Stuck With The Four Hotties

“Do you realize that even as little as I’m around you, you start off at least half your sentences with ‘you Americans’,” I quip, making small quotes with my fingers. I drop my hands back into my lap before I realize that they’re still shaking. Pretty sure I’m exhausted, but I’m also scared to go to sleep. Once I do, I’ll have to remember that blackness closing in on me, the water choking me, the burning pain in my lungs …

“You’re just so adorably fun to make fun of,” he says, shrugging his shoulders as he slips back into his jacket. I’m guessing he got special permission to add those damn epaulettes. They look freaking ridiculous, but I suppose if a rockstar can get special permission to have tattoos and piercings, a prince could get permission to get gold eighties-esque shoulder pad things.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“I happen to think British people are ridiculous,” Miranda quips right back, and Windsor grins, lifting his tea cup up and then taking a long, slow sip. “Are you seriously over there, sippin’ tea?” she asks, throwing a pillow at him. Just to clarify: Miranda learned the phrase sipping tea from watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. It means, like, to tell the truth in a sort of shady way or to listen to other people gossip.

Andrew is grinning, enjoying the exchange, but I see the way his eyes take in Windsor. He totally has a crush on the prince. Hell, so does Miranda, and she’s gay. Pretty sure the whole of Burberry Prep Academy is in love with the prince.

“Why don’t you have bodyguards?” I ask him as he stands up and starts to clean up the empty tea cups. “I feel like there are probably a lot of people that would want to kill you: foreign governments, criminals looking for someone to ransom, dads of girls you’ve slept with.”

Windsor shrugs and washes the dishes, stacking them neatly in the box he used to carry them over. It’s kind of cool to see a billionaire prince doing domestic work. I shift and accidentally end up pressing against Zack. More

specifically, pressing between his legs. My back is to his front, and when I wiggle again, I hear him exhale sharply.

“Don’t like to be followed around all the time. Bloody annoying. I figure if I get shot, I probably deserve it.” He uses his wet palm to push red hair from his forehead, and it stays right where it is: sticking straight up.

Zack’s arms slide around me, and I shiver, putting my hands over his as he clasps them over my stomach. I’m totally aware that Jessie, Miranda, and Andrew are all staring at us, but I can barely hear anything over the pounding of my heart.

“I should’ve been there to help,” he whispers, sounding pained. I close my eyes, but I have no idea what to say. This whole day’s just been … fucked. I don’t curse much, but there’s not many other words in the English language that could encompass what I just went through. “I’m sorry, Marnye.”

There’s a brief moment of silence before Windsor starts rinsing out the teapot.

My friends start making their way off my bed, stretching and yawning. Soon, I’ll be in here all alone, staring at the wall and reimagining that scenario over and over again. Oh god. No, thank you. I wet my lips, desperate to ask someone to stay with me.

The obvious choice is Zack, but … I lean back into him, and I like the way he feels so much that it’s scary. If he stayed in here tonight, then I-

A knock sounds at the door, and we all jump.

Miranda and I exchange a look, but Windsor’s already swept over to answer it, flinging the door wide and giving us yet another taste of his eccentric personality. I think that’s a real world metaphor right there: he isn’t afraid, isn’t tentative, and so unashamed that he’s willing to open the door on everything without a second thought.

My mouth drops open when I see who’s waiting outside. The Idol boys are on my doorstep.

Tristan Vanderbilt. Zayd Kaiser. Creed Cabot.