American Royals

“Let’s look up some photos of you when you were ten. I seem to remember that you went through a rough patch of your own.”

“I think you mean my infamous bowl cut. Also known as my bad hair year.” Nina laughed.

“At least your photos weren’t circulated worldwide,” Jeff pointed out. “Besides, you were still cute, even with that terrible haircut.”

His voice had softened. They both fell still.

Nina felt a sudden need to say something, anything, to break the moment. “We came here for dessert, and all you’ve gotten are salty snacks,” she pointed out.

“Fair enough.” Jeff veered toward the freezer section and grabbed a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Nina made a face. “There are dozens of flavors to choose from and you went with mint chocolate chip?”

“What do you have against mint chocolate chip?”

“Nothing should be that shade of green. It’s unnatural.”

“Fine, then. More for me.” Jeff smiled: a lopsided, genuine smile, which was how Nina knew that the other one—the one he showed the rest of the world—was false.

It gave her a stupid rush of confidence, knowing that she was the one who’d elicited that smile. Nina found herself desperate to see it again.

“If you insist upon that monstrosity”—she nodded at his ice cream carton—“then you leave me no choice but to get my own dessert. Watch and learn.”

She marched to the front counter and caught the cashier’s attention. “Excuse me, could I get a chocolate milkshake with double M&M’s?”

“Double M&M’s? That’s shockingly greedy.” Jeff came to stand behind her, close enough that Nina could have leaned back into him, if she dared.

“Or it’s the secret to true happiness,” she replied, over the sudden pounding of her heart. “All I know is that when I need to eat my feelings, my feelings taste like Wawa milkshakes with extra M&M’s.”

Jeff smiled. “Are you and Sam still trying to sample all the M&M varieties from around the world?”

Nina was startled that he had remembered. “We haven’t gotten to all the countries yet. Turns out there’s a whole lot of world out there.”

Something flashed in Jeff’s eyes at her words, and he nodded, thoughtful.

Nina insisted on paying for their snacks. It was the least she could do, after she’d cut off the elaborate, expensive date that Jeff had planned. As she signed the receipt, she noticed that the cashier was looking at her companion in the hoodie a little too closely. The girl opened her mouth—but before she could say anything, Nina had grabbed their shopping bag in one hand and the prince’s arm in the other. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Should we make it a race?” Jeff asked, as playful and challenging as he’d been when they were kids and used to slide down the palace stairs on sofa cushions.

“You’re on.” Nina took off sprinting down the street, Jeff running alongside her.

When they reached the section of John Jay Park that stretched along the river, they both collapsed onto a bench, their breathing uneven. The darkness was broken only by pools of buttery light cast by scattered streetlamps along the footpath behind them.

Jeff pulled the sweatshirt over his head and tossed it to one side. The moonlight gleamed on his dark hair, turning it into the silver helmet of a knight. “Sorry, Matt,” he told his protection officer, not sounding sorry at all. Matt just shook his head and retreated a few yards down the path, still in their line of sight.

“That place was amazing.” Jeff reached for his ice cream carton before passing Nina the shopping bag. “Where does the name Wawa come from, anyway?”

“I’m not sure.” Probably, like everything else in this country, it traced back to Washington.

Nina pierced the lid of her milkshake with a straw. “I feel honored to have led you on your very first Wawa excursion,” she went on, in a lighter tone. “Promise me that next year, when you go to the campus Wawa for late-night snacks, you’ll remember that I’m the one who showed you how it’s done.”

“There’s a Wawa at King’s College?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s always crowded, especially at one-fifty-five a.m., five minutes before closing time,” she told him. “Once when I was at the front of the line, someone offered me thirty bucks for my milkshake.”

“Did you take it?”

“Absolutely not! You can’t put a price on this kind of happiness.”

Jeff shifted on the bench, his leg momentarily pressing against hers. And even though there were two layers of fabric between them, his khakis and her black jeans, Nina still felt her face go hot. She took an enormous, unladylike slurp of her milkshake, hoping it would calm the clamor of her thoughts.

The prince cleared his throat. “To be honest,” he said, “I don’t know if I want to go to King’s College next year.”

The statement caught Nina off guard. “Really?”

“I know, I know, it’s where my family has always gone. My parents keep pressuring me to sign on the dotted line and be done with it.”

“But …,” Nina offered, waiting.

“But I would rather go abroad. To Spain, maybe, or Australia. Not that they’ll ever let me. An American prince, studying in a country that isn’t America?” Jeff shook his head. “The press would lose it. I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me,” he hurried to add.