Royals

Chapter 42

"Wake up. We're here," Jake whispered, nudging my sleeping form. Too lazy to speak, I grunted and curled into a ball onto his lap. "I'll get Joey or Lillia to pour water on you, Em, and you and I both know they'd do it in a heartbeat."

Once again, I was too lazy to speak, so I groaned and buried my head into the lower half of his hoodie. "Alright, I tried to warn you," I heard him say before a sheet of ice cold water blanketed my body.

Jake's method worked, though, because I screamed and jumped up from his lap, ready to fight my invader.

"I tried to warn you," Jake shrugged, stepping off the jet.

Less than five minutes later, the four of us were dumped off at a random waffle restaurant. Our parents insisted that we grabbed a bite to eat, before meeting them at the hotel.

"So, what's our agenda for Boston?" Joey asked, skimming over each of our faces.

"Whatever we do, can we please avoid all of the monuments and that crap? They're always so boring," whined Lillia.

"I second that," I agreed, sipping from my too-hot hot chocolate.

"How about museums?" Jake compromised, considering he was the only one of us who actually enjoyed staring at statues for hours on end. Lillia's grunt answered him well enough though, so he reformed his idea. "What if I find a mega-awesome-fantastic museum?"

Lillia rolled her eyes, taking a brave gulp of her scolding coffee. "If you can find a 'mega awesome, fantastic museum', then sure, I'll go."

"Sweet!" Jake exclaimed, tearing out his phone, most likely checking for the nearest one.

"So, do we have any other standards, aside from statues and un-mega awesome, fantastic museums, of course?" Joey asked, warming his fingers against the side of his mug.

"I guess not," I shrugged, taking a weak sip of my drink, trying to savor the taste with my numb, burnt tongue. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, there's this place here called Castle Island," he replied, slowly. "I'm not really sure what it is exactly, but it seems fun."

Almost out of instinct, I gripped my crown necklace from beneath my shirt. "That sounds great!" I screeched, trying but failing to hide my excitement.

"So, why don't we just hit the Boston Harbor Islands?" Lillia chided. Joey and I looked at each other, shrugging in approval. "Awesome, we'll rent a speedboat or something."

"The Harvard Art Museums," Jake screamed suddenly, causing the entire restaurant to silence and lock eyes with him. He looked up from his phone with hungry, wild eyes, resembling a lion who just caught its prey and was about to take its first bite.

"Jake, you need to calm down," Lillia hissed, her cheeks tinting due to embarrassment.

"Sorry," he breathed, shaking the crazed look from him. "But we have to go to the Harvard Art Museums and the Hatch Memorial Shell."

"What are you going on about?" Joey asked, his eyes discreetly checking to assure that we no longer had an audience.

Allowing his inner nerd to shine, Jake jovially exclaimed, "Well, the Hatch Memorial Shell has orchestra concerts, which we could attend at night. And, as for the art museums, you can't go to Massachusetts and not see anything related to Harvard."

"You absolutely can, and we absolutely will," Lillia snapped, rolling her eyes.

"Please," Jake begged.

"The 'Harvard Art Museum' sounds neither mega awesome nor fantastic, which I believe was our agreement," she replied, taking a satisfied gulp of her drink.