42. 42

42

Kall e

I t's been a week since Edie has been wearing my grandmother's ring—Odin got our mother's since he was the first to get married. If I had known that, I might have done this earlier.

She went back to work the next afternoon like nothing had happened.

Only, a lot had happened.

We announced to the world that we're getting married. That, officially, I will be the next king and Edie will be my queen.

There's been a bit of a reaction about that—so much that Edie hired Mabel Crow to help out with managing the bar because she wasn't getting much done with all the requests for interviews and random people popping in to take pictures with her.

I think she's handling it okay. I put Dillon on her security detail, and today was the first time I've been away from her for more than an hour without checking in.

I might have asked Edie to marry me—properly this time—but there was still one more thing to do.

"What is that?" Edie demands, hands on hips. I just passed a group of tourists leaving the bar clutching their phones so I know she's been doing more selfies .

"This?" I lift it up. "This is a cat box." A soft meow validates my words.

"A cat? I have a cat."

"And I think Ernie needs a friend." I've been staying with Edie every night, and I don't think her cat likes me. I've tried everything, but he's pretty possessive about Edie.

I don't blame him. I'm kind of possessive about her too.

Last night I had an epiphany when I was trying to cuddle Edie and the cat kept getting in the way.

Ernie needs someone of his own to cuddle. "It's the cat from the alley," I say sheepishly. "Stella said she hadn't been adopted yet, so I thought…" I check how she's doing in the cage and the little tortoiseshell bundle of fur blinks yellow eyes at me. "This is Bertie."

"Bertie?" Edie asks with a laugh.

"Bertie and Ernie,"

"But I don't know if I have space in my apartment for Bertie and Ernie. Two cats is a lot and it's not a big space."

"That's the other thing. I thought it might be time to move to a bigger place."

"But you like my apartment better than yours."

"True, but maybe we'd like the castle better than both." I give her my best smile. "Want to move home with me? Since we'll be doing all the wedding planning from there."

Edie smiles and crosses to me, taking a moment to check on the cat before she reaches up and kisses me. "And there isn't much time to plan the wedding, is there?"

No, there is not. Now that I've found what I wanted, I'm not waiting around.