Player's Princess (A Royal Sports Romance)(61)

I rush inside and pull my hood down. Akele's enormous brother is on the couch in the living room, watching television.

Jason descends the stairs and rushes to take me in his arms and kiss me.

"Yuck," Aheahe says.

Jason scowls at him. "You all ready?"

"Ready for what?" I ask.

"We gotta eat," Akele booms.

"We're going to hang out. All of us. We have something really important we need to show you."

"You do?"

He grins. "Yes. Come on, let's go."

Jason takes my hand and leads us out through the back door. There is a large building at the end of a dirt track in the backyard. Akele rolls up the front door and reveals the car.

It's… big, and very old.

"This is the Alohamobile," Akele declares, proudly. "Nineteen seventy-eight Cadillac Sedan DeVille. Only three more payments and she's ours."

As I look over the vehicle, I wonder how much the payments could be. Jason opens one of the back doors, and I slip inside. He scoots in alongside me, and tucks himself against me on the big bench seat.

Akele—I think—gets in the driver's seat, and the car rocks ponderously to the side. His brother gets in the other front seat and balances it out. The car rumbles to life and rolls out of the garage and grinds to a stop at the sidewalk before Akele pulls out into traffic.

"Where are we going?"

"A surprise," Akele booms.

"The best place," Aheahe says.

"A holy place," Akele agrees.

"Where?" I ask Jason.

He grins.

After leaving town and driving perhaps ten minutes, we arrive at Burger King.

"Princess." Jason offers his hand to lift me out of the car.

I stand up and look at the building. It smells good.

"You just go in and have a seat," Jason tells me. "We'll be right back."

"The one in town is better," Akele grumbles.

"We can't risk anyone seeing her. No one will notice us here."

"If you say so."

I sit patiently in the big booth in the back corner until the three of them arrive carrying so much food on four different trays that I can scarcely believe human beings are going to eat it all.

Jason stops them before they approach. He sets my own tray in front of me. The burger is neatly placed in the center, with the fries artfully arranged on the placemat in one corner, onion rings in one corner, and a cup of soda and a milkshake occupying the other two.

"Your Grace," Jason announces.

Very carefully and formally, he takes a strip of cardboard and forms it into a circle. I stare at him until I realize what it is. He places the paper crown on my head, nestling it just so in my hair. Then he sits down next to me, pressed up against my side, and we eat.

I carefully unwrap the burger and lift it from the paper.

"How am I supposed to eat all this?"

"Don't try that with me, Princess. I know how much you can pack away."

"I was hungover," I offer in defense.

I bite into the burger, and its flavors swarm my mouth. My eyes unfocus and I sit back a little bit, chewing it slowly before I swallow.

"She's having a burgergasm," Jason snickers.

I elbow him and then attack the burger, stopping only to eat French fries two and three at a time, and sip the milkshake. It seems strange to me to eat ice cream with dinner, but it somehow enhances the flavors.

By the time I finish, the fries are only half-eaten and I am absolutely stuffed. Jason has finished one giant double burger and is halfway through another. Akele and Aheahe piled their trays with so much food, it would take half an hour to list it all.

I clean my fingers with a napkin. Jason plucks a fry from my tray and pokes it toward my mouth. I eye him angrily and nip it out of his fingers with my teeth.

We spend the rest of the meal feeding each other French fries. This seems to greatly amuse his friends, even as he scowls at them for their smiles and quiet laughs.

I like this.

I finally reject a French fry, pushing his hand away to lean on his shoulder. I want a nap now.

When we return to the car, I lean on him and close my eyes. After a meal like that in the afternoon, a few hours of sleep would be like bliss, especially if I can stay with him.

I open my eyes and discover we are not back at the house, but at a grocery store. I pull my hood up and stick on my sunglasses and stay close to Jason as we take a cart and push it to the snack aisle, and begin filling it with all sorts of sodas and bags of snack foods, then take a trip up the dairy aisle.

Jason refuses to let me carry a single bag, but he cannot stop me busying myself with putting the food away as the three boys carry it back into the house. I open all the cupboards and put like with like as best I can.

He leads me to the living room after the last bag is carried in.

"We had a real debate over this," Jason says. "Whether to show them to you in original order, or chronological order."

"Original is best," Aheahe says.

"It's not the director's intent," Akele says.

Jason gives them the eye. "We can't spoil the OT for her. Come on. We're watching them in original order."

"Watching what?"

The doorbell rings, and I sit up nervously. When Akele opens it, three more football players are waiting outside. I recognize them even without their uniforms. I glance at Jason nervously.