“Have I seen that bathing suit before?”

I lower my iPhone, where I’m lost in an ebook. Even with my shades on, I have to squint at Amelia, who’s lying on the chair beside me, just a few inches from my family’s pool.

I give her a funny look. “Um, yesterday?”

“That one? The yellow?”

I smile. “Yes. This same yellow.” I set my phone on the table beside me and reach for my lemon drop martini. “You must have been drunker than I thought.”

“Did it have the little eyelet holes?” Amelia tugs at her white bikini bottoms, as if to reinforce she’s talking about my swim suit.

“Yesss.” I laugh.

She shakes her head, touching her lips. “I swear…you just look different.” Then her mouth drops slowly open. Her eyes pop. “Lucille Sutton Rhodes…” Her hand claps over her mouth, stifling a squeal. She starts to bounce. “You had been with Mags last time I saw you! Mags who came home in Dec’s jersey. When Char and I looked for you after we saw Bryce, we couldn’t find you. Not till 5 a.m. We weren’t worried because Mags was with Dec when he had Bryce thrown out. Charley kept thinking she’d seen you, but she was trashed out of her mind.” Amelia lunges out of her pool chair and slaps me on the bicep. “YOU DID IT! You got laid! Who was it? Dec’s cousin Trent? No! It was Stephen Reece!”

I swat at her. “He’s rude and has weird teeth.”

“Oh my freaking goodness, Luce! Who was it?”

I can’t stop myself from cackling. “You’ll never guessssss.”

“You better tell me, hussy! I’m your best friend!”

I can’t help the grin that splits my face. “That’s why I can’t,” I whisper.

“Noooooo you didn’t. No you didn’t! Oh my God, you didn’t tell me! LUCYYYYY!”

I leap off my chair, dash to the diving board, and cannon-ball into the pool. I feel Amelia’s fingers swipe my arm before I reach the surface.

“BITCH!” She dunks me.

I open my eyes underwater, grasping at her bikini top. I pull it off and kick away from her. She snags my hair and tugs.

“You better—” she gasps as we tread water— “tell me everything!”

“He’s a grower,” I shriek.

I’m not sure who’s louder, Am or me. We make it to the steps, smacking each other, doubled over in hysterics, me embarrassed and elated, Amelia cracking up the way she does for no real reason.

“Jesus Christ on a cracker! Lucy Rhodes! You saw Crown Jewels with your two own eyes?”

“My vagina’s eyes. First hand account.” I cover my face with both hands, leaning my lower back against the top step as I crack up.

“You’re grinning like the Cheshire Cat!”

“Am I?” I’m blushing, too.

“So he was good. Amazing. How on Earth…?”

I shrug, then hop up, practically skipping to my lounge chair. “It just happened.”

“Holy fucking cow! I need the details. Right now!”

I’m surprised to find I’m glad to give them. It feels good to have a story of my own for once. It feels good to…live…I guess is what I did last night. That Bryce was there, well, all the better.

When I left Liam’s room, I found that it was being guarded by his own security detail.

“It was kind of like a fairy tale,” I tell her smugly.

“What a lucky little ho.”

I stick my tongue out, but I can’t help grinning.

I spend the next hour re-hashing every detail, from my Bryce freak-out to the way Prince Liam played with my hair.

“I know it sounds insane. It just felt right, though. He was just…I don’t know. He made me feel safe.”

Amelia smiles over the rim of her Manhattan. “This makes my day.”

“It was just a one-night stand.” Even so, I’m still riding my high a few hours later when Char and Maggie drag themselves outside, both in dark sunglasses, chasing Advil with Gatorade.

Within five minutes of their arrival, everybody knows almost everything. It’s embarrassing. It’s ridiculous. It’s fabulous.

“I almost want to see your pussy, Luce. Like, get its autograph or something,” Charley grins.

“That’s super gross, and no way.”

As I’m getting up to flip from front to back on my chair, Maggie jumps up from her seat, walking to the lawn’s edge with her phone pressed to her ear. We’re still discussing just how beautiful the crown jewels were when she turns back toward us, phone in hand. Her face is slightly pale, her mouth gaping.

“Oh God,” Charley says, at the same time I say, “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head, waving her phone around. “Everybody sit down. And don’t worry. Nothing that bad. Just…” she blinks, “surprising. Luce, down on your ass.”

I sink onto my chair. “What?”

Maggie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Bryce,” she says sharply, “is in the ICU. He got his ass kicked last night. On the beach behind the Parsons’ place.”

My heart rises up into my throat, where it flutters for a sick second, then sinks slowly into my belly. “What happened?”

Maggie shakes her head. “Nobody knows. That was Dec on the phone. He’s being very strange about it. But it wasn’t him. I mean…” She chews her lip.

“I guess you’re his witness,” Amelia murmurs.

“Lucy, were you with Prince Liam then?” Mags asks me.

I nod, and don’t correct them when I realize that I wasn’t. Not all night, anyway. I woke up at 4:15 alone in Liam’s room and didn’t leave until close to 5. When I stepped into the hall, one of his guards told me he had something urgent come up and was sorry that he had to go. I figured it was probably what he had them tell all the one-night stands, but it didn’t put a damper on my spirits.

“I heard Bryce has been gambling,” Charley says. “Since he’s been here, since he got here yesterday. I wonder if he lost a hand.”

Amelia shrugs, her lips pulled downward. “What goes around comes around.” That’s how I know she loves me, that my super sweet best friend would say something so callous. “I’m just glad it wasn’t me, because it might have been.”

“Karma’s a bitch,” Charley agrees, picking her cuticle.

Maggie’s still looking down at her phone, now texting. “Luce,” she glances up, “Dec says the cops may ask you questions. Just because…” She shrugs.

No need to spell it out; we all know why.

I nod, and Maggie’s head bows again.

“He says tell them security footage has you upstairs with ‘your guest’—” she rolls her eyes— “until 6:10 a.m.”

“But that’s not right,” Amelia says.

My stomach tightens.

Maggie’s eyes find mine.

“Did you see Bryce?” Charley asks me. “Did Prince Liam see you see Bryce?”

I shake my head. But he’d seen me lose my shit.

“He knew something, didn’t he?” Amelia asks. That girl can read me like a book.

“Does he have a blue and white jet?” Maggie asks me.

“How would I know?” I stand up, pressing my martini glass against my hot cheek.

“One left earlier today. Eastward bound,” Mags says. I was leaving Dec’s house then. That’s when I saw it. Isn’t the Isle of Gael’s flag white and navy blue?”

My mind is spinning.

“I’m not going to say that would be romantic,” Maggie starts.

“I’m not going to say knight in shining armor, either,” Amelia puts in.

“Lucy, did you give some killer head…or like…what happened?” Char can’t stop the grin from spreading over her face.

I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing my temples. “You guys. I need a nap, I think.”

“I think the prince just avenged your honor, darlin’,” Maggie drawls.

I don’t know what to think. But I know how I feel. That night, I dream of him draped over me, his body like a shield. When I wake up in the morning, I realize that I didn’t take my Ambien. I slept all night.

* * *

We spend three weeks in Southampton, like old times. A few days after we find out about Bryce, Maggie lets me know the police won’t be coming my way, and Bryce is going to recover. No one mentions him again, and I don’t think about him too much. Only on the tail end of a thought about Prince Liam.

I can’t imagine a cosmic purpose behind our encounter at Dec’s party—other than my own healing. We barely talked, and yet we slept together and shared amazing sex. He was dominant but not dominating, gentle but not patronizing, kind but not phony. He left his guards by my door and went and did something no one else would have been able to do: he kicked Bryce’s ass.

Who would make Liam pay? The authorities in his country? Yeah, right.

The press has yet to get wind of the story, but in our circle, everybody knows Prince Liam did it.

As I walk through the Denver International Airport, clutching Grey’s cat carrier to my chest while I stride along one of those moving conveyer belts, I pass a man holding what I swear is a picture of Prince Liam. I turn slightly as his belt whisks him in the opposite direction, and I notice there’s some animal in the background. A horse? It must be a horse mag. The Isle of Gael is known for breeding horses.

I probably have almost all the popular horse magazines waiting for me in the mailbox at my place in Estes, but I stop at an airport bookstore anyway. Turns out, there’s a whole wall devoted to magazines. I find Liam’s gorgeous, bestubbled face smirking at me from beneath a cowboy hat on the cover of The Competitive Equestrian.

So yeah, I will have this at home. And I’m totally buying it here and now.

I find a cart for my luggage, grab my suitcases at baggage claim, strap Grey’s carrier to the top, and walk slowly to my car, smirking down at the magazine cover the whole way.

I might have joined Snapchat with a random, covert user name and followed him. And yeah, maybe I’m checking his Instagram three or four times a day. But so what? It’s not hurting anyone. It’s a crush, and it’s fun, and it feels good.

I deserve to feel good, don’t I?

Yes, I tell myself as I back my black 4Runner out of the parking lot. I totally do deserve to feel good.

I’m not being unreasonable or weird here. I don’t expect him to call me up or anything. I don’t even know if I’ll ever see the guy again. I’m just thankful he helped restore my lady parts to fighting form.

The drive to Estes Park takes about an hour and a half from DIA. I drive a good chunk of it on I-25, cutting northward in a straight line. I smirk at my magazine cover a time or two between reassuring Grey, who’s awakening from his kitty sedative. I spend the rest of my time listening to Taylor Swift. I was never really a fan before Southampton this year, when Charley of all people got me hooked. Bumping into Taylor a time or two at parties didn’t hurt.

I hang a left on Highway 66 and smile as I head into more rural parts. Wood-carved bears at roadside stands, marijuana shops, and these adorable little summer pie-and-ice cream booths greet me like old friends. The little town of Lyons is bustling with tourists sipping frozen coffees, listening to live music in the shadow of the Rockies, checking out Native American art. I crack my window and let my hair down because damnit, it feels good to be back.

It’s true I fled Georgia, fled the entire Southern U.S., when I came out here, but it’s also true that I’m built for a place like this. It’s rural like my native Georgia, but without the awful heat. It’s low key here without the judgment you’d get there. And it’s crunchy. Always bonus points for crunchy.

The road between Lyons and Estes is twisty and thick with tourist traffic. I curse the ones from far-flung states like Massachusetts and Texas.

“Just go, damnit!”

I pass a couple of them, gassing the 4Runner, loving the pull of gravity against the speed of the car, just barely keeping me in my lane as I fly. Riding horses is like this for me, too: reckless and freeing and just a little dangerous.

That’s another thing I love about both home and here: horses. And fields and lakes and forests. Nature.

The sun is setting as I climb the last hill before the Estes Park sign and the overlook where you can see the Rockies, and the valley below. God, this place is gorgeous. The sky is cloudless, dark indigo; the mountains have lost snow in the three weeks I’ve been gone. They look so green and lush. Kind of like the landscape on the Isle of Gael, which I’ve found is just northeast of Scotland.

I smirk again down at my magazine and keep on driving, through the adorable downtown, with its fresh-made-caramel-corn joint, organic restaurants, mom and pop breweries, jewelry stores, art galleries, and homemade pie places. I point myself toward the Rocky Mountain National Forest, passing the iconic Stanley Hotel and climbing a few more hills before I see the sign on my right for Flagstaff Ranch.

The ranch is bordered by a log-constructed fence, its slim paved road rolling under an archway with FLAGSTAFF RANCH in black iron script. I round a curve, driving into a grove of aspens, and pull over to my right to check my mail box, one of six. The blue one.

It’s a big box, which is good, because I’ve got a heap of mail.

I turn the music down and start the song “This Love” off TaySwift’s 1989 album as I pass what we Georgia girls would call the “big house” on my right. It’s a two-story ranch home belonging to Frank and Frieda Smith, a champion horse breeding team and good friends of my dad’s from college.

Maurice, one of the ranch hands, lives in the small cabin nearest to them. I pass the homes of Bucking Bill, the cook; Sheila Adamson, a real-life horse whisperer and part-time palm-reader; and Juan Fernandez, the cattle guru, before winding onward down the road, into the trees at the base of the foothill, to my own place: Flagstaff Inn, a Gold Rush-era mansion that was, in the late 1800s, a resort for people with pulmonary disease.

A rocky creek with ice-cold water flows behind the home. I can see birds flying from their perches in the trees as I park between two firs.

More recently, the house was a bed and breakfast, but Frank and Frieda closed it after Mom and Dad told them in spring ’15 that I wasn’t doing well (I had transferred from Rhodes to UGA to room with Amelia, and still couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed) and had mentioned a desire to work with horses.

I’d ridden at Flagstaff Ranch a few times during vacations and competed in horseback competitions since I was 8, so I think my family felt relieved when I mentioned it. Amelia and I left UGA at Spring Break and drove out here together, and she stayed an extra week with me, making sure I was okay before she headed back.

Since then, I’ve spent the better part of most days with Frank, Frieda, or both, learning the finer points of equine sexy times, foal delivery, and training. A little about racing, too. This summer, we have Dear Abby (Please Help) on the ranch. She was one of the runners up at Belmont in 2014.

I climb the porch steps slowly, dragging my rolling suitcases, nearly getting strangled by the Vuitton duffel bag slung over my arm and around my neck. I set Grey’s carrier down, then dump everything else onto the porch, unlock the door, and punch the passcode into the alarm system.

I step inside and inhale deeply. This house smells amazing, like the lavender I have in one of the front windows, old wood, suede, and fireplace. It’s the perfect “Western” retreat, and I feel fortunate I’m able to rent it for a while longer.

Some people might think it feels lonely, but to me it’s perfect. I put giant puzzles together at a table by the fireplace in the front parlor. I spend hours in the old-fashioned library, sipping whiskey sours from a crystal tumbler.

There’s a little nook under the stairs, with a velvet-covered bench and a bunch of pillows and a lantern-looking lamp on the wall, which is papered with a leaf pattern. I have no idea what it’s for exactly, but sometimes when I want to feel snug, I take a book in there and sit cross-legged on one of the pillows.

The kitchen is enormous and not updated—in the most charming of ways. Since bed and breakfast guests were never going to see it, it’s all chipped hardwood and big trough sinks. The refrigerator is pale aqua, manufactured in 1974, if the sticker inside the door can be believed.

I drag my luggage inside the foyer, then sit on the rug in the entry hall and free Grey from his carrier. He gives me a pissed-off look, then scampers off.

“Welcome home to you, too.”

I spend the next few minutes wandering through the downstairs, touching little things I missed seeing and looking at the way the dimming sunlight falls through windows.

Home.

This feels like home for me right now.

I waltz into the bathroom off the cozy living room and smile at myself in the mirror. I look peaceful. Healthy. I feel good. It’s…weird. And awesome.

While I pee, I go to Snapchat and watch a video Prince Liam’s cousin shot on what appears to be a catamaran. I’m not looking when I reach for the toilet paper. My fingertips brush the cardboard roll a few times before I lower my phone and blink around.

“Hmm.” I lean forward, opening the cabinet right in front of me. There’s nothing in my freaking reach but a box of tampons.

Tampons…

My mind flashes to my suitcase as I packed last night, to the small, unopened box zipped into my underwear compartment.

In the mirror, I see my face twist.

I think I’m going to be sick.