The older woman was pretending to be apologetic, but Tasha knew she was really trying to hide her smile. Mia had an interesting sense of humor. To be fair, it was one of the things Tasha loved best about her. Right now, however, it was far less adorable.
“It was the only way Alan was going to let you go—” Mia told her.
“Uncle Alan doesn’t have the right to let me go anywhere,” Tash pointed out crisply. Under normal circumstances, she would’ve been flying to the ski lodge out of Logan Airport, via small commuter plane. But she’d planned this trip back home to California to visit Mia, her uncle, and her two adorable and adoring cousins long before she and Ted had ramped their relationship up to its current new level of DefCon Stupid.
“Alone.” Mia finished the sentence that Tasha had interrupted. “We were invited, too,” she countered. “All of us. Even your mother. We could all still grab our ski pants and come with.”
Tasha closed her eyes. “Don’t even joke about that.” This week was going to be hard enough—meeting Ted’s parents. God, doing it while juggling her unconventional mother, while also under Aunt Mia’s and Uncle Alan’s watchful gazes...? No, no no no no.
“I’m not joking.” Mia pushed. “I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of room on that private jet.”
With a sigh, Tasha opened her eyes and looked at her aunt, who clearly knew she’d won. “Please,” Tash said. “Just... not Thomas. Mia, talk to Uncle Alan for me. Please? He’ll listen to you. I’d be okay with, I don’t know, Dave or Mike. Rio, even. Please, just anyone but Thomas King.”
Mia gazed at her. “But I thought... You guys are such good friends, I thought...”
“Were,” Tasha corrected her, even as saying the words aloud still made her heart break a little at the hard, cold truth. “We were friends.” She shook her head.
She’d messed that up. It was her fault, entirely. She’d made an assumption, and...
It had been five years—at least—since she’d spoken to Thomas. At least not more than a cursory Hi with a forced smile, when they bumped into each other at some Team Ten family event.
He was still embarrassed, too. She knew because she’d seen relief in his eyes more than once as he was leaving some function, when he’d managed to navigate the party without having to exchange full sentences with her.
Tash couldn’t remember the last time Thomas had teased her, calling her Martian Girl or Wild Thing or Princess, his dark brown eyes warm as he flashed his killer smile. It certainly wasn’t after she’d turned eighteen.
When she’d gone to college, she’d intentionally chosen a school on the East Coast to put distance between them.
Meeting Erik at the end of her freshman year had helped—her childhood crush on Thomas had given way to... well, not exactly love. More like mutual heavy-duty physical attraction combined with a case of serious like. She and E had stayed together for several years, only breaking up right before graduation.
Which was right around the time she’d met Ted, through his roommate Jeff Willems and...
Shit, what a mess.
Tasha looked up to find Mia still gazing at her, concern in her hazel eyes.
“You know, you don’t have to do this,” Mia told her quietly. “If you don’t want to go, you shouldn’t go.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes,” Mia said. “It really is. You could stay here. Write another chapter or seven of your book.”
Her book. Right. It had been weeks since Tasha had so much as opened that word doc.
Mia raised her eyebrows and smiled, silently saying, You know you want to.
It was tempting, but... “I’m living with the crown prince,” Tash pointed out.
“With two other roommates,” her aunt argued.
“But Ted and I share a bedroom now,” Tasha reminded her, and to her credit, Mia didn’t wince the way Uncle Alan did when Tash as much as uttered Ted’s name. “I’m past due to meet the queen.”
“She and Tedric’s father should come to you,” Mia said. “Meet you for coffee. Or dinner. Not make you spend an entire week locked down with her security team at some compound in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Maine.”
“It’s okay,” Tash said. “I’ll have backup. Jeff and Kayla are going, too.”
You’ll have backup—real backup—because Thomas King will be there. Mia didn’t say the words aloud, but Tasha could read them clearly in her aunt’s expressive eyes.
“I don’t need a bodyguard to be safe,” Tasha said, “mostly because of that lockdown. Thomas—or Rio or Dave or Mike