Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,42
been on about? Oh, right. Literacy. “You know it’s a cause Sander champions.”
“Indeed,” Hugo said blandly, folding his hands behind his back and stepping aside as Leo hustled past him. “Although Prince Cassander has recently been distracted by his new patronage of the Junior Archery Association, so it’s good to see you taking such an interest in… the literacy initiative.”
“Exactly,” Leo said, turning to clap Hugo on the shoulder with a wink. “Always ready to do my part.”
“With the proper inspiration,” Hugo may or may not have muttered under his breath in an unprecedented show of impertinence… which definitely meant that Leo won. Well, maybe call this round a tie, given Hugo’s “standing appointment” crack. Adding it to Leo’s calendar had been a bit cheeky of him… but as usual, also impeccably efficient and spookily perceptive.
Over the course of the last week, picking Eddie up at the Royal Library once his shift ended each day had already become a daily habit, and given that Eddie’s evenings were inevitably full of obligations to his siblings instead of free for Leo to have his way with him as Leo would have preferred, inviting himself up to the postage-stamp-sized apartment and inserting himself into those obligations had also become a part of Leo’s new routine.
On Monday, after Leo had taken advantage of the drive over to discover just how incredibly well he and Eddie did suit—thanks, in part, to Nils’s commendable discretion—he’d followed a flustered and adorable Eddie up to his apartment and proceeded to prove himself utterly incapable in the kitchen when the Bloms had invited him to stay for dinner. On Tuesday, he’d been banned from the kitchen while Eddie’s brother made the family dinner, and had somehow ended up helping Astrid with her homework instead. On Wednesday, he’d counteracted the Blom siblings’ teasing about his lack of culinary skills by preemptively having their dinner catered at the apartment.
That had been one of the tasks he’d called on Hugo to assist with, and although Leo had simply asked him to arrange for some take-out to be delivered, what Hugo had actually delivered was a multi-course meal from the palace’s kitchens and the serving staff to go with it.
Leo didn’t believe for a moment that the impeccably capable valet had “misunderstood” him as he’d claimed, but he’d forgive the initiative since spoiling the Bloms had been so satisfying. In fact, while Leo had never been stingy with his lovers—far from it—somehow, spoiling not just Eddie but his siblings, too, had turned out to feel just as good—well, almost as good—as if he’d been able to get Eddie alone again, the way he’d been craving.
To explore more of their… suitability, of course.
Yesterday, on Thursday, he’d hoped to finally be able to do just that, but there had been some sort of crisis in the botany department of Linnea’s university that had thwarted him. The Blom family had rallied to save her research project, but Leo had been unable to join in. The palace was currently hosting some dignitaries from Thedes and Hugo had reminded him that the king and queen had requested that Leo stay at the palace for the evening in order to be diplomatic and charming.
There was a time in the not so distant past when Leo would have rebelled against that request—either trusting Sander to step in on his behalf or simply blowing it off completely—but ironically, even though he would have much preferred to spend the evening with Eddie and the Bloms, it was Eddie’s influence that had caused Leo to stay and do his diplomatic duty as crown prince.
Spending so much time with Eddie lately had rubbed off on Leo in unexpected ways. He’d seen firsthand that Eddie’s siblings trusted Eddie never to let them down. That they knew down to their bones that they could always count on him and that he’d be there for them, putting them first, no matter what. Under all the sibling snarkiness, teenage angst, and general family squabbling in the Blom household, there was a level of trust, love, and devotion that existed between Eddie and his siblings that Leo… well, that he wasn’t jealous of, exactly, but that he definitely… admired.
As backward as it may have sounded given their positions in life, Leo felt privileged to have been allowed to be a part of it in some way, welcomed into their humble family with a minimum of fuss once his kitchen incompetence had wiped away the last traces of their awe