Her Royal Highness (Royals #2) - Rachel Hawkins Page 0,71
weird feeling, just reaching out and touching her like that, but I like it.
Flora does, too, I think, as she rolls onto her back to look up at me, her lashes long around those golden eyes.
“You’re distracting me,” I tell her, and she shrugs, reaching up to tangle her fingers with mine there by her shoulder.
“What’s the fun of having a schoolmate you snog if you don’t distract her from schoolwork?”
The words are light, teasing, but they make some of that golden glow I was feeling dissipate.
Schoolmates who snog.
Friends who kiss.
But Flora isn’t Jude, I remind myself, and I lean down, still a little shy as I kiss her.
But Flora is definitely not shy, kissing me back with her hand at the back of my head, and soon it’s not so much kissing as it is making out, my paper and laptop and own name pretty much forgotten.
It’s not just the kissing (although I like that a lot) but all of it.
The way Flora’s fingers always dance over any piece of exposed skin, turning places I never thought of as all that sexy—the insides of my elbows, the spaces between my fingers, my forehead—into pulse points of want.
How her usually imperious “Quint” sounds so different when it’s whispered against the damp skin of my neck.
Or how she makes me so different. Bolder and braver, quicker to touch her in all the places where she wants to touch me.
This is one of those times when I feel like I can’t stop touching her, even with all our clothes on, and I probably would stay there wrapped up in her forever if my phone didn’t suddenly chime.
Lifting my face from Flora’s, I wrinkle my nose. “That’s my phone.”
Still draped across the bed, her face pink, Flora pushes her hair back. “So?”
“So it’s in the main office?” I say, and Flora gives me that smug smile.
“Is it?”
Groaning, I get off the bed as my phone beeps again, clearly coming from the top drawer of my desk.
“I just thought you’d want yours, too,” Flora says, pushing herself up on her elbows, and I open the drawer.
“Thank you for including me in your life of crime,” I say, but Flora is, not surprisingly, completely unapologetic.
I see now that the chimes are from my email, the personal one I still keep, not the one the school gave me, and they’re both from Lee.
Guilt hits me a little at that. I haven’t talked to Lee in a couple of weeks now, even though I’d been meaning to. It’s just things had gotten so—
And then I see the subject lines of the emails.
The first one: WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL MILLIE
And the second: YOU ARE DATING A PRINCESS WHAT
Opening the first email, I see Lee has left me a link to some blog called Off with Their Heads. Charming.
It’s got a picture from our “Thanksgiving”—guess Flora was right about the guy having taken it with his phone—but also, there’s my name.
My name right there.
And the second email has another blog post, this time with Lee adding his own commentary.
Millie, you have been HOLDING OUT. I knew you had a crush, BUT ON A PRINCESS? WHO IS YOUR ROOMMATE???? What is going on? Email me immediately. Email me YESTERDAY.
“Who’s Lee?”
I turn to see Flora right behind me, surprising me.
“My best friend,” I say, distracted as I mess with my hair. “How do people already know this stuff?”
Flora lifts one shoulder, heading back to my bed. “They always do,” she says before settling back down with her laptop. “And honestly, I’m glad this time. Maybe now Mummy will understand that I’m gay, not ‘going through a phase.’”
I look over at her, wondering if I can explain how weird this makes me feel, seeing my name on some random blog. I’m . . . nobody. I’ve never been mentioned on the internet in my life except for that time I came in second in my district’s geography bee in seventh grade.
But of course Flora wouldn’t get that at all since she’s been in the public eye since before she was born. Literally. There was a whole part in that tribute magazine full of pictures of a pregnant Queen Clara.
And I get what she means, about this maybe finally forcing the issue of her being publicly out.
So I just put my phone back in the desk drawer, promising myself I’ll email Lee later.
I sit back on my bed, pulling my computer over, and Flora turns to look at me.