Royal Flush

meet me @ the starbucks on king st. 3:30

Patrick wanted to be surprised when he had gotten the text from Victoria, but he had known that it was coming. He hadn’t talked to her since the meeting where he had found out that she was going to be his best friend’s future wife and he didn’t know how to feel about that. What if she had changed her mind about telling him this secret? What if she decided that she really wanted to marry Jonny and wanted nothing to do with him? It was driving him crazy to think about, worrying that even the smallest thing was going to go wrong.

Which is why he had arrived at the Starbucks that Victoria had wanted them to meet at an hour early. It was better than sitting in his apartment, wondering what was going to happen and driving himself crazy. Not that sitting in Starbucks was actually helping him. Now he was starting to wonder if Victoria was going to not show up. Maybe this was all some kind of elaborate prank. He had to hope that Victoria wouldn’t do something like that, but the longer he sat the, the more he started to doubt that Victoria was even going to show.

He tapped his fingers against the table, shifting in his seat. Every time the door opened, Patrick whipped his head around to watch the person walk in, heart sinking a little in his chest each time that it wasn’t Victoria. There was a little voice in the back of his mind that was telling him that he needed to calm down. Victoria wouldn’t text him just to stand him up. She was going to be here. He just needed to keep reminding himself of that. Plus, it was only 3:22 so she wasn’t late yet.

So when the door finally opened and Victoria walked in, Patrick let out a deep sigh of relief, a big smile spreading across his face. He resisted the urge to jump up and scream her name. This was a public place and he didn’t want everyone in the place to think that he was some kind of freak. So he settled for just raising his hand, waving her over to the table that he had secured.

“Patrick, hi!” Victoria stated happily once she had wove her way around the other tables to reach him, leaning down to press a kiss against the cheek before she was sitting down on the other side of the table.

“Hey,” Patrick greeted, trying to keep the stupid smile off of his face. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Thanks so much for coming to meet me.”

“It’s no big deal. I didn’t really have anything better to do with my day, anyway,” Patrick admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. “Did you want something to drink?”

“Not right now. I think we should probably talk first.”

Patrick gave a small nod of his head, leaning back in his seat. “Alright,” he murmured. He had been hoping that they wouldn’t have to start talking right away. He wanted to know what the secret was, but he didn’t know if it was a good secret or a bad secret and was nervous about hearing what Victoria had to tell him.

“So,” she started softly, quickly looking around before her eyes settled on Patrick’s face. “How much do you know about Jonathan finding a wife?”

“Um, not that much,” Patrick answered, raising an eyebrow slightly. “One of our mutual friends told me that there was a ball that was set up to help Jonny find a wife because his parents were getting impatient for him to find someone.”

Victoria slowly nodded. “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that your friend doesn’t know the whole story,” Victoria answered. “It’s true that there was a ball that was set up to help Jonathan meet his future wife. But it wasn’t just random women that he was meeting; it was women that had been picked out specifically for him. Abby and Kelly-Rae searched far and wide to find women that they would think would fit best with Jonathan and had him pick out a few women that he think he would like best.”

“Wow,” Patrick muttered, shaking his head. “I didn’t know that it was that complicated.”

Victoria let out a soft laugh, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, it’s even more complicated than that.”

“How could it be any more complicated?”

“Jonathan wasn’t supposed to be meeting me at all that night.”

Patrick frowned. “Okay, now I’m really confused.”

“When I said that Abby and Kelly-Rae had searched far and wide for women, I meant that they looked at people who were working for the government that had daughters or family that were around Jonathan’s age that would suit him best. My dad’s a teacher and my mom’s an ER nurse.”

“Then how did you end up on the list?” Patrick asked in confusion.

“I wasn’t on the list,” Victoria answered as she leaned back in her seat. “Colette has a uncle that is a Swedish diplomat. She was the one on the list.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Victoria sighed softly, tapping her fingers against the table. “Colette hates going out in public and being around a lot of strangers. I just happened to answer the phone when Abby called to talk to Colette about the whole plan that they had come up with. It’s an arranged marriage sort of thing. I told her that I thought Colette would be perfect for Jonathan, but she wouldn’t go to the ball. That she had a hard time being around people. Abby agreed that out of all the women that she had wanted to invite, Colette had seemed like the best option. So the two of us came up with a plan.

“Abby would write up a profile for me, just like all the other girls that they were planning on inviting to the ball to meet Jonathan. She sort of pimped me out in the profile, if you will, get Jonathan interested in meeting me. Then it was all up to me. I had to convince Jonathan that I would make a good wife and that I would be the perfect choice. Once that happened, I would have him and Colette meet and get the two of them together,” Victoria finished, smiling lightly.

Patrick stayed silent as he stared at her, trying to process the whole story. He honestly didn’t know what to think about this whole thing. On one hand he felt bad for his best friend because he was being lied to. Sure, it was for a good reason, but that didn’t make it any better. But on the other hand, it meant that Victoria wasn’t really planning on marrying Jonny, which meant that he really had a chance with Victoria.

“I don’t really know what to say,” Patrick finally spoke.

Victoria let out a soft laugh, running her fingers through her hair. “You don’t have to say anything. I know that it’s a crazy and a part of me doesn’t know why I’m even doing it. Maybe because I want Colette to be happy and this could make her happy.”

“What happens if Colette finds out about the plan? Or Jonny finds out about the whole plan? Don’t you feel bad lying to them?”

“I hate having to lie to my best friend. But I don’t know what else to do. She deserves to be happy and I think that her marrying Jonathan would make her happy. I just…It’s really hard to explain.”

Patrick rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, shaking his head. “Don’t you feel like you’re leading Jonny on? Like, what if he ends up falling for you instead of Colette?”

Victoria sighed softly, shrugging. “I guess we didn’t really think about that. I guess we just assumed that everything would go as planned. I have to hope that everything turns out the right way, but I’ll deal with stuff like that when it comes up. And I do feel bad leading Jonny on. I don’t want him to get hurt, but I think it’s too late to go back now.”

Patrick chewed on his lower lip as he watched Victoria. He suddenly felt bad for her. If he was being honest, the whole plan was fucked up and he didn’t think that it was going to work in the long run. But he could tell that Victoria’s heart was in the right place and she wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t have any other options. “I hope that for everyone’s sake, this works out. I don’t want to see Jonny end up getting hurt because of this.”

Victoria smiled weakly. “I don’t want Jonathan to get hurt either. I want everything to work out the way that we had planned it to work out. And when it does, I just hope that they’ll both be able to forgive me for doing this.”

Patrick hummed softly, reaching across the table to grab Victoria’s hand. “I guess that’s all that I can ask for. But why are you telling me about this? It doesn’t really have anything to do with me.”

Victoria blushed lightly as she focused on where Patrick’s hand was tangled with hers. “Jonathan said that it was okay that I could see other people. When I met you at the ball that night, I felt like we really had a connection and I don’t want to just give up that chance because I’m stuck in this plan.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“I want to date you,” Victoria answered firmly, looking up at Patrick.

Patrick swallowed hard, ducking his head slightly. “I don’t know…”

“Right,” Victoria muttered as she pulled her hand back, dropping it in her lap. “I didn’t really think that you would want that.”

“I do want to date you,” Patrick stated quickly, running his fingers through his hair. “I just…How can I date you when you’re with my best friend?”

“I’m not really with your best friend. It’s just pretend.”

“I get that, but you’re going to have to pretend that you’re dating Jonny. You’re going to get fake engaged. I don’t think that I would be able to handle that.”

Victoria smiled weakly as she nodded her head. “I completely understand. It’s a lot to ask of you when we barely know each other. I just thought I should ask,” she stated softly, standing up from her seat. “I think I should probably go now.”

Patrick watched Victoria stand up, frowning as he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “Please don’t go,” he stated softly.

While he didn’t like the fact that she was going to pretend to marry Jonny, he didn’t want to just throw away the connection that they had made at the ball. He was going to have to try and get over the fact that for a while, Victoria was going to have to pretend to be with his best friend. It was going to be hard, but he knew that he could do it. He really liked Victoria and it seemed like Victoria really liked him too.

“I mean, if you really have to go, that’s fine. I just…I think I would be okay with giving us a try?”

Victoria raised an eyebrow slightly. “Are you being serious now?”

“Deadly serious.”

“You would really want to date me even though I’m going to get fake engaged to your best friend soon?”

“Well, if your plan works, I won’t have to worry about you being fake engaged to my best friend for very long, will I?”

Victoria laughed softly, slowly sitting back down in the chair. “No, I guess you won’t.”

Patrick smiled as he removed his fingers from around her wrist, taking her hand in his again. “Like you said, we had a connection. I felt it at the ball and I felt it the other day when I came over to your place. It would be stupid to just ignore that because of some plan that you have. You just have to promise that you won’t go and fall in love with my best friend.”

“I promise that I would never do that to you,” Victoria stated, grinning widely at Patrick.

“Then we have nothing to worry about then,” Patrick murmured as he leaned across the table, pressing his lips against Victoria’s.

♕♛♕♛

We need to talk. We’ll be at your place in half an hour.

Any other day getting such an ominous text would have made Victoria nervous. But today, she was too happy to care about anything. She couldn’t believe that Patrick had agreed to date her, even after he had heard the whole plan. She was sure that he would have run the other way when she had told him what the plan was, but he hadn’t. He had even agreed to sign the non-disclosure agreement, though, he had complained a little bit. But it wasn’t like Victoria could blame him. She didn’t think that Patrick was going to run off and tell the media that Prince Jonathan was faking his marriage.

Nothing was going to bring Victoria down. She would share the information that she had with the other two females and start working on getting Jonathan and Colette to spend more time together. And of course, she would have to work on getting to spend some more time with Patrick as well. Which she didn’t think was going to be too hard seeing as Jonathan and Patrick spent a lot of time together.

Hearing the buzzer, she jumped up from where she was sitting on the couch, going over to buzz the other two females in. She stayed close to the door, shifting from one foot to the other. She was hoping that both Abby and Kelly-Rae would be happy with how well the plan was coming along. All three of them knew that it was going to take some time for the plan to fully work, but they all agreed that this was the best way to go about things.

When the knock on the door came, she pushed herself away from the wall that she had been leaning against, pulling the door open. “Hi,” she greeted the two females on the other side of the door.

“Is Colette here?” Abby asked.

“Nope. She’s still at work and will be at work for a while,” Victoria answered, stepping out of the way so that the women could walk inside.

“Good,” Kelly-Rae stated with a smile.

“So what exactly do we need to talk about?” Victoria asked as she closed the door once Abby and Kelly-Rae were inside, crossing her arms over her chest.

“How did the meeting go?” Abby questioned.

“It went pretty well, actually. Jonathan and Colette seemed to get along really well. Colette really seemed to open up to Jonathan. I haven’t seen her talk that much in years.”

“That’s great!” Kelly-Rae stated excitedly. “The plan is going well so far.”

“Don’t get too excited yet,” Abby stated. “Things are going well now, but that’s because this is the easy part. It’s going to be harder to get Jonathan to fall in love with Colette.”

“Right,” Kelly-Rae murmured, nodding. “How exactly is that going to happen?”

“They need to spend time together,” Victoria answered. “I’ve been thinking up ideas of how we can get them to spend time together. Alone.”

“And what did you come up with?” Abby asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I was thinking to begin with we get them to places that are busy. I know that Jonathan is a big hockey fan and Colette’s always wanted to go to a game. We get them to a hockey game where it won’t be just the two of them right away, but they can spend time together. Get to know each other some more,” Victoria explained. “After that, we can start thinking of ways to get them to spend time together without other people around.”

Abby slowly nodded her head as she listened to Victoria speak. “That would work. We also have some events coming up that it would be a great time for them to spend more time together.”

“While those are all great plans, how exactly are you going to get Colette to come to these things? If she wouldn’t go to a ball, what makes you think she’ll go to a hockey game?” Kelly-Rae questioned.

“That’s something that I’ll worry about once the time comes,” Victoria replied.

“I don’t know,” Kelly-Rae murmured with a frown.

“We have to trust that Victoria knows what she’s doing. If she thinks she can get Colette to these things, than we have to believe her,” Abby stated with a shrug. “All of us want things to work out between Jonathan and Colette, right?”

“Right,” the other two females answered at the same time.

“Good,” Abby said with a smile. “It’s settled then. I’ll look at Jonathan’s schedule and get back to you on when the hockey game is going to be. I’ll also e-mail you the list of events that are coming up so that you can decide if bringing Colette to some of them would be good.”

“That sounds good to me,” Victoria stated.

“We’ll also have to have another meeting with you and Jonathan soon. Talk more about announcing your engagement,” Kelly-Rae piped in.

“About that,” Victoria started, chewing on her bottom lip as she glanced at Abby. “You remember how I said that I had met a guy that I was interested in?”

“Yes,” Abby stated slowly.

“Well, I told him about the plan. We’re going to start dating,” Victoria stated.

“Did you get him to sign a NDA?” Abby asked sharply.

“Of course!” Victoria stated quickly as she moved over to where she had set the papers, picking them up, and holding them out to Abby.

“Good,” Abby stated as she took the papers, slowly looking them over. “Holy fuck.”

“What?” Kelly-Rae asked with a frown.

Abby looked up from the papers, staring at Victoria. “Really?”

Victoria smiled sheepishly, shrugging her shoulders. “Really.”

“What’s going on?” Kelly-Rae asked impatiently.

“Of all the people in Canada, you have to go and develop a connection with Jonathan’s best friend,” Abby muttered, shaking her head.

“Wait…The guy that she’s going to start dating is Patrick!?” Kelly-Rae exclaimed, giggling softly. “Oh my god! This is the best thing I have heard all day!”

“At least we can trust that Patrick isn’t going to spill the beans about the whole plan,” Abby muttered, though she was smiling slightly. “And we know that he’s found a good person. You’re definitely not like the other guys that he’s dated.”

Victoria blushed, ducking her head. “Thank you?”

Abby laughed softly as she placed a hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about this. I’m more surprised than anything that you and Patrick developed a connection. From what I’ve heard, he’s pretty far gone on you. As long as Jonathan doesn’t find out about you two, everything should be fine.”

“I hope that you’re right,” Victoria muttered softly.

“Just follow the rules and everything will work out. Soon Jonathan and Colette will be happy together and so will you and Patrick,” Kelly-Rae assured her.

Victoria smiled weakly, nodding her head in agreement. She just had to hope that they were both right. That everything was going to be fine and everyone was going to get the happy ending that they deserved.