Page 333 of Bad Prince
I turn after her immediately.
Of course I do.
And that’s when I hear Travers.
“What the hell are you doing, Vale?”
I close my eyes for one half-second.
Because, naturally, the universe has sent me a broad-shouldered football Neanderthal with a martyr complex and achip on his shoulder the size of Texas right when my patience is already hanging by a thread.
I turn.
There he is.
Drew Travers.
Tank in a cut-off hoodie.
Tape around his hand.
Shoulders like he was built in a military lab to haul furniture and start bar fights.
He’s in my space before the sentence finishes landing.
Close enough to be stupid.
Close enough to think I won’t do anything because we’re indoors and there are staff around and I’m too disciplined to make a scene.
The problem is, he’s not wrong.
That only annoys me more.
My face goes cold.
The prince shut-down, Leo used to call it at Royal Oaks.
The one that means whatever warmth or humor or humanity was visible a second ago just got locked behind bulletproof glass.
“None of your business.”
Travers laughs once.
Short.
Ugly.
Provocative.
“Clearly.”
I watch him.
He watches me.
And just like that we’re not doing the fake-athlete-civility thing anymore.
“Say what you came to say,” I tell him.
