Page 479 of Bad Prince
Not in a cheesy soul-sister way.
In a cleaner, sharper way than that.
She asks me about Stanford, not the glossy brochure version, the real one. About volleyball. I ask about Royal Oaks, about how she survived it, about Leo when she first met him. She answers dryly and honestly and with just enough bite that I understand immediately why Tristan said we’d hit it off. Especially since she’s also an athlete.
At one point Leo watches us over his coffee and says, “This is either going to be a lifelong friendship or the start of a regime change.”
“Both,” Jade says.
I nod.
“Yup.”
Tristan leans back in his chair and studies the two of us like he’s realized he may have just created an alliance that will eventually be used against him.
“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Leo smiles.
“I know. It’s beautiful.”
Brunch arrives in waves—eggs, fruit, smoked salmon, potatoes crisped within an inch of their lives, pastries layered with far too much butter to be legal.
I’m halfway through the best croissant of my life when Leo glances at Tristan and says, more quietly now, “Seriously, though. Good game.”
Tristan looks up.
Leo shrugs one shoulder.
“We watched the whole thing. You look good with that team. Comfortable.” A pause. “I miss you at Harvard, but I get it.”
The softness in Tristan’s face at that almost undoes me again.
“Yeah,” he says. “The team has synergy.”
Jade reaches across and steals a piece of Leo’s pastry without asking. “He was annoying about it for, like, a full week.”
Leo looks offended.
“That is not true.”
“It was nine days.”
He turns back to Tristan.
“I was supportive.”
“You were dramatic.”
Jade smiles sweetly.
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Something in my chest loosens watching them. Maybe because for all the money and privilege and prep-school legend surrounding all of them, this part is simple.
They love each other.
They fight like family.
