Royal Bachelor (6 page)

Their server hovered after serving their appetizers.

“You two on a date?” he asked.

Luke seemed startled at the effrontery but Alice covered her grin with her serviette. The staff at Otto were friendly and familiar like this, imitating genuine Italian curiosity. She didn’t come here often, but the few times she did, every server seemed to have at least one word for every customer. She was surprised that Luke, being from Elmera, was taken aback by the server’s friendliness.

Luke answered, “Yes,” hesitatingly.

The server nodded and turned to Alice. “First date?”

Now Alice laughed. “How do you know?”

“You have a rule of not kissing on the first date?”

“
What
?” Alice sputtered, feeling her cheeks burn. She hated when people implied she was a prude.

“Because you two ordered onions and garlic!” The server grinned at them and poured Luke a taster of the wine bottle. He grudgingly approved the fine wine.

Thankfully, the server seemed to have decided he had tormented them enough. He was silent when he delivered and collected plates and wine. The food was divine. For a while, Alice and Luke ate silently, just exchanging glances a little subdued by the food between them. Their fingers brushed when they reached for bruschetta or to pour more wine.

Before now, Alice had thought it only happened in books, that renowned electricity from touch. Maybe it lessened and died down over time, but it was delicious and so thrilling right now. This was why she didn’t want to kiss him yet; because she wanted to trace that electric buzz along the curve of his ear. She wanted to mess her fingers through his hair and rest her cheek against his heart.

Finally, they sat back spooning dessert into their mouths and making faces of bliss at each other. She imagined curling up in the winter sunshine for a nap with Luke, or sitting across from him in her living room while they both read. They were sharing this silence, and it made her heart open to him as a flower does to sun.

“So, you’re a reader and I’m a reader. What else do we have in common?” Luke asked, breaking the meal’s sacred quiet.

“That’s not important, is it?” said Alice. “There are so many people with so many things in common and they still end up hating each other.”

Luke put down his spoon and leaned his elbows on the table, one hand around his wine glass. “Tell me things about you and I’ll do the same. Will you start with your real name?”

“Alessia Luisa Martelli. But I don’t answer to Alessia. It’s just thrown at me like a slipper when I misbehave.”

He chuckled and nodded, tilting his head as if to better scoop that with his ear, or maybe just displaying his jawline to her. Alice continued eating her gelato.

“Lucian Neville,” he said.

“I’m Catholic,” she said.

“I’m Catholic,” he replied with a smile.

Alice smirked. “I like the Virgin Mary and I dislike many outdated notions in the Church.”

He smirked back. “I like the Virgin Mary myself. But after my Confirmation, I lost touch with my confessor. I haven’t made an effort to study the Church since, so I am unaware to which outdated notions you refer.”

“You have a confessor?”

He blinked. “Of course, don’t you? I suppose you won’t be telling him you lied to a stranger, will you?”

She grinned. “The last time I went to confession was before my Confirmation, too. I still go to Mass now and then.”

“Are you going tomorrow?”

Alice thought how much her mother would love this. A Catholic. And what did she always tell Alice? “You want a man who goes to church and listens and kneels and makes the responses all at the right time. Your father does, and he hasn’t given us heartache, has he?”

“Yes.” After a very short hesitation, she added, “Do you want to come with me?”

Luke’s answer was to blind her with his smile. Goodness, he should stop looking so pleased. She wouldn’t be able to help assuming she was really important. He made her feel important and sought after. And how could that be, when he looked like that?

He was probably only intrigued with her because she resisted his pull. But when she succumbed, he’d go on to the next girl in the queue. Her father had warned her about men like this. Alice was waiting, wondering whether the flirtatious romance could outweigh the inevitable heartache.

When Justin had pulled that bewildering jump from Alice to her friend April, Alice had vowed she wouldn’t play at love like that. But here was Luke, making it so tempting to play and to experience, just to
experience
without thinking about the future.

Alice took another spoonful of
fior di latte
gelato and steeled herself. Ok, she was going to Mass with him tomorrow, and the church would bless her resolve to spend time with Luke without endangering anything. Not her heart, most of all.

He was really threatening to her heart. He raised her eyebrows at her when the check came, wordlessly asking for permission to pay, not taking for granted that he, as the man, would. He came around to her chair and shielded her from an influx of new diners as she stood up. There were subtle lines between chivalry and chauvinism, and he knew those lines. Alice liked it.

He offered his arm and she took it. They walked under the street lights, quiet, not trying to compete with the noise pollution around them. Alice liked that, too, that he wasn’t fishing for anything, for thanks or idle chit-chat.

She led him to her street before stopping.

He looked at her and smiled.

“For a first date, we failed rather spectacularly, didn’t we?” she said. “We hardly talked.”

“I notice we hardly talk. It’s like we already know each other.”

Alice shook her head. “It was because we were hungry. Tell me what you do in Elmera at least.”

“I’m in the royal corps. It’s not a demanding job. I’m also in funds committees, a position given to me through my father, who’s... how would you say... big there. There are a lot of big people there.”

“Committees? What sort?”

“Hmm, there are three. One for children, one for young adults and one for horses.”

“For horses?”

“Polo.” He grimaced. “I wish I worked in a bookstore. But that’s not all you do, is it?”

Alice smiled. “Society seems convinced that if we love what we do, it’s not a job. My best friend Rebecca is in law school though she’ll probably age prematurely once she’s a prosecutor. Clay’s a freelance accountant. Marsha tutors ESL and—”

“I asked about you. You haven’t even introduced these people to me yet. You dragged me away from them, if I recall.”

Alice blushed. “Yes, well, I thought we should have our first date first before I sic them on you. I mean, they would have asked you what you do and we would all have found out at the same time. That’s hardly fair, is it? I should be the first to know.”

He chuckled. “I promise you’ll always be the first to know. So what do you do?”

“I work in Strand.”

“That’s all?”

“And I read. And I try to write. But I’m always distracted. I think I’ll only finish a book if you stuck me in a cottage on a moor somewhere; with intelligent internet that will only give me access when I do research, and remove the connection when I start to look up too much, too many other things. There. Do you want my degrees, blood type and zodiac sign, too?”

“No,” he said, playing with her hand, the one tucked into his elbow. “I can Google those, I think.”

Alice laughed, making it sound as carefree as possible; when in truth his touch was making her quiver.

They reached her brownstone too soon. They stood at the base of the steps and Alice had to grit her teeth to pull away her hand.

“Thank you for this evening, Alice.” He gave the facade an once-over. “It looks nice. When do I see inside?”

Alice laughed again. “I do believe that’s a line.”

He only laughed as well. “Is it? I hardly know what I say when I’m with you.”

“And there’s another!”

He kissed her again, this time on the forehead. It was such a tender gesture Alice almost whimpered in her throat.

“Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow. When and where?”

Alice heard herself say, “Eight. Corpus Christi. If you don’t know it, come here ten minutes beforehand.”

“And I’m going to see inside your abode?”

“Abode! Get on with you, good sir.”

Luke fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He dreamed of Alice. In the dream, she wasn’t as modestly dressed in a red shirt and jeans as she had been during their date. She wore a long evening gown and it was summer in Elmera. They were on the stone balcony overlooking his grounds, the land he would inherit. In his dream he could see the frail bones of her shoulders and the freckles of her skin. She wore a delicious gauze dress that looked as though it were spun from sugar.

He knelt in front of her and pressed his mouth to her hipbone. The fabric melted, revealing her bare skin, and he kissed her again. The dress fell away, unwrapping Alice like a gift.

When Alfred looked in on him, the door opened to a loud party and noisy dance music. Luke bolted upright and threw pillows and curses at the intruder. When he realized it was Alfred who woke him up with his inconsiderate racket, Luke unceremoniously leapt from the bed determined to cover his cousin in pummeling blows for breaking off the dream.

“Go back to your party. I have to get up early tomorrow!” He shouted as Alfred made a hasty retreat.

At six a.m. he was no longer sleepy. He sat in bed remembering two things he had promised Alice.

One, that she need only ask and he’d tell her the truth.

Two, that she’d always be the first to know.

He nodded to himself and vowed to keep both promises for as long as she’d be in his life. He didn’t know how he could do it or how it would be possible. No one was supposed to know of his visit to the States. He came here as a stranger and would leave that way. Perhaps Alice would make things easy on him; she might tire of his stuffy manners or mysterious past. She may abruptly ask him to never visit her again or reveal that she was secretly married or engaged. Perhaps he would slink back to his island with his secrets and wounds, and maybe one day when Alice was old and tired she would realize she had dined with a prince.

As he swung his legs to the floor, he was gobsmacked by the realization that right now, just now, he couldn’t imagine Alice out of his life. He’d never felt like this before. He hardly even knew her, aside from the fact that she was an unabashedly critical reader, easy to laughter and hard to please if you didn’t ask for permission first.

While he struggled to imagine his own life without Alice, he was at a loss as to where she would fit in. He could still feel the edges of his dream, where she glimmered in a cotton-candy gown that melted under his tongue. But could he uproot her from her home? He certainly couldn’t rule a country from a Lower East Side apartment. They had no future. They had nothing…except for the heady connection when their eyes and skin met.

He showered, rinsing away the cynicism and fatalistic conclusions. He was wrong. They did have something; they had the present. He would live entirely within that small, delicate bubble. He would share it with Alice.

When he got out, his phone had only just stopped ringing. Who would call him at this hour? His mother knew he’d still be in bed. He picked up his phone and checked the messages. No emergency flags there. Everything was fine. His mother had told him to never dread. It only attracted what you dreaded.

The missed call was from Jules, a sneering and proud relic passed down from his father. The old man probably misdialed and called his phone instead of Alfred’s. Jules had a habit of doing that and proudly declared himself a Luddite, unwilling to adapt to technology. Luke usually put his phone on silent against it. But last night, he’d been so full of Alice he’d forgotten pretty much everything else.

Alice made him forget, but not in a mindless way. She also made him think.

Like what she said about society’s misconception that things we enjoyed doing weren’t jobs at all. Luke didn’t like any of his ‘jobs’. But then, he hadn’t really given himself a chance to like them either. When her eyes sparkled at his mention of children and young adults, something had ignited in him, a spark of passion for those foundations he sat in. Even the one for horses looked not as dull. They deserved happy lives as much as anyone else.

For the first time in years Luke actually felt powerful. His work was not simply monotonous meetings regarding bureaucracy and budgets, but it balanced people and lives in his grip. He had the power to give them education and happiness, or deny them that.

He met Andres downstairs at the vestibule. Luke smiled. Andres looked startled before smiling back.

“Thank you for recommending Otto. We loved it.”

Andres nodded. The man wore a jacket over his pajamas and was clutching a tray of bagels and coffee. He squinted as though he had forgotten to put in his contact lenses. Probably still not awake.