Page 38 of The Wanted Prince
I scrolled down to the comments. “People believe it.”
“Don’t read the comments.”
I told her I wouldn’t, but I already was. I read every last one of them, then a new blurb popped up, suggesting the heist was a power move gone wrong. I’d hired a cat burglar to pilfer the amulet, planning to “catch” him and be a hero. But he’d double-crossed me and run off with the goods. In the comments on that one, I found a new theory: I was off on a bender, ignorant of the theft. I’d been spotted on a yacht. At a brothel in Turkey. In Paris. In London. On a spaceship, in orbit, with two billionaires.
We scrolled through most of the night and slept in our clothes, and woke the next morning to dry, barking laughter. I stumbled to the window and sure enough, there they were, the old men from yesterday reading their papers. Was I in there, I wondered? Were they laughing at me?
I hid in the bathroom when our breakfast arrived. The paper came with it and I leafed through it. I wasn’t front-page news outside Santaviedo, but I found my picture splashed on page four. Laura covered it with her hand.
“Come on. Don’t look.”
I didn’t, to please her, then I searched on my phone. The article was a roundup of my lost year, all my worst scandals laid back to back. The man we’d come here for was halfway down the list, how we’d run his father’s boat aground near Taormina.
“There was a storm,” I groaned.
“I told you, don’t look.”
I pulled a face at her. “Rich coming from you, glued to your phone.”
Laura stuck out her tongue at me without looking up. With nothing else to do, we scrolled and we scrolled, watching the tabloids tear me apart. The old men migrated to the inn’s steps. We ate lunch in our room, and dinner as well, and more old men came, and they sat eating pastries.
“Don’t they have anything better to do?”
Laura smiled down at them. “Aw, they look happy.”
“What are you doing?” I pulled her back from the window. She jerked her arm away from me.
“Ow. That hurt.”
“Sorry. But what if they look up and see you?”
She made a huffing sound. “What if they do? No one’s looking for me.”
“Not yet, they’re not. But that photo’s still out there. They could see you hiding out here and connect two and two.”
“Or they could think I’m, I don’t know. On vacation?”
“Or they could think…” I trailed off, feeling stupid. I’d just snapped at Laura for no good reason, and now we were bickering. Her annoyance was coming off her in waves.
“Sorry,” I said. “I think I just panicked.”
Laura glowered at me like she wanted to keep fighting. Then her shoulders went loose and she flopped on the bed. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Tomorrow,” I promised. “We’ll get up bright and early, before those old goats, and we’ll sneak out and go to the beach.”
“Fresh air,” she sighed.
“A break from our phones.”
She reached for hers, glanced at it, then tossed it away. “Remember when phones were just phones, not computers? And people could only call you at home?”
I shrugged. “Not really.”
“Yeah, me neither. But, think how peaceful life must’ve been then.”
I lay down beside her, and we stared at the ceiling. Her hand found mine, and we twined our fingers together.
After a few minutes, we reached for our phones.