rather than go with Leo,” Dani said to Gabby.
He could see Gabby waffling. On the one hand, the drive into Manhattan and back would take a ridiculously long time. On the other hand: princess.
“We can watch some more of I Am Not a Robot,” Dani added.
Gabby got out of the car. “Yes!” But then she paused and looked back at him. “But we should wait for Leo to watch.”
Oh, this girl and her big heart. She was going to kill him.
He’d insisted on Thursdays for their formal K-drama nights because he hadn’t wanted to tie Dani up on weekend nights, in case she wanted to go on dates or out with friends. But Dani’s social life was about as exciting as his was, and she didn’t have guardianship of a tween and impending financial disaster as excuses. Still, it gratified him to know that their little ritual meant as much to Gabby as it did to him. He cleared his throat. “Don’t wait for me to start the show. I’ll bring home pizza.”
“Oh, we’re waiting for you,” Dani said.
“How else are you going to know what happens to Seung-ho and Ji-ah?” Gabby said teasingly.
“I’m sure you’ll fill me in.”
“We’re waiting,” Gabby confirmed, and he could not argue.
“Leo.” Marie placed a hand on his forearm. “I am going to call a car to take me back. That way you can—”
“Nope.” She was paying him a ridiculous amount of money to drive her around, and drive her around was what he was damn well going to do. That aside, Leo definitely owed her for what she’d done for Gabby today. Marie Joséphine Annagret Elena, Princess of Eldovia, was getting a ride back to the Plaza whether she wanted it or not.
“But I don’t want you to have to postpone—”
“Will you hush?”
She hushed.
It was very gratifying.
She didn’t stay hushed, though. As soon as they got on the road, she started interrogating him. “It sounds like you’re watching a television program with Daniela and Gabriella? Is it one I would know?”
“Probably not. It’s a Korean drama. A soap opera, basically. Dani got us hooked on them.”
“I’ve heard about those! I should try one. Do you have any recommendations?”
He must have looked as puzzled as he felt—it was hard to wrap his mind around the idea of the princess doing something as mundane as watching TV—because she said, “I watch a lot of TV.”
“You do?”
“But only American TV. I should branch out.”
Leo chuckled and shook his head, because, again, he wasn’t seeing it. Ice skating in the Alps, yes. Bending over watches with one of those eye things jewelers wore, okay. But sacked out watching Real Housewives? Not so much.
“My mother was educated in America, and she developed quite a fondness for American TV,” Marie said. “When she came to Eldovia—she was French, but she married my father right after her graduation from Yale—she brought a trunkload of VHS tapes and DVDs with her, and she continued to order them.”
“And you watched with her.”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you don’t have an accent?”
She laughed. “I don’t think so. If I’d learned diction from American TV, I would totally talk like a valley girl, like oh my gosh.” She had attempted—and failed—to deliver that last line with a valley-girl accent. “My mother’s favorite show was Beverly Hills, 90210.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
“But I should switch to something else,” she said with an odd sort of vehemence.
“Why?” Even if Beverly Hills, 90210 hadn’t been from before his time, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been his thing. But he wasn’t one to shit on other people’s choices.
Marie didn’t answer right away. She turned her head to look out the window, in fact, so he thought she was dismissing him. So he was surprised when she said, very quietly, “Because watching them without her hurts too much. And yet I can’t seem to stop.”
“Ah.”
“Do you have anything like that? Any routines that are part of your life that remind you of your parents?”
He sure did. Reading the fairy-tale book with Gabby. Looking at his mom’s handwritten recipe cards. Driving past buildings he’d worked on with his dad’s crew. “Yeah,” he said, his voice having gone all gruff. “Though I mostly try to avoid them.”
“Like Fifth and Fifty-Eighth?” she asked gently.
“Like Fifth and Fifty-Eighth,” he confirmed, feeling a bit sheepish. “But you know what? Not that I’m an expert, but I don’t think it matters whether you face those things or try to ignore them. It hurts just the same. So I