DUALITY /#Wattys 2021

Chapter 22

Popish, Ridley, and Reb were to leave for Boston the next morning. The King sat quiet on the couch, typing throughout dinner and on into the evening. At last Alana approached to ask him if he wanted anything to eat. She warmed him a plate, and he grazed as he typed, the glowing lines in front of him trapping his attention. 

He was still typing when they all went to bed. Ridley had to get up with Sannah in the middle of the night, and she peered out into the living room.

The King sat motionless on the couch, still engrossed in whatever he was working on. Ridley heard a soft, "Ah!" and a phalanx of holographic files materialized in the air in front of him, little moving scenes she couldn't make out from where she stood. When he reached up and touched one, it moved in the air, anywhere he directed it. Ridley watched him scroll through them as if he were looking for something.

She traced the straight lines of his tall back and the intensity of his thick dark brows, knitted in concentration. When he finished looking through one set of files, he'd shake his head, hit a button on his roll-up flexible keypad, and the files disappeared. Then he would type another set into existence.

Ridley recalled her mother earlier that evening, approaching the King, speaking to him as if he were just anyone, and how fond he seemed to be of her. Ridley wished he would look up and speak to her, but he was so absorbed in whatever he was doing, Sannah could probably scream right in his ear and he wouldn't notice.

She longed to sit near him, to talk to him, to ask him what he was doing, here in the middle of the night with no one else around. She had the baby in her arms and he was always glad to see Sannah. How wonderful it would be if he smiled at her, if he seemed happy to see her; but anxiety tied knots around her heart. She had never been brave enough to speak to the King, unless he spoke to her first.

She doubted he would mind if she spoke to him. She imagined her mother doing the same thing right now, walking up to him with a cup of tea or cocoa and asking him if he'd like anything, and then just sitting down for a short chat. Alana did that all the time, and the King was cordial to her. He never seemed annoyed. He probably wouldn't be if Ridley approached him, either.

How would it feel to have the attention of a man like that—so influential, so poised? So wealthy, tall, and so good-looking? Someone who had traveled all over the world, in a way Ridley hadn't, as an elder statesman.

Ridley had seen the interiors of hotel rooms and the inside of host countries' gyms, maybe a few popular tourist attractions, and that was it. When she saw her mother and the King chatting together, Ridley had no idea what they could talk about. What could her mother say that would hold the attention of someone like him—so intelligent, so cultured, and yet so sad. Simon had been Ridley's first love and her closest friend, but the King cast a spell over her in an entirely different way.

She tightened the blanket around Sannah and balled her hands into fists. She had to stop fantasizing about the King. She needed to stop thinking about him altogether.

Should he look up and see her, what could Ridley ever say to him that would hold his attention the way Dr. Popish did, or the way Reb could, with all Reb's spy knowledge, so crucial to the realm? Ridley was the girl who did the gymnastics, and who knew how to calm a baby. Sometimes.

Because she felt so drawn to him, the King would be offended, and she must stay away. If she did walk up to him, sit down, and ask him what he was doing, he'd probably speak cordially to her. She could have whatever times with him her mother did; the King was approachable and kind, she knew that.

Except, the more he gave her, the more she would want.

Ridley realized she hadn't had a single episode of that awful torpor, that heaviness in her chest, that thought that she just didn't care about anything at all, since the day she arrived here and the King walked in the door. No moments of just wanting to lie in bed and sleep the day away. And she knew why.