The Royal Romance - By My Side

The allusion of cool

"Maxwell, where the hell have you been?"

Despite his words, he knew Drake was happy to see him really, as he stood in the departure lounge with both of their cases, waiting to board their plane back to Cordonia.

"Aw, thanks, buddy! You brought my luggage like I asked!"

"You've got a lot of explaining to do," Drake sighed. "But come on."

They headed through the gate, flashing their passports at the airport staff. Maxwell sighed in frustration as he looked at his passport before he put it away. Maybe that was a sign that things hadn't been meant to be. But, Jen could have been with them right now, and how exciting would that have been?

Instead, he was stuck with a tired and grumpy Drake. They'd come to New York a few days before Rick had arrived on his private plane, allowing them to celebrate Maxwell's birthday as well as Rick's bachelor party. Rick had booked them both return tickets as Maxwell's birthday gift; it wasn't much more expensive and he was keen to build up his airmiles points. This little detail was all of a sudden convenient as they hadn't both had to get up at the crack of dawn to board the royal plane, although a few more hours would have been appreciated after a mainly sleepless night and a failed early morning mission.

It wasn't long before passengers Walker and Beaumont had heeded their final call over the tannoy (fame!) and were finding their seats. The first plane was New York to Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam they'd catch a smaller plane to Cordonia.

"Dibs on the window seat," he called.

"Whatever," huffed Drake.

The irony wasn't lost on Maxwell that the third seat next to them was available, and he sighed.

Drake switched off his mobile phone, prompting Maxwell to do the same. "Right. Now you can tell me what you're up to, so that I can then sleep in peace for the rest of the flight once we get up there."

"What, really? You're not looking forward to seven hours and forty-eight minutes of my scintillating conversation?"

Drake produced a pair of earplugs from his shirt pocket. "Nope."

The plane started to taxi, and Maxwell buckled up. "Well. You saw my note."

"Yes, Maxwell. Did I understand it? No."

"You understood the bit about meeting me at the airport with the cases..."

"Just get to the point, Maxwell."

"Last night, at about 4am, I had what I thought was the best idea I'd ever had in my life."

"Not difficult," Drake pointed out.

"Hey! Well, I couldn't sleep, and I was thinking about what happened last night, and... I was thinking about Jen, actually."

"Get in line. I think we all must've dreamt about her last night." A creepy smile appeared on Drake's face.

"No! Not like that! I mean, I was thinking about how well she got on with Rick, and how much he liked her, and what chemistry they had... don't you think?"

It was a bit of a fib, to be honest, as he'd been far too pumped to sleep and had laid awake for hours thinking non-stop about that beautiful, amazing girl that he had just met and that he'd seen again this morning. Her smile, her laugh, her black curls that framed her pretty face.

Naturally, she'd been far too preoccupied with Rick last night to have much in the way of conversation with the rest of the group, but he had managed to chat to her a few wonderful times during the course of the night, and found her to be friendly, funny and charming. As well as stunning. In fact, Jen was nothing short of perfect. And Rick had clearly shared his opinion.