The Luna Choosing Game

I stared at Julian, disbelieving my ears. Did he really just ask me for a solo date?

Yet everyone in the whole ballroom was looking at us. Julian still held the microphone up to his mouth.

This was definitely happening. It wasn’t a dream.

Which meant that Julian was up to something.

“Why?” I asked, before I could think better of it.

A few girls around me gasped. Only then did I realize my mistake and covered my mouth.

Julian also looked shocked, his eyes going wide for a moment. But then, just as quickly, he burst out

laughing.

His good humor seemed to erase the surprise of the other onlookers. Everyone seemed to think I had

been telling a joke.

With the microphone lowered, he said to me, “I insist this request is genuine, Piper.”

I didn’t believe him.

Julian always played the angles. Asking me on a date had to be some kind of move for his benefit, but I

couldn’t begin to figure out how. I’d only scratched the surface of the inner politics of the royal family.

for my

how, but I couldn’t exactly turn him down. He was

was a competition. I was just

said, “I

the microphone,

the

said, no longer speaking to me, but to

center of the dance floor, Nicholas stood. His face was an

as he stared straight at

I

tell him that this didn’t mean anything.

for the

dismissing Julian.

that Nicholas didn’t need an explanation anyway. We weren’t anything to each

anymore

gaze had triggered something inside of me, like

me screamed to soothe away

like that

that look had dimmed. Now

turned away from me and, even an hour later, had not sought me

charmed by Julian and his antics. Even after

me, they could not stop telling me how funny he