Accidents Happen

Victoria felt nervous. The prince was acting as though they had known each other their whole lives, whereas she felt like a complete outsider.

"Why do you look so frightened? Have I done something wrong?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, no!" She exclaimed, appalled at the mere thought of offending him. "I just, I'm not sure how I should... I'm not sure how I should act around you?" she finished lamely.

"Just act like yourself, love. I'm not that bloody important." he stopped, noticing Joanna again. "Oh, does your friend want one? I'm sorry, your name must have slipped my mind."

"I'm Joanna," she said, her face stiff.

"Lovely. Would you like one?"

"I don't smoke," Joanna had always been against smoking, and had hounded Tori for months to quit. She had tried, of course, but had always ended up going back to it when she became stressed.

"Would you like to accompany us out to the balcony, or should I fetch you a chair?" he asked, clearly concerned that he had offended her.

"I would like a chair very much,thanks."

Tori couldn't understand why her friend was being so cold to Harry, and made a mental note to ask her when they got the chance to be alone.

She passed the time by inspecting Harry's lighter. "This looks really expensive," she observed, chancing a glance at him.

"Well, it was," he lowered his head, looking embarrassed.

"Why do you always pull that face at me? Have I done something wrong?" She mirrored what he had said only minutes earlier.

He snickered. "I feel the need to impress you," he blurted, clearly regretting it right after.

"Oh, you do?" she grinned and took a puff of her cigarette, pleased at having the upper hand for once.

She had spent her whole life thinking that the Prince was conceited, too proud to be overly friendly to 'commoners'. She was only just realizing how wrong she was. From just the few minutes she had spent with him, she knew he was genuinely nice and genuinely funny. She now understood that she wanted to know more about him.

"Um." he said, at a loss of what to say.

"It's fine. If it wasn't blindingly obvious, I felt the need to impress you too. Since the moment you made me fall flat on my back in the middle of an enormous crowd."

"Hey, that wasn't my fault!" He exclaimed, chuckling. "It was that old bat that threw her bag into the middle of the damn road."

"Oi, I'm pretty sure it was an accident."

"Oh yeah, you saw it did you? She was standing at least 3 meters away, care to explain how she could just happen to drop it 4 meters in front of her?" he said, a smug smile playing on his lips. He knew he was right.

"Oh shut up, smarty pants," Tori said lamely. "All right, so she threw the bag there on purpose. But why?"

"What are you, Sherlock?" he chuckled. "Why does it matter?"

She shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't. I was just curious, I guess. It was a strange thing to happen."

"But it brought you to me, didn't it?" He whispered, just loud enough for Tori to make sense of the words.

"It did," she smiled to herself before holding her cigarette butt in front of his face. "Where should I put this?"

He jerked his head to the left, and she caught sight of a small glass ash tray sitting on a little table in the corner. To her surprise, the prince followed her and sat down in one of the matching chairs around the table. "Sit," he beamed, and Victoria obliged.