Page 484 of Bad Prince
“What is it?”
He looks at me, then back at the phone.
“My mother,” he says.
Jade immediately perks up.
“Oh, this should be fun.”
Leo leans back.
“Speaker?”
Tristan gives him a dead look.
“Absolutely not.”
Then he turns to me, and there’s something almost apologetic in his eyes.
“I should take this.”
I nod once.
“Go.”
He leans down, kisses my temple in the middle of brunch like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and walks a few steps away toward the windows.
Jade watches him go, then picks up her coffee and says, almost lazily, “Welcome to the next round.”
I look at her.
She smiles into her cup.
And somehow, sitting there with the ocean beyond the glass and the taste of coffee on my tongue and Tristan taking his mother’s call with my lipstick still probably somewhere on his mouth, I know exactly what she means.
