I threw an arm over my face to muffle the sound of my laughter. “Yeah? You think we’ll be better off living in some fancy hotel in the middle of traffic-central?”
“I’m thinking somewhere gray and grim in the middle of Camden Town. Close to the tube. Buzzing with people and life and music. A flat with double-glazed windows.”
“Why double-glazed?” I whipped my head in his direction. He looked spent, sweaty, and delicious. He ran a hand through his brown locks and hitched one shoulder up. “Don’t wanna scare the tourists with your moans.”
I swatted his chest, and it was his turn to laugh.
“Seriously, half the time it sounds like I’m attacking you with a chainsaw when we’re together. So, what do you say, Stardust?” He rolled to his side, propping his head in his hand. “Move in with me?”
I opened my mouth with the intention of saying yes, because life was too short not to do what you wanted to do, when he beat me to it.
“Actually, forget it. I take it back.”
“You take it back?” I blinked, my stomach churning in disbelief.
“Yeah.” He crawled to me on his knees. “Moving in is not enough. I want everything. And I want it on fucking paper. Marry me, Indigo ‘Stardust’ Bellamy. Be my wife. Have my babies. We’ll even circumcise them if that’s what you want. Well, maybe not the girls. That’s a hard limit for me. Or maybe we won’t have children. How do you feel about children? Never mind. I don’t care. I just want to marry you. Make me a happy bastard, Indie. Say yes.”
I didn’t say yes. I giggled it.
I also told him that my middle name is Elizabeth, like Poppy’s—not, in fact, Stardust.
We got married in a rose garden in Kent. The roses were painted blue. I stuffed his private jet with all the people I loved—Natasha, a very sober Craig—who had to take time off from school after enrolling into college—Ziggy, Clara, Tiffany, Ollie, Grayson, and the rest of our tour friends, including Jenna and Hudson. I wore a Bohemian Forest wedding gown, and he wore a shit-eating grin he is still sporting every single day. Getting pregnant wasn’t a decision. It was, rather, a moment of insanity. We’d always used condoms, until one night, we didn’t. Alex said he’d pull out at the last minute, and he did—I had a stomach covered in semen to prove it—but I guess not enough, because a month later, I started getting violent reactions to the scents of coffee and cigarettes.
I quit the coffee.
He quit the cigarettes.
And now we have Poppy.
“Mate, I’m so happy you had her with someone fit. You really needed some beauty to dilute all the fugliness that’s your face. Poppy is gorgeous,” Alfie says now, in the hospital suite, staring at Poppy, who is napping in my arms.
Alex awards him with an elbow to the ribs before stretching his arms toward me. I’m still in bed, but I’m feeling better since he helped me take a shower. Poppy is nuzzling into my neck, and my heart is close to bursting from being so full.
“Can I show her off?” He gives me his magnificent shy smirk. It’s the kind that only makes a cameo once every few months, so I drink it up.
Three.
Two.
One.
“Of course.”
I told you, heart.
We’ve got this, heart.
Look how far we’ve come, heart.
It’s not the first time he’s holding our daughter in his hands and looking down at her like she’s a new world he wants to secure and nurture, but it’s the first time the realization hits me. We found our planet. Our home. The only place we want to be in.
That’s the thing about broken princes. Not all of them have to die. If their soul is whole, they sometimes survive.
Sometimes, they even grow up to be kings.
Mine did.