One Year Later, Christmas Eve
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"TASHA! YOU BETTER GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME."
Rory opened up the trunk to her black sedan, slinging grocery bags over her wrists. It took all of two minutes for Tasha to arrive, wearing knitted pink pyjamas and no shoes.
"Tasha," Rory said. "We're in Canada, just in case you weren't aware. And it's fucking freezing. You're barefoot on the snow and if you get sick, Mom is going to kill me."
"Astute observation," Tasha said. "I didn't know we were in Canada. Why don't we have an igloo? Where are all the moose?"
"Get back in there and put on some shoes," Rory said. "And stop sassing me, young lady!"
"No can do!" Tasha said, running back up the walkway of their two-story house.
Rory finished hauling the groceries inside, setting her car keys down on the lime marble countertop. "Paris?" she called out.
Tasha was back in the kitchen, wearing reindeer antlers.
"She's not home yet," Tasha said.
"Still at work?"
Tasha shrugged and began rifling through the grocery bags until she found the strawberry lemonade. "You bought it!"
Rory narrowed her eyes. "I shouldn't have, but I have an unusual soft spot for you. Even after you drank so much of that lemonade you threw up on Mrs. Jones's driveway."
"What? The rain washed it away."
"Mrs. Jones hates us now."
"No, she always hated us. She's just more vocal about it now." Tasha uncorked the bottle of lemonade. "And besides, she called my moms unnatural abominations against the Holy Bible."
"So you threw up on her driveway?"
Tasha took a swig of strawberry lemonade, nodding shamelessly.
Rory made sure Paris wasn't about to walk through the door, and she ruffled Tasha's hair. "That's my girl," she said. "But don't tell Mom I said that."
Tasha rolled her eyes. "Mom would scold me, but she'd be secretly proud."
Rory thought of Paris's cinnamon-sugar mouth, the way her hazel eyes glinted like they were threaded with soft sunlight. God damn. The thought of Paris was always enough to steal her breath.
"Yeah," she said wistfully. "Mom would totally be proud."
"You are so whipped," Tasha said, giggling.
Rory's head snapped up. "Hey! How do you know that word? Hey! Come back here, young lady! I am not whipped!"
The front door opened.
"Rory?" Paris's soft voice echoed through the house. "Are you home yet?"
"Hey," Rory said, meeting her at the door and kissing her cheek. "Did you go to the store, too?"
"Yeah," Paris said, her cheeks pink with the cold. "I bought some strawberry lemonade for Tasha."
Rory groaned. "That girl has us both under her spell."
"And I wouldn't want it any other way," Paris said, laughing. "You went to the grocery store, too?"
Rory helped Paris carry in her groceries. "Yeah," she said, as Paris slipped off her coat and hung it up. "I went after work. Busy time of the year."
"How was your day?"
"I met some new people," Rory said, stacking the groceries in the cupboards. "A girl named Jocelyn and a boy named Matthew. I was working on finding them both foster homes, so I called some connections to the RSF, and like a miracle, it worked. They both have somewhere to stay in time for tomorrow."
RSF— The Royal Survivors Foundation.
Over the past year, Rory had chosen to make it bigger. The rate of homeless people who had suffered sexual abuse was too high, and since she had the resources to make an impact, Rory had made a decision. This was how she was going to spend her time.
With Paris at Mount Sinai General, Rory had opened up headquarters here in the city for her crisis center.
And every night, each of them came home to their small, cozy two-story house.
Three months ago, they had gotten the news that there was a remission of the leukemia in Tasha's body—the cancer had retreated. That had been cause for celebration. Tasha was finally able to live with them permanently, and she had managed to decorate her room entirely in pink.
"What?" she had said. "Pink is a social construction and I'm protesting patriarchal stereotypes."
Paris and Rory had exchanged a bewildered glance.
"No problem," Rory had said. One day, her daughter was going to change the world. She knew it in her bones.
Tasha was already volunteering to help out at the crisis center, and she felt especially strongly about LGBTQ+ homeless people who had been kicked out of their houses thanks to unaccepting parents.
"How was your day?" Rory asked Paris.
Paris smiled. "Good day. It's been weeks since I saw Cat. Now that Dhonielle is . . . now that she's not here anymore, Cat doesn't come around so often to the children's ward. I missed her, but she gave me a candy cane today."
"A candy cane?" Rory said, grinning. "Did she charge you a million dollars?"
"Surprisingly, no," Paris replied. "But she did say we should have a Christmas wedding."
"She can be a bridesmaid," Rory said without thinking.
Paris's eyes narrowed.
Rory cleared her throat. "Hypothetically, I mean."
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AS RORY CLIMBED THE STAIRS, SHE THOUGHT OF HER FATHER'S DEATH. A sudden heart attack, eight months ago.
It had meant she was queen.
She laughed to herself. Queen for three days.
There was one thing her father hadn't accounted for. Once Rory became queen, she had the power to abdicate throne. And thanks to modern-day laws, she could name any citizen of Valeria as the new power for the throne.
Rory chose Simon.
Now, thanks to their upcoming coronation and wedding, Simon and Alec would be the new kings of Valeria. The country had never had two kings, but the people were so accepting it had frightened Rory a little—they had probably just been relieved it wasn't Rory on the throne.
But Rory didn't care. She had chosen something else, too.
A home.
A small, quiet home in suburban Vancouver—although she had drawn the line at living in a town called Squamish.
Now, as Rory approached Tasha's room, she knocked softly on the door.
Inside she could hear the sound of whispering. Talking.
Rory almost groaned. Do I have to watch out for teenage boys now?
Tasha said, "Come in, Momma."
"How'd you know it was me?"
"You have a gentle knock. When Mom knocks, she means business." Tasha set down her phone after saying, "Call me again later, Gloria?"
Gloria, Rory thought suspiciously.
"What's up, Momma?"
"The sky."
Tasha fell back on her bed, sighing. "That joke is so old. You need to give it up."
"No, it's not!" Rory protested. "It's a great joke. Timeless."
"Yeah, whatever, Momma. What'd you want to say?"
Rory held her breath. "I wanted to ask if . . . if you thought it would be cool if I proposed. If you're okay with that."
A moment of painful silence stretched.
And Tasha began laughing.
"That's it? Momma, I have never seen you more scared, even when we went cliff diving off the Furore Bridge in Italy and Mom found out."
"What? Mom is terrifying when she's mad."
Tasha giggled again. "So whipped."
"So it'd be okay? If I proposed? I'm . . . kind of nervous."
"Are you going to do it tonight?"
"Yeah," Rory said. "I was thinking maybe I should just tap her shoulder in the kitchen while she's making the Christmas cookies and—"
Tasha was already shaking her head. "No, no, no. That's awful!" A slow, victorious smirk spread over her lips. "You're going to leave the planning up to me."
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One more chapter. This has been a wild sixteen days.
We finally got a glimpse of Tasha again! Anything you noticed?
From the moon and back,
Sarai