Her Royal Highness (Royals #2) - Rachel Hawkins Page 0,81
a little worse for wear, his shirt a bit wrinkled, his jaw patchy with scruff, but it’s definitely him, leaning against the doorjamb.
“Roomie Quint,” he says with a faint grin.
“Brother Seb,” I reply, and his grin deepens.
I shake myself out of my shock and usher him inside.
I quickly realize I have no idea where he’s supposed to sit, given that the only options are the bed—nicer, bigger—and my desk chair—probably more appropriate. In the end, I don’t have to offer because Seb makes the decision himself, sitting heavily on the end of my bed, his elbows braced on his spread thighs.
“So,” he says on a long breath. “This is buggeringly awkward, but I’m here to talk about you and Flora.”
“I assumed that was it,” I tell him, taking a seat in my desk chair and slinging an arm across the back.
Seb nods, but he’s still looking around the room. “Who’re you rooming with now?” he asks, taking in Sakshi’s bed with its brightly colored pillows and striped sheets.
“Saks,” I reply, and he nods again, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.
“She around? Wouldn’t mind—”
“No,” I say flatly, turning to face him more fully. “So can we get this over with?”
Seb leans back at that, his expression faintly surprised. “Get what over with?”
“Whatever this is going to be,” I say, wishing I were closer to the dresser so I could fiddle with one of my rock samples. The hematite maybe. Ugh, but no, then I’d just remember showing it to Flora, and—
“You think I’m upset with you?” Seb asks. “Here to do some sort of patronizing brother thing?” Snorting, he shakes his head. “Trust me, love, I’m rubbish at that. I’m here because . . .”
Trailing off, he sighs and looks around again. “You wouldn’t happen to have a drink around here, would you?”
I blink at him. “As in booze? No, I, a seventeen-year-old, do not have booze in my dorm room.”
Seb mutters a rude word under his breath and slumps slightly before asking, “Are you in love with my sister?”
I don’t know how to answer that, and my instinct at first is to deny it. To tell him that Flora was a great friend and roommate, but that’s it.
But then I realize: I don’t want the first time I admit, out loud, that I’m in love with Flora to be to anyone but Flora.
And I say so. “That’s private.”
Seb’s blue eyes widen at that. “So that’s a yes.”
“It’s a none of your business,” I shoot back.
Outside in the hallway, there’s the usual murmur of sounds I’ve gotten used to here at Gregorstoun. The sound of feet on floors, the murmur of voices, the occasional howling of the wind. Inside the room, I can practically hear the ticking of Saks’s alarm clock.
“If that’s all you came here to ask me,” I say now to Seb, picking up the notebook I’ve left on the bed, “then I guess you have an answer. And I have homework to do, so—”
“She’s miserable,” Seb says. “Without you. I’ve never seen her like this before.”
That’s a direct hit to the heart, and I swallow hard before saying, “Well, I’m not exactly dancing through the streets, either.”
“Then why did you leave?”
I look up at him, my fingers fiddling with the hem of my shirt, and he lifts one elegant hand to add, “And don’t say that’s private. I mean, it is, I’m sure, but I’d still like to know.”
I think about getting into the whole thing about Tamsin, about the tuition, about how I am in no way cut out to be a princess’s girlfriend.
But in the end, I just say, “We were too different. It was too hard. I get where I was fun and . . . convenient, I guess, but she’s never going to end up with someone like me.”
“Bollocks,” Seb says, sitting back with his hands braced on his knees. “Absolute bollocks.”
Blinking at him, I clear my throat before saying, “It is not bollocks. It’s the truth. I mean, look at me.”
“I’m looking,” he replies, “and I see a perfectly lovely girl who my sister is completely mad for, and who’s throwing away a good thing because she’s not brave enough to give it a shot.”
“That’s unfair,” I say, but Seb only shrugs, patting his shirt pockets for something.
He pulls out a cigarette, and I lean forward, plucking it from his fingers and tearing it in half, tiny shreds of tobacco falling on the floor.