come on, George! I was joking,” I said and bounded up the stairs after him. It didn’t take much to catch him; he and his bad knees didn’t get along well with stairs. “Let’s go to my room and pick out an outfit. Just like old times,” I said, thinking of the many, many nights before one of my scheduled public appearances as a teen when we’d done exactly that.
That seemed to get his attention because he flashed me a smile. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” I said and kept pace with him to the top of the staircase, just to be nice. Normally, I would’ve taken two stairs at a time.
We crossed the manor in silence, taking several of the hidden shortcuts that only the uppermost members of the staff knew about, and entered my chamber from a door hidden behind a full-length mirror. George wheezed from the effort but still refused to sit, despite the plethora of plush, mostly decorative chairs lining the room. He tried his best not to let his aging show, but I noticed it often. He wasn’t the fit and trim guy he used to be when I was a kid, which was probably another reason he was so intent on finding me a partner — George wouldn’t always be there to look after me.
Keeping the observation to myself, I crossed the massive room and flung open the equally massive closet doors. The interior was probably larger than most family’s living rooms, and I didn’t doubt there were people who would’ve loved to have such a thing, but I hated it, just like most of the other showy parts of being king.
It took longer than I thought it would to find the outfits, but when I did, I draped them over one arm and brought them back out into the room to lay them on my boat-sized, four-poster bed. Though he said nothing, scorn rolled off George; he probably still couldn’t believe I hadn’t even unbagged any of them yet.
I reached for the nearest and pulled the zipper. Inside, a beautiful emerald green suit wrapped in delicate tissue paper waited. “So, tell me about the guests. Who all did you invite?” George raised an eyebrow at me, and I realized I’d made another mistake; he’d shown me the finished guest list weeks ago. “I know I already looked at the list but refresh me. You know everything about everyone,” I lied to cover.
He pursed his lips but came to help me take the suit out of the bag, anyway. “This will be a smaller affair. After the last time, I thought that might be for the best,” he said and held the suit to keep it from wrinkling while I stripped down to my underwear.
“Probably not a bad idea,” I said and tossed my clothes that surely cost the crown a small fortune on the floor, prompting a disapproving look from George.
“I selected six omegas I thought you might like, based on your previously expressed, erm, preferences,” he said, and I blushed. Evidently, there weren’t any bedroom secrets left between George and me. He bent to snatch my shirt and pants off the floor and draped them neatly over the back of the nearest chair. “They’re all promising young men from a variety of backgrounds; most are wealthy, but there’s one commoner.”
“A commoner? Isn’t that breaking some dumb unwritten royal rule?” I asked, not that I had any personal objection to it. I’d shared my bed with plenty of them over the years, and I almost always found them more interesting than stuffy nobles.
“Not when we’re out of options,” he said with a look I could only describe as judgmental as he handed me the suit trousers.
I slipped into them and, unsurprisingly, the tailor had cut them perfectly to fit my legs and accent their best attributes. “I see. Anyone in particular you think I’ll like?” I asked as he helped me pull the suit jacket over my shoulders.
George stepped around me to fasten the jacket’s buttons and shrugged. “You’re impossible to predict. Maybe some of them will strike your fancy, or maybe you’ll scare them all away. Time will tell.”
“That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of your confidence in me, George.”
“Only because you don’t have the best track record, Your Maj—” he trailed and cleared his throat. “Like I said, it’s an old habit.”
“You really think I’m going to make a mess of this, don’t you?”