The Cook’s Daughter at His Majesty Academy

3- Clumsy Mouse

Eveline

I stared. I couldn’t help it. My brain refused to process the fact that I was standing three feet away from a completely naked prince at half past five in the morning.

I stared for one second too long. Then reality came back.

“Oh my God—” I turned so fast I nearly twisted my ankle. “I’m sorry, I thought— I didn’t know—”

Behind me I heard him laugh quietly. He finds this funny.

“Leaving already?” Cassian asked.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “You are naked.”

“Observant.”

My face burned. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Are you going to keep apologizing or are you going to finish the job, Winter?”

Before I could say anything else he walked forward, brushing past me toward the benches. His shoulder caught mine lightly as he passed. I told myself not to look. I genuinely told myself that. And then my eyes dropped anyway, sliding down his butt to where he reached for a dark towel and wrapped it low around his hips.

I snapped my gaze upward so fast my neck ached.

This was how people died.

“Enjoying the view?” He turned and looked at me with that slow easy smile, leaning back against the bench with his forearms resting across his chest, completely comfortable while I felt like I was about to spontaneously combust.

“I wasn’t looking,” I said quickly, gripping the laundry basket handles like they could anchor me. “Martha told me to come back. She was furious that I left the jerseys last night.”

“Right. Martha.” His mouth curved and his eyes tracked the rise and fall of my chest like he was enjoying every second of this. “Because Martha is the one who keeps finding me in the dark. First my bedroom, now my shower. You’re getting bold, Winter.”

“It’s a coincidence!” The frustration came out before I could stop it. “Do you honestly think I want to be in a locker room with you right now?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice dropping as he took one slow step toward me. “Do you?”

“No!”

I stepped back sharply, completely forgetting about the wet floor. My shoe hit a puddle of soapy water and slid out from under me. The basket tipped sideways and hockey jerseys spilled everywhere while I grabbed the edge of the bench to stop myself from going down completely.

Water splashed across the tile.

I looked at the soaked jerseys on the floor and let out the most defeated breath of my life. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Clumsy mouse,” Cassian muttered, but the amusement had gone out of his voice and been replaced by something more direct.

“I hate you,” I said.

“No you don’t.”

That came out too fast. Heat rushed into my face and I scrambled down to grab the jerseys before they got any more soaked.

Cassian crouched beside me a second later and picked up one of the towels.

“You don’t have to help,” I muttered.

“I know.”

Which somehow made it worse. I grabbed the clothes from his hands too quickly, stuffed everything back into the basket, and stood up so fast I nearly hit him with a jersey.

He stayed crouched for another second watching me with that same expression. Like he was enjoying this far too much.

“I should go,” I said.

“Probably.”

I bowed automatically, clutching the basket against my chest. “Sorry again, Your Highness.”

Cassian leaned back against the bench with the towel hanging around his neck. “For staring?”

“I was not staring.”

“Sure, Winter.”

I turned toward the door before my embarrassment could physically finish me off.

“See you around,” he called after me.

I hated that my stomach reacted to that at all. I didn’t stop walking until I reached the basement laundry room.

I dropped the basket onto the folding table and looked down at myself. The front of my uniform was soaked through with dirty locker room water. I couldn’t walk back into the main kitchen looking like this. Rosa would ask too many questions. I pulled the wet uniform over my head, threw it into one of the washing machines, slammed the door, and set the cycle.

Then I sat on top of the folding table in my bra and underwear while the industrial dryers rattled beside me, staring at the opposite wall while my uniform spun behind the glass.

What was happening to me lately? Why did I keep running into Cassian Atwater? And why did every single time leave me more flustered than the last?

I was so stuck in my own head that I didn’t hear the laundry room door slide open.

“Hey, I wanted to speak—”

I looked up.

Joffery froze.

And so did I, because I had stood up automatically before remembering I was standing there in black underwear and a matching bra.

My arms flew across my chest.

His eyes went wide, his face flushed red immediately, and he turned his entire body away toward the washing machines. “Oh, s**t. Sorry. Jesus, sorry.”

“No, it’s fine— actually no, not fine— just give me a second—”

I looked around desperately. Joffery, still carefully facing away from me, reached into one of the nearby laundry baskets and held something out behind him without looking.

“Here.”

I took it quickly. An oversized hockey jersey. WELLING 11 across the back.

I pulled it over my head and it swallowed me completely, falling mid-thigh with sleeves that hung past my hands. It smelled like fresh detergent and expensive cologne, which was very unhelpful.

“You can turn around now.”

Joffery looked back. His shoulders relaxed slightly when he saw I was covered. “Better?”

“Significantly.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment. The dryers hummed behind me and the silence between us was genuinely uncomfortable.

Then he cleared his throat. “I actually came because of last night.”

The guilt came back immediately, heavy and real. “You don’t have to worry,” I said, cutting him off before he could get uncomfortable. “I’m not telling anyone.”

Joffery studied my face carefully, like he was deciding whether my word was worth anything. “I saw you leaving the locker room this morning,” he said. “Cassian was still in there.”

So that was why he looked tense. He thought I had gone straight to his best friend. “I didn’t tell him anything,” I said, keeping my voice steady enough that he stopped searching my face.

His shoulders loosened and he nodded once. “Okay.”

“I mean it, Lord Welling.”

“I know.” He paused. “I just needed to hear it.”

Something about the way he said that made my chest tighten a little, because he didn’t feel like Joffery Welling, campus celebrity and heir to House Welling. He just looked like someone tired, carrying a secret that could blow his entire life apart.

“I hope I can trust you,” he said quietly.

“You can.” And then before my brain could stop my mouth I added, “Though you’re kind of making it harder for yourself by making out in shared locker rooms.”

The room went completely silent. My eyes went wide. I had not meant to say that out loud.

Joffery stared at me. I stared back in horror. Slowly one eyebrow lifted. “You know,” he said carefully, “most people try harder not to insult the people keeping their secrets.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

I winced. “No, wait. Not sorry. It’s just kind of true.”

He looked offended for exactly one second. Then he laughed, quiet and genuine, and the rest of the tension in the room dissolved.

“I hear you,” he said. “Probably won’t repeat that mistake again.”

“Good plan.”

He glanced toward the dryers and stepped back toward the door. “Well,” he said, “I’ll leave you to your extremely strange morning.”

“You mean our extremely strange morning?”

“Fair.”

I smiled despite myself and watched him nod once before slipping back out quietly. The door slid shut behind him.

I let out a full breath for the first time all morning. I looked up at the ceiling and made the sign of the cross.

“God,” I whispered. “What is happening to my life?”

The dryers buzzed behind me. I pulled their warm uniforms out and started folding slowly, trying very hard not to think about any of them.