His Royal Highness(68)

“You’re aiming the ball for her!” Carrie says in outrage, pointing to where Derek’s hand cradles mine.

“We’re just holding hands,” I say with an innocent voice.

Leave us alone! We’re in love!

Then Derek flicks my wrist for me, and the ball flies and lands in one of their cups with a satisfying plunk.

Thomas tells Derek he can go screw himself before scooping out the ping pong ball and shooting back the punch from inside the cup.

Sadly, even with us cheating, we still lose.

Derek thinks I should make an appointment to get my eyes checked because he’s unsure how someone can be that bad at beer pong. I tell him it’s an art.

We mingle for a little bit, pilfer some snacks that look like they’ve had the least amount of hands dipped into them, and then Derek nods toward the door.

“Want to get out of here?”

“Really? Because I was hoping we could hang out here for another hour, maybe eat some more stale chips and—”

My sarcasm is cut off when he tugs me over to say bye to Carrie and Thomas. They’re still dominating at the beer pong table. I think they might try to go pro. They don’t even care that we’re leaving early. Carrie waves, not realizing I’m standing right beside her because she’s too busy lining up her shot. She ends up brushing her hand down my beard and remains wholly unfazed. It’s like she always fondles my beard when we say goodbye to each other.

“Have a good night!”

Out in the hall, Derek leads me toward the bank of elevators.

“So am I spending the night?” I ask, playing the cool girl.

“I thought that was obvious.”

“Nothing’s obvious when you’ve had as many drinks as I have.”

He smiles and presses his hand to the small of my back. “Let’s go, champ.”

Inside the elevator, I tug on my beard. It stays fused to my face. I recall my parents’ old reprimand: “If you keep making that face, it’ll stick like that.” It appears that lesson is finally hitting home. I will forever look like an 80-year-old man. I must whimper in distress because Derek chuckles and loops his arms around my shoulders as we arrive on his floor.

“C’mon, I’ll help you get it off.”

In the end, he props me on his bathroom counter and stands between my legs, rubbing an alcohol-soaked cotton swab carefully beneath the edges of the beard.

He concentrates as if he’s performing open-heart surgery. He’s so gentle, working slowly so he doesn’t rip my skin off by accident. I was very clear with him that I like my skin.

“Where did you get this glue?” he asks.

“Someone from Costuming brought it over.”

“Ah. Right. I guess that makes sense. They want these beards to stay put on people who are In Character all day.”

He works another piece of the beard off as I hold still, watching him.

It should be boring, but it’s not. I have unhindered access to his face. Up close and personal. I study his nose (straight, cute if noses can be considered so) and his forehead (seemingly an appropriate size, currently wrinkled in concentration), his eyebrows (brown, thick enough to offset his strong features) and the little freckles that are barely visible on his nose. He has a tiny scar on his left cheek I never noticed before.

“You’re so beautiful,” I say.

He chuckles but keeps his attention on his work. “You’re swaying.”

Am I? I thought I was holding perfectly still.

I go back to studying his face.

“I didn’t like these last two weeks,” I admit quietly.

“Me neither.”

“I missed you.”

“You never said so,” he says, eyes flitting to mine.

“I was trying to play it cool.”

He hums and tugs a little more of the beard off my face, and I wonder if someone donning a costume like mine can ever really be considered cool.

“And I knew you were busy, so I kept myself busy too,” I confess.

“Once, I drove by your dorm and nearly demanded you get in my car even though it was midnight.”

My heart soars. “You should have!”

He grins.

I wrap my legs around his waist and he keeps working. FINALLY, my beard is tugged off and I’m a free woman. I turn back to look in the mirror and am greeted by splotchy red skin. Specks of the glue still hang from my face. In other words, I am a vision.

Since there’s no way in hell we’re about to get it on—I wouldn’t even kiss me right now—I decide to use this opportunity for something equally as important.

I turn back around. “Let’s have a state of the union address.”

His brow quirks. “Meaning?”

“We make sure you and I are on the same page. Relationship-wise.”

He tugs off his tie and walks into his closet to hang it up. “Shouldn’t we do this in the morning?”

“I won’t be able to sleep otherwise.” Wrong. I could lie down on this counter and be out in five seconds flat, but I’m worried I’ll chicken out if I wait until the morning, when I’m stone-cold sober.

“All right, then,” he says, walking back into the bathroom a few moments later, after having changed. He’s bare-chested above a pair of gray pajama bottoms, and my heart stumbles over itself, trying to keep up.