by Lina Langley
Simon didn’t need to be prompted to continue. “This cute guy I was dating, he became a celebrity back in Maitje. He kind of hated me for it, he was just some engineering major that kept his head down and hadn’t even come out to his family. I never told him who I was because I didn't think there was a point.”
“Until he found out he was famous?”
“Yes. It was a mistake.”
“Yikes.”
Simon sighed deeply. “Just like I didn't tell you who I was because I didn't think there was a point.”
Dallas cocked his head. “Why, did you think I was going to sell your story or something?”
“No,” Simon said, a bitter chuckle escaping his lips. “But I'm staying at your inn because I'm running away from things.”
“What are you running away from?”
Simon sighed as he scratched his eyebrow. “Well, now that I finished my degree, my mom wants me to go back home. I might be the spare, but there are still things expected of me as one of the princes of Maitje.”
“Like what?”
“Like diplomacy. I represent members of the royal family abroad, for example, meeting dignitaries when the king can’t. And when my brothers can’t, also, so it’s not super common. But I have to be able to do it.”
“The king… your father?”
“Yes. Basically, my role is to support my father.”
Dallas cocked his head, trying to stop himself from smiling. “Do you get paid for that?”
“Yes. I get paid a lot for that. Perks of the job.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I don’t know. You could look me up?”
“I’m going to do that.”
Simon smiled, his eyes glimmering. “In front of me?”
Dallas narrowed his eyes, his heart beating fast in his chest. “Should I do it in front of you?”
“I’d like to see your reaction.”
Dallas licked his lips. “Sure, I guess.”
“Good.”
Dallas took his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans, unlocked it, and narrowed his eyes. “How do you spell Maitje?”
“M-A-I-T-J-E,” Simon said. “Look for the royal family of Maitje. I was a cute baby.”
Dallas looked down at his phone as he looked for what Simon had just told him. He didn’t want to look at him, in case he was lying or something. He didn’t think that he was—if he was, he was a convincing liar, or maybe he was just deluded.
“The press calls me Prince Leopold, if that narrows down your search at all.”
Dallas blinked as he added a few words to his search.
It only took a few seconds, but soon, the tiny screen on his phone was filled with results about Simon. The first was a picture of him, looking slightly younger, smirking at the camera, his brown eyes shining.
He was wearing an expensive-looking blue suit, a green tie, a devilish smile. He looked hot, even though it was clearly some sort of publicity shot, and Dallas could tell that he didn’t want to be there.
“So what… I mean, don’t get me wrong, but what are you doing here?”
“I told you,” Simon said. “Escaping. I knew a lot of the other hotels wouldn’t take cash, and you guys seemed to be the oldest inn on the boardwalk.”
“That’s… wow,” Dallas replied.
“I don’t mean it in an offensive way,” Simon said as he took a deep breath. “I just mean, I don’t know. I didn’t think the other hotels would simply take cash.”
“And you thought The Butterfly Inn would?”
“I didn’t know,” Simon replied. “I just hoped that you would.”
Dallas sighed. “Okay.”
Simon cocked his head. “So you believe me?”
“Yes,” Dallas replied, looking down at the smiling picture of Simon in a suit. “Unless the internet is lying.”
Simon looked down at his hands, which were tightly gripping the quilt, and gulped. He looked so sweet like this, Dallas had to resist the urge to go over to where he was, put his arms around him and comfort him. “And you don’t hate me?”
“Hate you? Because you’re a prince?”
“Because I lied to you.”
“I was never operating on the assumption that you were telling me the whole truth.”
Simon licked his lips. “I wish I could have.”
“You could have. I wasn’t going to sell you out.”
“I… know.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” Simon replied as he nodded. “But I couldn’t have known that when I first walked into the inn, right?”
Dallas tried to smile, but it felt difficult. He was upset by this when he thought that he should have felt relieved. He wasn’t a drug dealer, he was a member of royalty. “Right. And the ten grand that you gave me?”
“Part of my trust fund.”
“Right,” Dallas replied then licked his lips. “Of course.”
Dallas looked down at Simon, Simon looked back at him, neither one of them saying anything. Dallas took a deep breath and started to walk toward the door.
“I’m sorry I barged in on you,” he said. “I’m going to leave you alone now.”
“Wait,” Simon said, quietly, but not so quietly that Dallas wasn’t able to hear him. “Are we still on for tonight?”
Dallas stopped in his tracks. His hand was already wrapped around the handle of the door, which was cracked slightly open, and Dallas felt unsteady on his feet. If Simon was a prince, what was his interest in him?
“I’m not sure,” he heard himself say.
“Dallas, it’s just dinner.”
Dallas swallowed. Simon was right, it was just dinner, and he still had so many questions. If anything, this would make a good story to tell the guy that he did end up with.
“Fine,” Dallas replied. “Okay. Eight o’clock?”
“Yes,” Simon said, the smile obvious in his voice. “Eight o’clock.”
CHAPTER SIX
Dallas had no idea how he was meant to dress for a date with a prince. He was so consumed with all the revelations that were happening in the morning that he had completely neglected to ask Simon what the dress code was for their date. Simon had said it was just dinner, but Dallas didn’t think that there was anything simple about going on a date with Simon.
Absolutely nothing about going out with a prince seemed simple to him.
He was still overanalyzing his choice of outfit when someone knocked on his door, which was something that happened very infrequently. If someone from downstairs needed to reach him, they either used the landline or his cell phone number.
He did have housekeeping come up here and clean his room a few days a week, but it was night time on a Friday, so he was pretty sure that it wasn’t them.
He could have had housekeeping go up to his room every day because he was technically part of the inn but he didn't like to do that. On the other hand, he liked a tidy place and he didn't have that much time to keep it running the way he wanted it to, so he did take advantage of it every now and then, but he thought Wednesdays and Mondays were pretty good in terms of having his room cleaned for him.
Still, he was only thinking about housekeeping because he was dreading whoever was on the other side of the door, knocking quietly and insistently.
“Hey,” he finally heard Eros say. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah. I'm in here, everything okay?” Dallas replied, as naturally as he could.
Eros didn’t answer and Dallas swore under his breath.
He zipped up his jeans, the ones that he wasn't sure he was going to wear on the upcoming date, and he slowly made his way to the door of his bedroom. He opened it, just enough to see a slightly dazed looking Eros, who was staring at him with his lips parted and his eyes wide. “Oh, thank God you're here. I was so worried when you didn’t answer straight away.”
Dallas furrowed his brow, his heart beating a million miles an hour in his chest. He was the boss, he had t
o keep his composure, but whatever was going on was bad. “Is everything okay?”
“There are some cops downstairs. They say it’s important, that they want to search the property.”
His first instinct was to laugh. He wasn't sure what they could be investigating, he wasn't sure what they wanted, but police poking around didn't scare him. He didn't have anything to hide, and by what Simon had told Dallas earlier, he didn't have anything to hide either.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I don’t know,” Eros said. “They’re scaring people, Dallas.”
“They? How many are there?”
“Like… five in plain clothes, three in scary tailored suits.”
“Scary tailored suits?”
“Fuck, Dallas, you know what I mean. Will you just come downstairs?”
“Yeah, okay. Who’s at the front desk?”
“Jackson.”
Dallas sighed. Jackson was young and relatively new, he wasn’t good at his job yet and Dallas didn’t think that he was going to be particularly good under pressure.
They both went down the stairs, practically running, until Dallas reached the bottom one.
Eros hadn't been joking. Dallas swallowed, looking around. There were around ten people that Dallas could count crowded around in his tiny lobby, all looking threateningly at poor little Jackson.
Dallas cleared his throat as he stepped forward, trying to make himself look tall. “Hello, how may I help you?”
“Are you the owner of the establishment?”
Dallas nodded, walking up to him. “Yes, I'm Dallas Strong.”
“Mr. Strong, have you seen this man?”
The guy that was talking, the one who had spoken first, struck Dallas as being an officer in plain clothes.
His speech was too formal, his posture too good.
He took a phone out of his pocket, turned the screen on and showed Dallas a picture of Simon. It was the same picture of him that he had seen before, the one in which Simon was wearing the suit.
Dallas swallowed, his throat dry. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good news. “Yeah, he's my guest.”
The men in black, the scary tall ones, looked at each other. “Do you know which room he's staying in?”
Dallas blinked. “I do.”
“Can you take us there?”
He nodded. “Yes, I can take you there.”
He was suddenly worried for Simon. He was a royal, and he was hiding, and these people might have wanted to hurt him.
“If you show me some identification.”
The man nodded. He took his ID out of his breast pocket, showing Dallas a blue passport framed with golden thread, an official government looking crest that he had never seen before stamped on it, the word Maitje under it.
“Well?”
Dallas swallowed. “It's literally just upstairs, and then you turn left, and that's his room.”
The man repeated his request, a little less kindly this time. “Take us to his room.”
Dallas nodded. “Okay. Eros, stay with Jackson.”
Eros walked over to the front desk and Dallas watched as he put a reassuring hand on Jackson’s shoulder. He nodded at one of the men in black, trying to remind himself that he hadn’t done anything wrong, not technically, and slowly climbed up the stairs.
The man didn’t seem particularly impressed with him.
Dallas had a bad feeling about this. He didn't want to do this. This felt like a bad idea, not because he thought that Simon had necessarily lied to him—he didn’t think so, anyway--but because he had a bad feeling about what would happen once he did open the door. He didn’t know how he could stop it, though.
He stopped in front of Simon’s room and took a deep breath. After he had gathered his courage, which felt like it took forever but probably only took a few seconds, he raised his hand. He knocked on the door, looking at the man in black, daring him to defy him. The man said nothing, but Dallas noticed that his hand was on his waist, near his pocket, and he tried his best not to let it distract him.
“Simon? Are you in there?” Dallas said, leaning into the wooden door. “Someone… some guys are here to see you.”
He had no idea how else he was supposed to describe the people standing outside of Simon’s room.
He pressed his ear against the door, straining to hear a response, straining to hear anything, but he could hear nothing. His gaze met the man in black and Dallas swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. He wasn’t sure why he was so anxious, all that he knew was that he was, that he was suddenly certain that Simon wasn’t going to be there, that he had left during the day. If he had, Dallas wasn’t sure what he could do about that. He didn’t know if he could deal with it and it made him feel very stupid that he was this upset about someone that he had only known for a few days.
“Open the door,” the man in black said.
Dallas took a deep breath, fishing the master key out of his pocket and knocking on the door again. “Simon,” he said. “I hope you’re dressed. I’m coming in.”
He fumbled with the lock, trying to make as much noise as possible. He wasn’t sure why, but he was trying to protect Simon, even though he didn’t know what he was protecting him from. He shouldn’t have cared this much about Simon, but he couldn’t help himself. He opened the door and the man in black went into the room before him. Dallas followed closely behind him, looking around the room.
The bed was made and everything that Simon had come with—a backpack, nothing else—was on a chair next to the window. His clothes, which Dallas now realized he’d bought progressively through the week, were hanging in the open closet. His robe was thrown over the back of the chair. Dallas looked around, trying to spot any signs that he might still be there, his wallet or his phone, but there was nothing.
The man in black turned to face Dallas. “Do you know where he might be?”
Dallas shook his head.
“I noticed that you called him by his first name. Would you say that you two are friends?”
Dallas swallowed. He wasn’t sure what he should say, mostly because he wasn’t sure if he should even consider Simon a friend.
“Mr. Strong?”
“We’ve spoken,” Dallas replied.
“And you don’t know where he is?”
“That’s what I just said.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “Okay. If you do see him, please tell him that his family is looking for him.”
Dallas nodded, licking his dry lips. He followed the man in black out of Simon’s room and down the stairs, thinking about calling Simon the moment that all these men were gone, when he spotted him between all the men in black and the plains clothes officers, carrying a few bags of shopping and looking thoroughly confused.
Dallas walked up to him, ignoring the people around them, though it was hard. He was sure that one of them was going to speak to Simon before he did, but no one did. They seemed content to let Dallas approach him, though he noticed that they crowded around him a little more as he got close to Simon.
Simon held up his hand, the one with the three plastic bags with brand names on them, and the men stood still.
“Hey,” Dallas said, his voice shaky. “These… people are looking for you.”
“Yeah,” Simon replied, smiling at him, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. “I can see that. Give me a second.”
He turned to face the guy in the suit that was closest to him, cocked his head and his expression sobered instantly. He started speaking in a language that Dallas didn’t understand—didn’t even think he had ever heard before, though it sounded a bit like Spanish—very quickly, the annoyance clear in his face. The man in black nodded, saying very little back, then once Simon seemed to be done speaking, the man, whose face remained expressionless, said one sentence. All of the color drained from Simon’s face.
He said something to the man and the man shook his head.
Simon closed his eyes, exhaling heavily from his
nose, and he spoke in English. “You’re giving me two minutes or you’re dragging me kicking and screaming out of here.”
The man nodded, did a little bow with his head, and got out of Simon’s way.
“Dallas.”
Dallas stared at him.
“Can we talk somewhere?”
“Sure, we can go up to your—”
“No,” Simon said, looking at one of the scary men in suits. “We have to be in view of them.”
“What?”
“Just… look, we’re losing time.”
“Fine,” Dallas said. He walked around to the back of the front desk and looked at Eros, who ushered Jackson out of there. Nothing about this felt private, it felt to Dallas like every single person in the room, and he counted at least ten of them, were staring intently at them, waiting for something, though Dallas wasn’t sure what. Dallas looked back at them, swallowing and licking his increasingly dry lips. His heart was beating so fast in his chest, he thought he might actually faint, but instead he crossed his arms over his chest and watched Simon, waiting for an explanation.
“Can we take a rain check?” Simon asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“A rain check?” Dallas exclaimed, his voice loud and surprising in the still and quiet room. If people hadn’t been watching him before, they were certainly watching him now.
Simon looked away from him and Dallas took a deep breath to calm himself.
“Can you explain what’s going on, please?”
Simon nodded. “My dad found me.”
“Your dad? The king?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” Dallas said, swallowing. “What does that mean?”
“I have to go.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
Dallas felt his cheeks redden. He didn’t understand why he was so sad about this. They barely knew each other—barely. He had only learned of Simon’s true identity a few hours before this had all gone down.
“I’m sorry,” Simon said. “I promise I’ll call you, okay?”
He leaned down and planted a soft, warm kiss on Dallas’ cheek. Dallas watched him as he walked away from him. He looked at Simon’s back as he left, watched as someone took the shopping bags off him, wondered what was going to happen to the things that he had left behind in his room. He watched as Simon looked back at him and smiled at the same time as one of the men in black put his hand on the top of his back and walked quickly, which meant that Simon had to start walking fast too.