Page 601 of Bad Prince
Her mouth curves.
Private.
Then Jade starts another toast and the room erupts again.
I lean back in my chair and let the noise wash over me.
The thing is, I used to think winning would feel louder than this.
Harvard thought winning looked one way.
My father thought it looked another.
Royal Oaks thought it belonged to bloodlines and last names and rooms where the wrong people were only ever invited in as entertainment.
Stanford taught me something better.
Winning isn’t always the banner.
Or the draft projection.
Or the article.
Or the roomful of people suddenly deciding your choices were genius after they pan out.
Sometimes it’s standing on the other side of the worst version of yourself and realizing the person you love still chose to stay and watch what you became after.
Sometimes it’s a girl in Greece with gold at her throat and your compass on her wrist.
“Hey, Olympic champion.” I walk up to her, take her hand, just needing a minute alone. I walk her out to the patio. Where moonlight and soft waves play a duet like a song.
“That sounds fake.”
“You looked pretty real from where I was standing.”
She turns in my arms then, the medal brushing once against my shirtfront with a cool little tap. Up close, she smells like expensive hotel soap, clean skin, and salt dried down from a day that was too big for ordinary language.
Her fingers find the open collar of my shirt automatically.
Rest there.
“Did I black out after match point?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.”
I smile.
She tips her head back and studies my face in the moonlight. Then she says, very quietly, “You looked wrecked in the stands.”
I huff a laugh.
“That obvious?”
“Very.”
“Yeah, well.” I glance down at the medal between us, then back up. “Turns out watching the woman you love go to war for her country does things to a man.”
