The Prince and I - 19

“Your young man?” I grumbled as Connor and I headed upstairs. “I’m older than you.”

Connor laughed. “Technically no you’re not.”

“Aw shit. You mean it’s like in the games and you’re really over a hundred?”

“Not quite that bad. I’ve been around for forty-five years. We just age more slowly and pretty much stop aging when we reach twenty or thereabouts.”

I stopped mid-step to look at him. “So when I’m your real age you’ll still look like you’re eighteen.”

“I’m afraid so. That bothers you?”

“Yeah, maybe, but since you’ll probably have gone back to—wherever it is you live—and I’ll be stuck here, I guess it doesn’t really matter.” Why did it bother me anyway I wondered. Sure we’d kissed, more flirtation than anything serious when I looked back on it. Sure I sort of decided to see if things might go further. But despite Connor’s white lie to his uncle. we were far from being lovers and for sure we weren’t in love. Possibly, depending on how things worked out, we might become friends with benefits while he remained here. Then we’d go our separate ways. Life’s like that.

With a ‘humph’ which was hard for me to interpret Connor took me to the room I’d be using for—well for how long I had no clue. After seeing it however I hoped it would be for more than a night. I could sink into the bed and sleep forever if I had my way. Not that I did. As Connor reminded me we were supposed to clean up and go back downstairs.

As soon as he’d left I tossed my backpack on the dresser and went to shower. It took all my willpower to get out when I was clean. The hot water, the fancy soap, the shampoo which actually smelled good, all conspired to make me want to stay there until the water turned cold. Which might not be for hours I realized. This was a rich man’s house, not one of the drop-in centers.

I got out, dried off with a large, soft towel which I then wrapped around my waist. I found toothpaste, a new toothbrush and comb in the medicine cabinet and put them to good use.

When I was finished I checked myself out in the full-length mirror on the door. It was the first time I’d actually seen my body from head to toe in a mirror since I’d left home. Store windows really didn’t tell the story since I was always dressed, usually in layers to boot. I was shocked at how much I’d changed in the last two years. I was lean without an ounce of fat. I knew I was muscular, I always had been, but now the muscles stood out in sharp definition. There were a couple of scars along one of my sides, the result of getting in a fight with a punk who thought a knife made him something special. I’d taken him down but he got in a couple of cuts in the process. They’d healed ragged since I didn’t go to the ER to have them taken care of.

Yeah, I still looked younger than nineteen. Not sure why. Genetics I guess. Maybe it was my eyes, which are baby-blue, or my pouty lips that I’d always hated when I was growing up. ‘The face of an angel’ my mom had said once, not long before she died. An angel with very tanned skin and too-long, raggedly cut black hair at the moment.

“Richie, are you ready?”

I swung around, stepped to the bathroom door, and saw Connor standing at the bedroom door. His eyes widened, a small grin quirking his lips up as he eyed me.

“Come on in, and behave,” I told him, laughing. “I was just trying to decide what of my fantastic wardrobe I was going to wear.”

Given that he was dressed in clean clothes, nice slacks and a dark green button-down that accented his eyes, I was only half kidding. No matter what I picked, next to him I’d still look like what I was—someone who lived on the streets.

He did come in; just long enough to take another look and then tell me he’d be back. He was, a few minutes later, carrying a pile of clothes which he set down on the bed.

“These belong to Arthur’s son. He said it was okay to use any of them that fit.”

“So this is Arthur’s house?” It hadn’t even occurred to me it might be.

“Yes.” Connor was laying the clothes out very methodically, slacks on one side, shirts on the other. He held up a pair of black jeans, looked at me, nodded and handed them over. “These should fit, with a belt. He’s just a little larger than you.”

I snorted softly as I took them. “Unless he’s been on a starvation diet chances are it’s more than a little.” Going back into the bathroom so as not to play into his fantasies, I put them on. Surprisingly they did fit except at the waist. When I came out again he nodded, giving me a belt. While I was putting it through the loops he was holding up one shirt and then another.

“Connor, they’re just shirts. Any one of them should do.”

He muttered something I didn’t catch then gave me a black one. I shook my head even though I took it. “Now I’ll look like a gangster.”

“You’ll look handsome,” he countered adamantly.

Shrugging, I put it on, and then realized I was barefoot. I dug clean socks out of my pack, put them on, added my beat-up boots and checked the effect in the mirror. From my ankles up I decided I didn’t look too bad.

Now it was time to face the inquisition.