Rowdy Prince

Tara

“Look at how young and full of get up and go he was back then,” I say, handing my sister-in-law a framed photo from the box I’m unpacking.

Laura laughs. “He looks exactly the same,” she says, her blue eyes admiring the college graduation photo of my brother and his roommate, Luis. Both of them are dark-haired with tan skin, and they’re captured in a moment of pure joy after shaking a bottle of champagne and letting it spray around them.

“You would say that,” I joke, pulling out a bunch of boring legal books that are also inside the box. “You’ve still got that love bubble hanging around your head.” My brother, Mitch, and Laura are newlyweds. They just got back from their honeymoon at Kismet Cove and are in the process of moving into their first home together in Cedarwood Valley. While I grew up in this tiny town, I don’t live here anymore. I’m an hour away in Sugar City, but I’m here for the day helping Laura unpack.

“You’ll be the same one day, believe me,” she says, grinning with those goo-goo eyes of hers as she traces her index finger around my brother’s face in the photo.

“Unlikely.” I laugh, setting the books on the built-in shelving. “The guys I’ve met only like tiny little things that giggle whenever they make a lame attempt at a joke. I don’t fit that category.” I indicate my plus-size figure with a flourish of my hand.

“But you’re gorgeous, Tara,” she counters, tucking a stray lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. And it’s no surprise to hear her say that because it’s what everyone does. When you’re a big girl, it’s like everyone around you is in denial about your size. All my life I’ve been big. It’s my normal, and at twenty-four-years-old, I’ve grown to love my body and accept my size. But when I point my size out, someone invariably tells me I’m wrong or negates it by saying, ‘but you’re beautiful/gorgeous/have a great personality’. And I have never said I wasn’t beautiful—I have long dark hair, and brown eyes with flecks of green. So, I quite like the woman who stares back at me from the mirror—I only ever said I was big. There’s a difference.

I want to say these things out loud, tell anyone who’ll listen that small isn’t the standard and big is just a size. Beauty is in your heart and your personality. The rest is a judgment made by an unrealistic beauty industry that preys upon our insecurities to line their pockets. I am proud of my curves. I don’t need to pretend they don’t exist.

But I don’t say anything.

I never say anything.

I just let out a slow breath and straighten the books, wishing I was as brave as the voice inside my head.

“Is this the roommate?” Laura asks, snapping me from my quiet cowardice as she sets the graduation photo on Mitch’s desk.

“Oh yeah,” I say, moving over to where she stands. “Those two were thick as thieves during college. Luis didn’t have any family here, so he spent a lot of summers with us.”

“What was that like? He’s pretty easy on the eyes,” she says, tapping me gently with her elbow. She’s a total sweetheart, and I feel bad for getting worked up over the plus-size-but-beautiful comment from before. It’s not her fault she was blessed with skinny genes and doesn’t get how insulting that kind of comment is. At the end of the day, she’s beautiful because she’s kind and tries really hard to embrace my family as her own—even though none of us can figure out how she managed to fall for my goofy big brother in the first place. She must be a saint is all I’m saying.

“Yeah, he’s a total babe,” I reply, remembering how speechless I was the first time Mitch brought Luis home. I was twelve and just figuring out what liking boys meant, so when this Adonis came to spend the Christmas break at our place, I had no clue what to do or say. I became a red-faced mute. “I was so awkward around him in the beginning.”

“I would have been too. Look at the face. Gosh, I wish I could met him. Mitch said he couldn’t get here in time for the wedding, though—some family business to attend to.”

“Well, he was an interesting one.” I laugh to myself as memories play in my mind. “He was probably stuck in Spain ruling his kingdom.”

“His kingdom?” Laura laughs.

“Mitch never told you? The two of them used to try to convince me that Luis was the prince of some tiny country near Spain.”

“And you didn’t believe them?”

I let out an amused burst of air. “Would you? Out of all the colleges in America, a Spanish prince chooses Sugar City over Ivy League?”

“That does sound a little far-fetched. But it’s a shame they don’t see each other anymore,” she muses. “They look so close here.”

“I agree,” I say, smiling as I look at the photo of the two of them, remembering summers swimming in the lake, squealing and laughing. “I think it’s just that college finished, and their lives began. Luis couldn’t stay in the US forever.”

“That’s sad. I’ve heard a lot of good stories about Luis. I think Mitch misses their friendship.”

“Well,” I say, twisting my mouth to the side as an idea forms. “If you have the address from the wedding invite, Mitch is turning thirty this year. Maybe we could throw a party and Luis will have time to get here for that?”

“Yes!” Her eyes go wide, and I know she’s thinking the same as me. “I would love to reunite them. Wait here.” She runs from the room and comes back with a slightly torn envelop from the RSVP notice with Luis’s neat handwriting on the back of it. Strange that I still recognize it after all these years. “Do you think he’ll come?”

“We can only ask,” I say, sliding the envelope into my back pocket. “And offer to pay his airfare, of course.”

“Oh, do you think that’s why he didn’t come?”

“Probably. He studied ancient history or politics or something. So, he’s probably some stuffy professor earning a pittance. I’ve got some savings. I don’t mind spending it on my big bro getting to rekindle his ultimate bromance.”

“You really don’t believe the prince story, huh?”

“No way.” I wave it off as I go back to unpacking the study. “Besides his good looks, there was nothing princely about Luis Rivera.”