Destroying the Prince (Babysitting the Prince book 2)

Chapter 18.

Chapter 18.

*****

"Ah, I love playing with you." Maximilian said as he beat me again. I dropped my controller between us annoyed as I grabbed the bag of chips.

"Can we watch a movie now? I'm tired of playing."

"You're tired of losing."

"You already knew that three games ago." I replied. I had no idea how he was playing so well when he could not really use his left hand because his arm was still in the sling.

"And you already knew I was just playing to see you react to losing." I looked at him.

He had been over for three hours and after I took a shower and changed into my home clothing – which was track pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, but we were not mismatched because he had shown up in practically the same thing, I guess because he knew we were not heading anywhere – we just fell on the couch laying out snacks. We had spent most of the time that passed on my couch playing games because he insisted that if we played one more time I would become better at it while I insisted that I did not want to become better at it, but he kept getting me to play by starting the game despite my objections and I did not want my character to die without at least trying to survive – although my trying was always a dismal failure. We had run through talking mostly about what was happening on screen and touching on what we had spent the week doing when we thought of something because of the game.

"Have I told you I really don't like you?" I asked him. He just laughed in response as he started a new game by himself and I watched him be a pro with the other players on his team. I was glad not to have to play again.

"So how was work today?" He asked.

"Same old. How was home? Oh, I saw you on that cooking show yesterday, what's it like to fake cooking on live TV?" I had never once seen Maximilian even near the palace kitchen, I knew for a fact he had never cooked anything himself. When I watched the video and scrolled through the comments, most people were worried about his arm and wishing they could have tasted what he cooked... or just being generally... weird or overly... excited about him and his appearance. He had not even done most of the work and basically just instructed the people helping him and stirred the pot or shook the pan.

"I wasn't faking." He replied.

"They said it tasted good." I said.

"Yeah, because they were faking." We laughed. "Seriously, I had a spoon when we went off the air, it tasted horrible. It's a good thing I have so many admirers or that would have been embarrassing." He glanced at me with what seemed like smirk.

"I bet." I smiled.

"What is same old?" His eyes returned to the screen.

"I can't tell you about work, you know that." I said.

"Yes, but there's something important you can tell me that you're not telling me."

"What?" I looked at him, he was still staring at the screen intensely as he tapped the buttons on his controller.

"I don't know, something's off with you." I frowned wondering how he knew when we had barely even looked away from the screen in the past few hours. Is it what happened when you spent way too much time with someone? They just knew things? "Did you get fired again?"

"I wasn't fired the first time." I frowned.

"Suspended, whatever. Same thing."

"It really isn't the same thing, Maximilian." I said. I saw his lips twitch at the corners and it made me frown more.