“Easy. A night alone,” Sam replied. “A year abroad sounds great, but not without someone to share it with.”

  “A night alone in this alley,” he repeated, disbelieving, and she laughed.

  “This alley seems pretty harmless so far.”

  They’d been sitting out here for a while now, on the fire escape that overlooked the alley behind Enclave, letting time slip through their fingers like sand. Sam had wanted to stay for the Vandals’ show, but Liam insisted that they’d pushed their luck too much already. They’d compromised by staying here, both silently agreeing to hide from reality a little longer.

  Liam had unearthed a bag of potato chips backstage—which was almost certainly stolen from one of his bandmates—but Sam didn’t complain as they passed the chips back and forth, asking each other silly this-or-that questions. They had started easily enough, with softballs like crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Skydive or scuba dive? By now they’d escalated to increasingly ridiculous questions. Time machine or magic carpet? Retake the SATs or relive your most awkward moment?

  It was a game played in fits and starts, because they kept pausing to tell jokes or recount anecdotes. Already Sam had recounted the day she’d met Nina (she liked to claim, now, that she’d taken one look and known that Nina was her future best friend, but the truth was Sam had just been lonely) and about the time she’d shaved all the hair off Beatrice’s dolls. (“Hairless dolls! Now that is the kind of commemorative gear that you should sell at the palace gift shop,” Liam had remarked.)

  Normally, Sam felt that nights followed a distinct arc. They climbed steadily toward a peak—a moment when the music and energy were perfect, a moment that, if you were lucky, you might recognize as the highlight of the evening. Then the roller coaster would swoop down, careening toward the end of the party and the brutal hangover that awaited you in the morning.

  That wasn’t happening tonight. Instead of accelerating back toward reality, she was…meandering toward it. Enjoying the view. She wouldn’t even be hungover tomorrow, because she hadn’t had anything to drink since those long-ago sips of champagne with Nina and Jeff. She’d been too caught up in the contagious energy of the mosh pit to even care about getting a beer.

  With the part of her brain that was still focused on reality, Sam registered how bizarre this was. She was sitting in an alley behind a crowded dark club, and it smelled like cigarettes and spilled beer, and she didn’t care at all because she was enjoying the unexpected spark that had struck between her and this stranger.

  “Okay, my turn,” she declared. “Ninjas or pirates?”

  Liam frowned, considering the question with utter seriousness. “What kind of pirates? Historic Blackbeard-style pirates, or pirates with magic like in Peter Pan?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re taking this too seriously.”

  “This-or-that is a very serious matter because it forces you into self-examination. But since you won’t clarify which type of pirate…” He glanced over hopefully, and Sam shook her head. “Then I guess I’ll have to go with ninjas.”

  This was not at all the conversation she’d expected to have with someone in a rock band, but it just went to show that you couldn’t judge people at first glance. Or, rather, that people would keep on surprising you.

  Liam took a handful of chips, then passed her the bag. “Beach or mountains?”

  That was an easy one. “Mountains, always. You?”

  “I guess I’ll find out soon enough. I’ve never seen mountains—not real ones, anyway.” He hesitated. “The guys and I are road-tripping out west in a few weeks, to see if we can make it in LA.”

  Sam had suspected that this adventure would only last a night. Still, disappointment curdled in her chest at the realization that she probably wouldn’t see Liam again. A small part of her had hoped he would still be here, still working at the palace and singing at Enclave, when she and Jeff returned from their gap-year tour.

  She’d never know what might have happened if they weren’t about to part ways—if they might have built something together that lasted more than a single, momentous evening.

  “Oh, you’ll make it. You guys are really good,” she said warmly. “Though I have to say…you shouldn’t be singing backup.”

  Liam blinked, surprised. “Jesse’s always been our lead singer. Besides, I’m the one who plays guitar.”

  “As if you can’t do both at the same time.” Sam nudged him. “I’m just saying, you’re talented, Liam. Talented enough to do your own thing, if you ever wanted to leave the band and go out on your own.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” He glanced over and added, “You’re not the only one who’s still figuring out what they stand for.”

  They sat with that in companionable silence. Finally Sam checked the time, wondering what was happening back at the palace, and saw that it was almost midnight. Liam must have noticed the movement, because he remarked, “That’s a funny watch. Not at all what I’d expect you to wear.”

  “My stylist despises it,” Samantha agreed. “I won it from a claw machine years ago, at an arcade with Jeff and Beatrice—one of those royal visits they stage and choreograph to make us seem like ordinary people. When I pulled this out of its plastic wrapping, Jeff tried to take it. He said that since it was covered in dinosaurs, it was a boy watch, and he should have it. So of course I insisted on wearing it. I couldn’t let him think that only boys got to wear the cool stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said dubiously, and she rounded on him.

  “What, girls aren’t allowed to like fire engines and trains?”

  “Not at all.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “But…isn’t part of the problem that you called dinosaurs and trains ‘the cool stuff’? Maybe encouraging girls to play with train sets is only half the solution. Maybe we need to start saying that princesses and tutus are ‘the cool stuff,’ too.”

  Sam stared at him skeptically. “That would be nice, except no one actually thinks that.”

  He shrugged. “I can’t speak for all princesses, but I’ve met one, and she’s kind of a badass.”

  A reluctant smile rose to Samantha’s lips. She didn’t want to like this boy. Really, she hadn’t meant to. But he’d come along with his sarcasm and his irreverence, and she’d jumped at the chance to be as spontaneous as everyone thought she was—to go to a concert in a dark club as if she were any old eighteen-year-old, and not a Your Highness.

  She turned to see that Liam was studying her. Sam’s breath caught as he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Here was yet another thing to like about him: the fact that he wasn’t too intimidated to kiss her. Most guys waited for Sam to make the first move.

  She slid an arm around his waist, shifting on the fire escape so that her body nudged closer to his. He lifted a hand and teased his fingers through her hair, trailing them ever so lightly over her scalp in a way that sent electrifying shivers down her skin. She opened her mouth, deepening the kiss.

  This was sweeter and somehow more poignant than it should be, kissing a guy she’d just met. Sam would know; she had plenty of experience kissing guys she’d just met. Some of them were royal—her first kiss had been with Prince Fernando of Brazil at age thirteen. Some were Jeff’s classmates—she’d kissed a few in various games of spin the bottle, or that one time when they’d broken into the Crown Jewels vault, spin the scepter. And some were ordinary guys—well, the occasional valet or private ski instructor, since those were the only ordinary guys Sam got much time with. At least she knew better than to try anything with her Revere Guard; she could only guess how awkward things would be afterward.

  And with Sam, there was always an afterward. Most of her flings were over before they’d even begun.

  When she and Liam finally broke apart, the silence between them felt tranquil, almost sacred. The night had stretched on until it blurred into tomorrow.

  “Can I drive you home?” he offered, and Sam knew that this interlude from reality—this night, or dream, or whatever it was—had ended.

  She smiled. “In the garbage truck?”

  “It has security clearance, so I can get you to the palace’s back entrance. If you’re lucky, no one will even notice you were gone.”

  “Thank you.” She held out a hand, letting him pull her to her feet.

  As they headed back to the truck, she caught Liam humming a tune under his breath.

  “Is that one of your band’s songs?” She didn’t remember hearing them play it earlier, but it sounded catchy.

  He averted his gaze. “It’s nothing. Just a tune that popped into my head earlier tonight.”

  “Wait a second. Did you write a song about me?” she asked, delighted.

  “It’s a work in progress, and it’s not about you, per se. But, yes, I did start playing with the melody tonight. So you could say it was inspired by your presence. Loosely inspired,” he assured her.

  “Sing it for me!”

  Liam put a hand on the small of her back, steering her gently down the sidewalk. “Nope. I refuse to serenade you like the character from the bad teen movie you so adamantly insist you’re not living. Maybe someday, when it’s finished, I’ll send you a copy.”

  She nodded. “Maybe I’ll hear it on the radio once it’s a smash hit. Just promise me you’ll sing it yourself—the whole song, not just the chorus.”

  “We’ll see,” Liam said gruffly, though she noticed that he was smiling, too. Sam’s chest felt suddenly lighter, as if this night had lifted a loneliness she hadn’t fully realized she was carrying.

  She wondered if she would ever find someone she truly belonged with—someone who called her out on her antics but also joined in those antics. Someone who challenged her, who understood her restlessness because he felt it, too. She hoped that person was out there, and that fate would throw them together.

  But in the meantime, it had been nice to do this. To share a connection with someone, even if they both knew that their lives were only colliding briefly before parting ways again.

  7

  nina

  Nina had lost track of Samantha.

  It was hardly the first time. Sam had a habit of drifting off at parties, distracted by a drinking game or a shiny new boy, leaving Nina surrounded by people she only half knew and half liked.

  With one very crucial exception, of course.

  Nina hadn’t talked to Jeff since they’d all split that bottle of champagne outside. When they’d returned to Ambassador’s Hall, he had vanished, and soon afterward Nina lost Sam, too. Now she was here, at the center of the dance floor with some of the girls from Sam’s class—she kept assuming Sam would show up, but so far she was MIA.

  Painstakingly, Nina began threading her way through the overexcited teenagers. The music dimmed once she stepped out into the hall. She should go check Sam’s room, make sure her friend wasn’t passed out on top of her covers. Nina started toward the main staircase, detouring through the Grand Gallery, a long room lined with portraits of all eleven American kings. Their clothes and poses were different—some on horseback, some buried beneath so many jeweled crowns and rings and scepters that it seemed impossible the kings weren’t crushed beneath their weight—but their expressions were the same. Each of the eleven kings looked formidable, and a bit stern.

  It was strange, sometimes, to think that these were Sam and Jeff’s ancestors: men who’d commanded armies and decided the fate of nations. Nothing at all like the living, laughing Washingtons she actually knew.

  That was when she nearly collided with Jeff.

  Somehow Nina was unsurprised to see him here. Perhaps because she’d been thinking about him—because she was always thinking about him. Her love for him was like a low-level hum at the back of her mind, soft enough to ignore until he was standing in front of her, and then it was all she could process.

  As she took a step back, she wobbled a little in her wedges, and Jeff put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. “Hey, Nina. You okay?”

  I’m okay now that you’re here, she thought. Jeff seemed to realize that he was still holding on to her, and slowly lowered his hands.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow. It won’t be the same without you,” Nina blurted out. She flushed self-consciously and added, “I mean, without you and Sam.”

  Jeff smiled, that adorable boyish smile that was the tiniest bit lopsided. “Nina Gonzalez, are you saying that you’ll miss me?”

  She missed him now. She and Jeff were still friends, sure, but not in the way they’d been as children, when everything was uncomplicated and easy and full of laughter. Now they only crossed paths through Sam or at parties. Now he was dating Daphne.

  Come to think of it, Nina hadn’t seen Jeff and Daphne together all night. She tried not to get her hopes up at the realization.

  “Of course I’ll miss you two,” she replied, dodging his question. “By the way, have you seen Sam recently? I lost track of her.”

  “Sam is missing? Why am I not surprised.” Jeff’s eyes danced. “Want me to help look for her?”

  He fell into step alongside Nina. Through some unspoken agreement, they both moved down the hallway at a slow pace, drawing out their time together.

  “You’re going to have your hands full on this gap-year trip, trying to keep Sam out of trouble,” Nina teased. “The moment you look away, she’ll do something spontaneous and possibly dangerous, like sneak off into a crowded marketplace.”

  Jeff scoffed. “Try to keep Sam out of trouble? I’ll be right there in the marketplace with her, bartering for a dumpling.”

  “Like that time in Barbados when you traded your sunglasses to Captain Jacob to keep him from ratting you out?”

  “Ratting us out! I wasn’t the only one sneaking a beer,” Jeff protested, but he was grinning. “Come on, Nina, we both know that the only person who’s ever been able to keep me or Sam in line is you. We’re going to be in serious trouble without you.”

  They had moved past the throne room, its wooden floors gleaming in the light that fell from high mullioned windows, then past the nests of small sitting rooms with their clusters of love seats and armchairs. Each time they reached the entrance to another room, they cast a desultory glance inside for Sam, but there was no sign of her.

  “I only sometimes keep you in line,” Nina told Jeff, her feet scuffing the fringe on an antique rug. “But I have faith in your Revere Guards. If you and Sam try to do something ridiculous, they’ll find a way to stop you.”

  “Still, I’d rather have you.”

  The words were innocuous enough. It was something else that gave Nina pause: the subtle significance to his voice, the glow in his eyes as they met hers.

  I’d rather have you. For the first time, Nina allowed herself to entertain the wild, ridiculous, delirious thought that Jeff might feel something for her beyond friendship.

  He stopped in the middle of the hallway, near an alcove with an old grandfather clock. “Nina…I’m not any good at goodbyes.”

  “Then don’t say it!” She’d always hated goodbyes, ever since she was little and her mamá used to disappear on work trips for weeks on end, leaving Nina to stare at the door as it shut behind her. “This isn’t goodbye. It’s just see you later.”

  Jeff paused. “Does see you later mean that everything will be the same when I get back?”

  Nina found that her heart had picked up speed, kinetic energy sparking through every nerve ending. “Probably not,” she whispered. “Things change.”

  “But will you change? Or will you still be here when I’m home?”

  His words hung in the air between them, a declaration and a question at once. The what-ifs clamored more insistently in Nina’s mind: What if she grabbed Jeff’s shirt with both her fists, leaned forward and kissed him?

  They were standing so close, but they hadn’t yet crossed the final distance between them. They could still walk away and pretend this had never happened.

  Instead, Nina leaned forward and tipped her face up to his.

  Jeff’s lips on hers were so very right. This was how it felt to finally experience a kiss you had dreamed of for years: you always knew it would be good, and it was still a thousand times better than you ever imagined. As if someone had turned on a bright new spectrum of Technicolor lights and only now did you realize just how vibrant the world could be.

  The kiss must have lasted only a few seconds, but when they pulled apart, Nina’s entire universe had shifted on its axis. Her center of gravity now existed where Jeff’s lips had touched hers.

  She had kissed Prince Jefferson, and for better or worse, she could never take it back.

  He reached for her hand, twining his fingers in hers, which made Nina almost dizzy. “Do you want to go upstairs?”

  Yes. No. She wanted to and was terrified to, all at once. There were countless reasons that she shouldn’t: he was her best friend’s brother, and the prince, and what was the state of things between him and Daphne, anyway?

  No, Nina started to tell him, but her body had apparently disconnected itself from her mind and was cheerfully ignoring her brain’s commands.

  “Yes,” she heard herself say.

  Upstairs, they were eager yet strangely shy. “This is my room,” Jeff mumbled, as if Nina didn’t know this was his suite. To be fair, she hadn’t been here in years.

  She held her breath as they stepped into his sitting room. It was different than she remembered. Gone were the plastic basketball hoop that had been mounted on the door and the row of pegs where he used to hang sweatshirts and baseball caps. Everything felt more grown-up now: the navy and red throw pillows, the wooden desk with its leather blotter, the lamps casting a warm golden light over the room.

  “We can…um…” Jeff gestured to the couch in the sitting room.

 

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