“Okay now that we have most of the info on Robin, Sage, her father and the background to the wedding we were all curious about. Let’s open this up to questions from the other reporters.”

Mike, the reporter, and my long-time friend, whom we’ve invited for our exclusive post wedding interview, happens to be the same guy my grandmother had invited for our set-up ‘engagement kissing photos’.

He’s now acting as our honeymoon press facilitator. All of the other reporters are gathered in behind him and have been allowed to film, but to keep chaos down, they are not allowed to ask questions until these last five minutes of the interview.

Mike was very well paid for his engagement photo-leaks, and now he’s thrilled I’ve asked him to in charge of this first interview, because it means he will be able take some time off after this once he sells his exclusive photos. He’s also just gained huge street credibility with the other paparazzi. I’m happy to help him out, but I’ve had to be very careful with what I say to him, because Mike, like everyone else, thinks my wedding to Robin is real.

Unfortunately the guy knows me so well, that I’m worried I’m not coming off clear and relaxed with him how I usually interview. I decide to call my nervousness out, just in case he and everyone else are wondering what’s up with me.

“Dude. Everyone,” I hold up my hands to get everyone to quiet a little. “I’m sorry if Robin and I seem off, but you are aware that my wife and I only got two hours of sleep last night and…” I flush a little, “And well, it was our wedding night, so…yeah, understand if we are distracted and glassy-eyed,” I add. “I just have this feeling that I sound and look delirious right now,” I force out a laugh.

“Delirious and happy!” One male reporter has called out, trying to charm me, or most probably charm Robin, while Mike clears his throat, signaling his own camera man to start filming.

“Can I go first?” that same man boldly asks.

I nod, shoving on a smile, because I hate pushy people like this, but I think, fine—today maybe pushy will serve a purpose. “Shoot.”

“We all know about Robin’s father.” The reporter squeezes forward, now he’s leering at Robin. “And we know all that you and your brother went through, but we want to know more of the Robin Love that Royce Devlin fell in love with. The whole world is asking, why would a guy like Royce just lose his mind and get married to a girl-next-door type like you out of nowhere?”

“Let me answer that,” I’d interjected, watching Robin’s eyes flare with panic before she’d colored slightly and stared at her shoes. “Because, dude, are you mental to try to hurt my wife’s feelings in here on her wedding day?” I shoot the guy a long look that says he’s about to get ejected from this room. “I don’t feel like I should even explain this, because we’re obviously in love, and that’s why people get married, you idiot, but to me—Robin’s special. She’s everything and she’s amazing.”

As half of the room sighs, out, “Aww,” I look at Robin, saddened that she still hasn’t raised her eyes. “Have you all not noticed she’s the most beautiful girl in the world—and, when she smiles I go weak in the knees, and that’s never happened to me with any girl, not ever before and, hell.” I shake my head, “How can anyone answer this kind of question?” I stall for time, dragging up the thoughts I’d come up with back in the limo just before the wedding. “Because when her laughter goes around the room, it feels like I’m standing in warm sunshine. That’s why.” I shake my head, hitting everyone in the room with my best back-off expression, before adding, “Does anyone have any real questions for my wife?”

The reporters start moving in closer, and some have even sighed and are grinning like they love what I’ve just said and they hope I’ll say more. The jerk-reporter makes a hasty retreat to the back of the crowd, but not before adding, “You sound whipped, Royce Devlin. Sorry if I was skeptical, but we all know your past track record with women. What will the world think of this nearly sappy change in you?” He laughs.

“They will think I have finally found the one.” I fake-grin back at him, making sure everyone sees I’m unashamed that I’ve just been called sappy by an asshole. “Not whipped, dude. This girl is my muse. I’ll shout it from rooftops, Dude. Do you want me to? In case you didn’t notice, I just married her in a crowded arena, and I’m all about feeling this awesome. Do you want me to shout it out now how much I love her?”

“Uh. Yes?” A younger male reporter asks, hopefully, all while holding his cell phone up high and filming just in case.

Smiling, I pull in a big breath like I’m about to shout something out when Robin, shoves a hand over my mouth. Though I can tell she’s trying not to do it, she laughs. “Please stop. Royce. So embarrassing.”

I pull her hand away and kiss the back of it, then her palm, before tucking it into the crook of my arm. “In addition to being all that I just said, she’s also humble, and a little shy.”

“A lot shy,” Robin corrects, looking away from the staring people again.

Another reporter, totally taken in says, “I’m going to use the tagline, Shy and humble: the new sexy.”

Mike takes the lead again on the interview. “Hey, that’s pretty good. We should use that. Maybe start a trend after all the annoying, loud and obnoxious, entitled, bad-girls we’ve been forced to interview lately. It’s like classy has been forgotten over screaming, hair pulling, high profile bar-fights.” He turns back to us. “Royce and Robin, holding hands and acting all sweet how you two are, it’s very classy. I swear this reminds me of Princess Dianna’s first press interview after her wedding. Doesn’t it?”

The reporters and mutter as though in agreement when Robin surprises me by speaking up.

“Okay. Subject change,” Robin calls out. “Please do not compare me to Princess Di.” She shakes her head. “She’s been my idol my whole life, and I’m not at all any sort of well-bred young lady like she was, and I'm as far away from classy that any of you could find.”

“So you’re saying you’re the opposite?” Jerk reporter guy calls out again.

I’m impressed how Robin holds her ground. She looks up and makes eye contact with the guy who keeps trying to insult her and says, “No. Not the opposite. I’m just a normal girl. One who grew up on Army bases doing normal things like…” She laughs, “Dollar store shopping, and running around bookstores and malls for fun. I went to normal schools, speak no foreign languages, have never been to the symphony or the ballet. That kind of stuff.” She blinks. “The last three things, I think, are direct requirements for classy, right?” The reporters laugh as Robin goes on, “I have no clue how to navigate social situations, and there was no debutante ball on my military base in case you were wondering.” She grins then as the reporters laugh again.

“So then, why should Royce have married someone like you? Can you answer that?” The jerk asks again.

“Yes,” Robin says, while I lock eyes with one of my bodyguards because after Robin answers him, this dude is out of here. Robin continues, “Because Royce—he is just like me. A normal guy.” She looks over at me, her expression begging for me to step in and save her from talking more. “Right, Royce?” she adds.

I can tell she’s shocked the reporters by calling me a ‘normal guy’ so I answer quickly, thinking I need to do a little damage control here. “Well,” I start, rubbing a hand over my chin like I’m thinking extra hard about this. “It’s true. I’ve never been to a symphony or seen a ballet. But, Robin, I can’t agree that I’m just a normal guy. Hell no.” Her brow crinkles into a small frown and now I’m worrying I’ve hurt her feelings, so I decide to run my comments another direction. “I’m not at all normal, because,” I tap the side of my head with one finger. “Up here, I’m a total disaster. Despite the part where I do speak French and Italian, and did learn from my grandmother which fork to use for shellfish, and know how and when to touch the dessert spoon, you know, over the using dessert fork, this—very normal—very cool girl loves me anyhow.” I smile brightly then, wondering what the hell I just said, and hoping whatever it was, that it was enough to charm them into leaving Robin alone.

The press seems to have eaten up my answer like I was flinging out gold coins. When I look up, they’re all wearing this smitten—soft look, and it’s not for me, or for Robin, it’s for ‘us’. The new ‘it couple’, and my heart soars as I think: holy shit, this is working. This is actually working.

Another reporter calls out, “You speak French and Italian? How did you learn those?”

“You’ll have to ask my grandmother,” I answer dryly. “I might be a rockstar, but my mother and I were raised by her rigorous educational standards. We spent all vacations in France or half in Italy, and always with the best tutors. Hunter and Adam were also included in the language tutoring.” I squeeze Robin’s hand, trying to check in with her if she is okay.

She squeezes back, asking me directly, “Is there really such a thing as a desert spoon and fork?”

“Yes.” I make my mouth go all tight trying to sound like my grandmother. “In general, you should eat custards, or other soft deserts—chocolate mousse for example—with the spoon. The fork, surprisingly, is for berries or any other garnishes. Cakes and crepes may be eaten with either of the utensils.”

Robin as well as the reporters have grown quiet.

“Wow,” Robin says finally, shaking her head, and I catch a flicker that’s half doubt, half amazement at what I’ve just said, crossing her face. “Good to know. I guess.”

“Too much?” I ask, laughing, while ever-grinning at the crowd. “I don’t just play guitar and sing, you know? I can go to fancy state dinners with the best of them.”

“You can?” Three cute little lines have now formed in Robin’s forehead. “I mean, Do you? Will we do stuff like that?”

I shrug, glancing at the too-attentive reporters. “Hey, if presidents ask, we go. Once, on our last world tour, we wound up having dinner with the President of Indonesia. Loved Indonesia. Everyone has to go there. Amazing place.”

“Holy cow. Really?” Her big blue eyes widen as she responds to that. “Again, good to know the people I’m probably going to make a fool of myself in front of while dining. Presidents. Great.” She turns back to the reporters. “I guess on record, I can tell you all that I will officially memorize all the things you can do with a desert spoon and start studying French to catch up to my husband, starting tomorrow. Aside, what is chocolate mousse? Maybe we should get some in here now?” Robin’s brow furrows more, but she covers it with a huge wink because it’s obvious she knows what chocolate mousse is, and she’s just hamming it up now.

Mike laughs out loud and steps forward, turning to face Robin. “Before coming in here, I’d have even called you two doomed based on how you met, Based on Robin’s background compared to yours, I’d also had this idea you two were a no-go. But as we’re going on here, I’m starting to see how this marriage could actually work out. You’re two people from such different backgrounds, yet together you seem so…symbiotic. You balance each other out.”

My brows shoot up high as do Robins’. I can tell she’s thinking the same as I’m thinking: As in—Huh? We do? While I agree fast with, “Hell yes. I’m happy you see it, Mike. I knew you would.”

He nods, as do a few other reporters who are also buying in, then says, “So, let me ask Robin a few more questions on behalf of everyone here. Can I?” Mike asks me.

I’d shrugged then, said it was up to Robin, because it really was up to her, and she’d agreed.

She’d laughed at the guy’s jokes and colored adorably every time he referred to our ‘wedding night’ and after all of that, she’s now answering candidly to any, and all questions the man has thrown at her about her ‘very normal’ childhood.

I’d stop her from answering some, because the guy is getting invasive and too many people are going to know personal facts about Robin’s past. Facts she might not want anyone to know actually, but her answers have been safe so far. And…damn me for exposing her this way, but I want to hear her answers as much as the reporters want to hear them.

As he goes on, I soak Robin up, right along with them. I gain information about what Robin’s life was like back when she lived on a military base in North Carolina.

She, without a flinch, told the guy how her mom had left when Sage was just under two years old and she’d been ten. How the woman had been a heroin addict, and how she’d not been back—and, that no one knew if she was dead or alive. She’d told them how she’d all but helped raise Sage. That she’d been his stand-in-parent, all along. Which is why she thinks she and Sage and have a closer sibling relationship than most. It’s also why, when she ran away with him to try to keep him from foster care, that choice had seemed so easy.

To her, running had been the correct—the only action to take; and it seemed as though the reporters agreed with her.

The only time she blushed during this portion of the interview was when she revealed how she’d slept with a stuffed bear until she was in 9th grade. I learned she loves dogs and cats, but is horribly allergic to cat hair. As in, her whole face and lips swell up, kind of allergic. I’d also discovered that once she had quite the ocean fish aquarium set-up in her basement, where she actually did something called coral-fragging. It’s how corals grow and she got into that crazy hobby, because her favorite movies as a kid were The Little Mermaid, Nemo, and of course, Finding Dory.

She also told one reporter she’s been obsessed with paint and painting since she’d first smeared finger paints all over her living room couch back in first grade. Not to be naughty, but to mix colors. To make the couch look better. Instead of getting rid of the couch she’d ruined, her father had understood her need to make the plain grey couch more beautiful. He and Sage had helped her ‘finish’ the project with more permanent, acrylic paints. Her father was so cool, that (after he’d made Robin promise to leave the rest of the furniture in the home as-is) he’d kept that painted couch in his den, telling everyone who asked, that it was his daughter’s first major art work. A collector’s item.

When Mike asked her to say the two things she couldn’t get enough of in her life, she’d glanced at me and answered, “Yesterday, I’d have said, Frosted Flakes and brand new paint brushes, but today?” Her cheeks had gone bright red as she glanced shyly at me before going on, “Today, I’ve got two things and one person that I now can’t get enough of in my life. How’s that?”

That answer had nearly brought me to my knees. I was the one getting red cheeks after that, because, hell yes. Even though it’s not true, that was the sweetest damn thing anyone could ever say after getting married, right?

When the guy asked me the same question next, I told him the damn truth. I said, “I can’t get enough of my sweet wife’s smile, and keeping that smile on her face was all I wanted to do…from now on—hell forever.”

Better, as I’d said my answer, I heard Robin gasp, and I got to snuggle her in next to me, pick up her hand again so I could land another kiss on it, then hold it for the rest of this interview.

Because…we did just say we couldn’t get enough of each other, after all, so holding her close right now is very much allowed.

As we stand people make comments about my board shorts and shirt, and I answer, “Thanks for reminding me. I’m wearing this outfit because we’re supposed to go snorkeling or something after this interview. Can we please end this and move to the still photos we promised? I want to enjoy time with my wife.”

Robin makes everyone wait as she pauses to tighten the fabric belt of her high-necked, black, sleeveless shirt. It’s a shirt that, though high in the front, is nearly backless. It was something I noticed the second she walked out of the bathroom, because it was the most extreme shirt I’d ever seen her wear. It had been paired with some very cute beach shorts, so even though the shirt alone was really not beach wear, how she’d managed to dress it down was perfect.

Her damp curls had been piled up onto her head by the stylists in this very loose, very sexy bun, which as Robin moves around to get into position to take photos next to me, I realize also brings all eyes to the expanse of skin she’s revealing when she walks.

I know for a fact that if a girl’s shirt is backless like this…it means they’re also braless, which on most girls—and on Robin—is as hot as hell. But I don’t think Robin’s one bit comfortable with that part of this outfit at all—and I suddenly don’t like sharing her look—or her skin—with the whole planet, so I work to constantly block her back from view, hoping that it helps somehow. But it doesn’t help because it’s possible the nearly sheer front of the shirt might be more subtly revealing than the back!

Suddenly, I sort of want to punch anyone who’s noticed what I’ve just noticed—which is, in fact, everyone. Worse, now that she’s standing versus sitting next to me, and I’ve got my arm around her waist like this…damn, but my thumb can’t stop creeping in to feel the softness of her skin along her waist. All for, show, I’m thinking while I swallow down a hard lump in my throat…all for show, but…damn…this girl is undoing me.

A woman call out, “Oh, Robin. I wanted to ask about your clothes. Do you know the designer of the shirt you’re wearing? It’s really different, and we always report what fashionable people are wearing especially if it’s something we’ve never seen before.”

“Oh, well then you’re going to be so disappointed in me. I think, with this top, I’ve failed because I can’t keep it tight.” She looks down, again worrying over the belt. “I’d hoped you wouldn’t comment on it. The stylists gave it to me last minute. It’s not one I picked out for myself. I wasn’t sure how to put it on…and, it was so revealing and strange that when I put it on the correct way, uh…well, look. This is the front.” She turns to show her bare back. “I couldn’t figure out how to tie the belt, so I flipped it and the best I could do. But wait.” She smiles, looking sheepish. “The designer’s name is right here…hold on.”

Robin turns back, pulling at the high collar under her chin, then flips it down and stretches it out, revealing a tag next to her neck while she reads out loud: “Challa.” She shrugs, looking up, and grinning. “I’m wearing Challa, backwards.”

“How refreshing.” One woman steps forward snapping a few more photos. “I’m sure you’ve started a new trend, and that Challa will be thrilled.”

I can see Robin’s slightly mortified while more people move in to take a closer look, and to snap a few shots of the ingenious way she’s tied this shirt onto her body. I’m mortified because I think they’re getting royal-good shots of the see-through parts near her chest.

Again, I get the irrational urge to punch people, but I manage to keep a small smile on my face to let Robin know it’s all okay and normal that this is happening. Then, unable not to resist taking a closer look just like everyone else, I run a finger down the lower part of her back, while I pretend that I was only helping her adjust the belt around her waist better. “I think it looks beautiful. Super sexy.”

“Very on trend,” the woman reporter agrees.

“Last questions,” I call out. “Honestly, guys, we are done here.”

“Wait. One more. After you go to New York City, when will you two meet up on the tour?” A woman calls out quickly.

“When we get to Europe,” I answer her, keeping a straight face while loping my arm around Robin’s shoulders as I go on, because I’m not sure if this information has been handed down to Robin yet. “The details are still being finalized, and some of this is a surprise to Robin, but we’re definitely going to meet up in Europe.”

I smile a little as I feel her shoulders tense. I’m dying to look at her face because I want to watch what I’m about to say sink in and flash across her expressive beautiful face, but I hold steady, keeping my eyes on the reporters. “At first we’d thought to spend the summer apart. Possibly, wait until Labor Day to reconnect, because Robin’s going to start Ridley’s Art School in NYC this fall, and Sage is going to a day prep school nearby. We wanted them to get settled in, get used to living in Manhattan—because there’s a lot to be done on that side of the world, without the two of them being distracted by our tour madness.”

A few of the reporters are nodding like they understand, and because I can’t help myself, I can’t resist tugging Robin closer while I add, “As you know the tours can be grueling. It’s not any sort of real life. It’s hotels and press events and long nights.” I sigh. “So yeah, I’d thought to protect her from all of that. I had this idea I would come home on breaks and stay with her in our NYC penthouse when I can, but we can’t stand the idea of being apart so much so soon. Not now that we’re married. We’d miss each other, wouldn’t we, Robin? Which is why I’m hoping they’ll come to the European part of the tour with us.”

“Yes. We would miss each other, but are you serious? Europe?” Robin’s voice is surprisingly solid, but I can feel her trembling some in her shoulders.

“Surprise.” I grin. “There’s still two months of summer left, and so do you… want to go? I feel terrible for putting you on the spot like this,” I say, leaving off my worst fears of: What if she doesn’t want to go and now she feels obligated to agree with me. Damn, why didn’t I think this through. “You’ll see London, Paris, Berlin. Spain is the fourth stop, and I’m not sure when school starts for you, but we will be sure to get you and Sage back in time. What do you think?”

“Sage will love this idea, of course. And…I’ve always wanted to go see Europe. The museums. Go up the Eiffel Tower, of course that is a dream everyone has, right?” I’m analyzing her breathing and when she pauses, shaking her head a little. I tilt her chin up so I can see her eyes. “But…go to Europe as your wife?”

She’s whispering, but the entire room has grown so quiet everyone is hearing her loud and clear. “What if I keep messing up and wearing the clothes your stylist gives me backwards? What about the desert forks and spoons and the dinners with presidents I will most probably mess up for you?”

“Then the entire world will start wearing their clothes backwards,” one laughing reporter interjects, totally taken in with Robin’s reaction. “And no one eats desert these days. Not in Europe, that’s how everyone stays so slim. You’ll be fine.”

“He’s right.” Mike is beaming at Robin, also charmed.

“We’ll keep it casual,” I say, searching my brain for words that will resonate with her. “Come on, Robin. Like you said this morning, it will be Fun. So much fun.”