The Royals Next Door

Eddie lets out a low whistle. “You can still hide your bump. Let’s think about that one first, because once word breaks out, then we’ll never be left alone.” He looks to me. “You say the locals won’t harass us, but when there’s big money for photos of a baby bump, things can change.”

“I know. But maybe you need to have faith in the place you moved to. Believe me, it’s hard at times, but I still know that most people are good. Once you feel comfortable here, once you start showing your face more, you’ll feel less like an outsider. They’ll see you as a local, as one of them—as much as you can be, anyway.”

Eddie seems to mull that over. I don’t know what the right answer is here, but I do know that there is a change in the air for every single one of us, change that has us second-guessing what we want and what the right thing to do is. But things are happening. Sooner or later we will all make our own leaps into the unknown and hopefully have enough faith to survive them.

Speaking of my own change, Harrison is still nowhere to be found. I don’t see James either, which I guess means Eddie and Monica fully trust my mother and me, which is nice. We’re no longer a threat; we’re actually their friends.

And look what you’re doing to your friend, I remind myself.

The guilt is hard to ignore.

Dinner turns out to be roasted Cornish game hen, which Agatha whipped up. Naturally, it’s delicious and lemony, and Agatha insists it’s an old family recipe on her mother’s side.

My mother has had two glasses of wine now and is a little loopy, but other than that, she’s been behaving herself, though she’s talking a lot.

“So, Piper,” Eddie says between mouthfuls. “Are you happy to have summer vacation, or are you itching to go back to work?”

“A little of both,” I admit.

“Piper never gets bored,” my mother speaks up, even though that’s totally untrue. “She reads a lot.”

“Oh. A fellow bibliophile,” Eddie says. “I love reading too. One good thing about stepping away from our royal duties is that I’ve found so much more time to read. What kind of books do you read?”

Here it comes. The question that every romance reader gets, followed by the internal struggle of whether to tell the truth, tell a lie, or water the truth down a bit. The romance stigma is still real, even with it being the most popular genre.

I decide to go for the truth.

“Romance,” I tell him, straightening in my seat. “Lots of romance. Historical, contemporary, romantic suspense. If there’s kissing and sex and swooning, I’m on it.”

“Ah,” he says. “I’m going to assume that’s more than Fifty Shades of Grey.”

“Fifty Shades opened up the doors for the whole industry. It got people reading. You can’t ever fault that.”

“Well, I like romance,” Monica says. “Sophie Kinsella is one of my favorites.”

I want to point out that even though I love Kinsella’s books too, they’re more women’s fiction (oh, how I dislike that term) than romance. But it doesn’t matter.

“Did you know that Piper has a podcast?” my mother suddenly says. “It’s about romance.”

My eyes go big. Oh my god, she didn’t.

She knows that’s a secret, doesn’t she?

Or maybe I’ve just never had any friends to keep the secret from.

“Mom,” I warn her. “Maybe you shouldn’t have any more wine.”

“Why?” she cries out defensively. “I’m fine, Piper. And why can’t I tell them about your podcast?” She smiles at Monica, thinking she’s helping. “It’s a romance podcast, you see.” Then she looks at me quizzically. “Actually, I was just talking about your podcast earlier, and I think I got the name wrong. It’s Romancing the Podcast, right? That’s what I told them.”

If my eyes were wide before, now they are practically falling out of my head. “What?” I cry out. “What are you talking about? Who is them?”

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

“Them? Didn’t I tell you?”

“Tell me what?” I’m practically shouting. It’s then that I notice Harrison enter the room, looking grave. He meets my eyes for a moment and frowns, and I can’t read the look in his eyes. It’s like he’s worried about me and also worried about something else.

He pauses by Eddie while I wait for my mother to explain what the fuck is going on. It’s one thing to have her admit that I have a podcast in front of Monica and Eddie, especially when I actually did a podcast about them; it’s another to give the name so that they can check it out and allude to telling some “them” about it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” she says, her smile faltering a little. “I thought I told you. I swear I did. Maybe you didn’t hear me.” She looks apologetically at Monica and Eddie. “Someone called me earlier today asking questions about Piper. They were very interested in her. They said they were from some news site, I don’t remember who. I should have written it down.”