie demanded. “You wouldn’t fuck her?”

“Ah… No, I would.” In theory. But when she tried to imagine it, her mind threw up different images. Memories rather than fantasies. Dark hair that wouldn’t stay in place and rough hands and hard words.

“Oh, God,” Maggie said. “Are you tooin loveto think about fucking other people?”

“What? No. I mean…” She should probably say yes, right? That’s what she wanted her family to think. But lying to Maggie felt like that moment when a dentist put cotton or whatever in your mouth to stop it from closing, and you couldn’t control your own spit and everything tasted disgusting and you kind of wanted to choke or hit something or down a litre of water all at once.

“Youare,” Maggie insisted. She sounded delighted. Cherry’s sister was 23 but she had never been in love and insisted that she never would be. She was probably planning years of sibling torture based around this very moment.

“Oh, shut up. We’re missing the show.”

“I can multitask, sis. And I am finding this conversation far more interesting than Netflix right now.”