Page 33 of Fallen Crown

“You were right about how much excitement would revolve around your involvement with the show.” It’s the closest I can come to saying I don’t want them to dig too deeply into my life, discover the truths I want to keep buried.

He gazes out my oversize windows to the ocean stretched out before us, and he doesn’t say anything for a long time.

“If I’m going to be out in the wilderness of Bellerive,” he says, “I don’t want Wren to be the one guiding me. I want it to be you.”

“Wren’s your teammate, and—”

“She’s too nice,” he says with a hint of impatience. “I want someone who’s going to force me to be better, to step up. Someone who has no problem calling me on my shit. If the point is to prepare me, I want to know I’ve been prepared.”

Normally, he’s full of jokes and laughter, and to hear him say something like this that reveals more of himself causes another flare of interest to ignite in me. But more than that is the realization he values me in a way I never would have expected when we were sitting across from each other at the conference table months ago.

“I’ll talk to Wren,” I say. “I’ll take you.”

Chapter Fifteen

Brice

Nick wanders into the kitchen as I’m planning and packing my meals with Joyce, the head cook, for my three-day camping trip, which starts in about an hour. It’s ridiculously early, and it would be unusual for Nick to be awake, but jet lag after his last trip to Tanzania, coupled with our father’s circumstances, means he’s more of an insomniac than a solid sleeper of late. Normally, I’d offer to be a sounding board for his worries, but every time I talk to him, his fears become mine. I get dragged down. Tucker notices and says something, and then I feel guilty for bringing my drama into her life. Leaning on her is not in the plan. She gets the best of me. I refuse to tarnish the few glimmers of happiness I see in her with my family’s circumstances.

Joyce nudges me and passes me the last of Rory’s scones in an airtight container with a wink. I tuck the present deep into my backpack. Another perk of being the former third in line to the throne is that I’m Joyce’s favorite royal. She’d never admit it, but I know it’s true.

Tucker gave me a packing list, and scones aren’t on it, but there’s no way she’ll question my decision once she tastes one. If Rory hadn’t married my brother, I would have been first in line to sponsor a full-time bakeshop.

“Where are you off to?” Nick asks as he opens the fridge and peers inside. “Really? The scones are all gone? Every last one? The palace has become a bunch of savages. She just made them yesterday.”

“Tucker and I are going on a three-day cross-island trek,” I say while Joyce makes herself busy, away from Nick’s grumbling complaint. I could get the container out of my bag and give him one, but I’d rather see the delight on Tucker’s face once she’s had one and realizes there are more.

“You didn’t even leave me any coffee?” Nick rattles the pot I just emptied into the thermos I’ve attached to my backpack.

“Not sure how you expected me to know you’d be up at five thirty in the morning.” I run my finger down Tucker’s neat scrawl. She passed me the list last night after we went for a run.

“I must be getting old,” Nick mutters. “Jet lag used to be nothing, and I never depended on coffee to stay alive.”

Not touching that one since we both know there’s a lot more going on than that.

“Get your supply issues sorted out in Tanzania?” I ask.

“Close enough, I think,” Nick says. “Feels like I hardly see you anymore. What’s going on with you and Maren Tucker?”

“Nothing.” I fold the packing sheet and tuck it into the pocket of my shorts. Maybe I’ll get to the front entrance early. “She’s my coach.”

But if she wasn’t married, I sometimes wonder if it would be more than that. There’s an undercurrent brewing between us that I’m a lot more comfortable with than I should be. She was the person I butted heads with. Then she became my coach, and we’re inching into something else. I have a lot of women as friends, and sometimes there’s an unacknowledged sexual tension, a what-if that could go somewhere but rarely does. For me, a friend is a friend.

With Tucker, it’s chemistry, but it’s something else too—something I can’t quite put my finger on. The only thing I know for certain is that I like how much she challenges me in what I say, in how I act, in how far I’m willing to push myself. Being third in line to the throne with a plethora of friends, I’ve rarely met anyone who prodded me to be more than I already was. Initially, her attitude toward me was a point of frustration, then her haughtiness amused me, and now her drive to be the best is propelling me deeper into the racing world. No matter what we train together, she dares me to do better. I don’t want to just survive this adventure race experience; I want to thrive.

“Nate told me Sawyer was initially worried about how hard Maren was pushing herself. Does she train too or just coach?”

I lean against the counter and cross my arms, taking in Nick’s comment. Her family has been worried about her? At least her older brother and sister, anyway. Should I have noticed something other than her underlying sadness? Up until the InterFlix producer prodded her too hard, her grief was mostly the faintest outline around her.

“Why would they be worried about her?”

“She had that accident,” Nick says, and he flicks on the coffee maker after filling it. “Nate mentioned that her ankle was in pretty bad shape.”

Those pills she takes aren’t directly related to her ankle, and I wonder if the ankle is the family’s smoke screen for what’s really going on. Doesn’t take an internet search to recognize Prozac. “You ever meet her husband?”

“Nope. Watched a few of his YouTube videos out of curiosity once. The workout ones, not the videogame ones. Very fit guy.” Nick grabs a mug from the cupboard above the coffee maker.

At his comment, I glance at my biceps and flex them. It’s not like fitness is hard.