“But you would put everybody else to shame. Seriously, you’re like some Hollywood star.”
“Thank you for trying to butter me up, but no.”
Leopold had learned that, not long ago, The Fix on Sixth held a Man of the Month calendar contest in order to raise money to save the bar. Leopold didn’t know the whole story, but obviously the bar had been saved. And since then, the bar had started a ritual of taking posed pics of willing customers and tacking them up on a poster-sized calendar. One for every day.
It had become a thing at the bar. Unlike the calendar, the men weren’t shirtless and the pictures weren’t published anywhere. But sometimes customers photographed the board and shared the candid photos all across social media. For that reason, #TheFixOnSixth was conveniently displayed over the image board.
It was, on the whole, a great promotional strategy for the bar, and while Leopold respected that, he did not want to participate. What if some royal-watching customer came over to check out the board? What a ridiculous way to have his cover blown.
Except there was Skye doing puppy dog eyes at him with so much exaggeration that he had to laugh.
“Oh, come on, Leo. It will be fun. Don’t you want to memorialize this month?”
“Desperately,” he said, making her laugh from the leer in his voice.
“Okay, disappoint me.” She exhaled an exaggerated sigh. “It’s not like I won’t judge … you for the rest of eternity … for this moment.”
Now, he really was laughing. This woman matched him so perfectly, their senses of humor lining up like a covalent bond. Or back to quantum entanglement.
He saw Tyree approaching with a camera, and knew that he was sunk. Besides, he’d already conceded in his head. As far as he was concerned, what Skye wanted Skye got, and she obviously wanted him to do this silly thing.
“Hey, Leo.” Tyree reached out for a high-five, his large hand practically swallowing Leopold’s. He lifted the camera. “Are you going to be joining our calendar board today?”
Leopold put on his best smile even as he watched Jürgen scowling at him from across the room. “I guess I am,” he said.
A few minutes later, he had a copy of the photo that Tyree had selected from the dozen or so snaps he’d taken.
“I love it,” Skye said, pulling it off the photo printer. “Can I keep it?”
“What? My first cover shoot and you’re taking the evidence?”
She pressed it against her heart, and when she said, “Please,” it didn’t feel like teasing.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Of course, you can.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated a moment, then held it out to him. “Will you sign it?”
Wasn’t that an inconvenient question?
“Great big famous cover model that you are, I want to get a piece of that.” She added a leer to her voice that made him laugh.
“Do you?”
She looked him slowly up and down, making every atom in his body accelerate its spin. “Yeah,” she said, her voice low and a little shy. “I really do.”
“Skye…” He didn’t know what to say. He saw the want in her eyes; he heard it in her voice. And oh, but he wanted it, too.
He held out his hand. “Let me have the picture.”
She did, and he borrowed a Sharpie from one of the passing servers. He wrote the first thing he thought of—Love, Leo—then passed it back to her.
He watched as she read it, her hands trembling slightly. Her teeth grazed her lower lip, and she looked up at him through lowered lashes. Then she rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek, and he felt like nothing he could do as king could feel better than this.
“Thank you.”
“Anything to make you happy.” As he spoke, he realized just how true that was. For no reason other than to make her happy, he’d just shared a part of himself with the world. Not that he expected the photo to get out, but there was a bit of a risk, and he’d taken it for her. He was tumbling off into space, and he knew it.
The weird thing was, he loved it.
They ordered another round of drinks, then sipped their Loaded Coronas. He told her how the research with Professor Malkin was going, and she asked all the right questions. Then he listened as she talked about her summer job at her father’s firm and the federal clerkship she hoped to get after graduation. A one-year term on the Second Circuit in New York, after which she'd return home to Austin and the family business.
At one point, he realized that he hadn’t even noticed the slur in her words or the pauses in her sentences.
“No desire to see what other firm might want you?” he asked. “Or to do something entirely different? Teach or go in-house?”
She shook her head. “That firm is home. I practically grew up there. By the time I was twelve, I was actually proofreading briefs. By the time I was fifteen, I was writing them. It’s not a lack of ambition or me being stuck in a rut. It’s wanting to help continue building something excellent that started generations ago.”
He nodded. “I get that. I’ve worked in my father’s business all my life as well. And I’ve pretty much learned how to run it. Fortunately, I don’t have to yet, but I could if something happened to him.”
“Do you want to?”
“Run the business?” He shook his head. “No. My sister would be much better at that. My passion is physics.”
She nodded. “I can hear how much you love it when you talk about it.”
“I do. But the business is important to the family, and there are reasons why my sister can’t take over. So I’m afraid it may fall to me. No, not afraid. I know that it will.”
Her forehead wrinkled, and she frowned. “I’m sorry. Maybe you could—”
“No. Thanks, but I’d rather not talk about it. Believe me, I’ve spent much of my life wondering how to avoid it. It’s not a fun subject. I’d rather talk about, well, anything else.”
“Fair enough. How about the moon landing? I mean, Neil Armstrong. What a guy, right?”
He practically exploded with laughter. “Yes. The moon landing, and then we can move on to old James Bond films.”
The weird thing was they did exactly that. They talked about the moon landing and the current state of space exploration. They talked about the law, then physics. From there, they somehow managed to move on to Blumhouse horror movies and twist that over to James Bond, with both agreeing that Sean Connery was the best.
They bounced from topic to topic with such seamless ease, it was almost as if they were characters in a play who had rehearsed this conversation over and over again. Or a couple who had been together for years and not just weeks.
Quantum entanglement, he thought again.
It was unexpected. It was wonderful.
And it was so damned inconvenient.
They finally moved their conversation from the bar to the street, then walked back to her place. He paid no attention to their surroundings. He was too wrapped up in the conversation and the feel of her hand twined with his.
Foolish, yes, but Jürgen was out there somewhere, making sure all was well. It was a lack of privacy, true. But one Leo grew up with, and it was so familiar that he barely thought about his constant shadow.