We’re also doing this without bodyguards. I mean, they’ll be there because we’re not stupid, but they’re staying at a family cabin down the hill, so they won’t be up in our business.
“You’re crazy if you think you can get me up into the mountains in the middle of winter,” Jane says, shaking her head.
“Technically, winter only started last week,” I point out.
“Technical winters don’t apply to you Norwegians.” She eyes Ella. “This party better be worth it. What happens if you get snowed in?”
“No such thing,” I tell her. “All the snow has already fallen.”
“What does that even mean? You have a snow quota in this country?”
“We’ll be fine,” I assure her.
I walk over to Ella, taking her bag from her arms and the bag of party favors, and then stride out to the main hall where my sister Irene is standing with my sons, Bjorn and Tor (Tor named after my uncle, not our old butler. I mean, I liked the guy, but not enough to name my son after him).
“Say goodbye to your father,” Irene says to them.
Tor is sitting on the floor in his diaper, looking dazed and confused, his hair in his eyes, holding onto Irene’s leg. I bend down and pick him off the floor, kissing him on both cheeks before putting him in Irene’s arms.
Then I crouch down so I’m eye-level with Bjorn, who is three years old and highly emotional. “Hey buddy,” I tell him, putting my hand on his shoulder. “We’re leaving for a few days to the cabin, but we’ll be back.”
Bjorn’s lower lip trembles, which breaks my fucking heart.
“You promise?” he asks in a small voice.
“I promise.”
But I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
And then the dam opens.
He bursts into tears. Once he gets going like this, he’s impossible to stop. I glance up at Irene and give her an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” I tell her.
“It’s fine,” she says, as if she doesn’t have her own life to live. We’ve been through two different nannies already, all of them quitting because either working for a royal family was too much for them, or because Bjorn has been too much. I suspect he’s got ADHD like I have, but he’s still so young and we’re working through the best treatment at this stage. I have my medication, which works for the most part (except for times like today, when I’m planning something and I calculate the time wrong), but there’s still a chance this is normal developmental behavior for him.
Either way, he’s a handful, so my sisters tend to step up and help when they can. I trust them with our children more than anyone else, anyway.
“Oh, Bjorn,” Ella says, hugging him, even though he’s not calming down.
She glances at me over her shoulder, and I know the look in her eyes. It’s the look that tells me she doesn’t want to go, that she doesn’t want to leave her kids.
This will be the first vacation the two of us have taken in a long time, so even though it’s breaking my heart as much as hers to have to leave them, I know that we can’t be home with them all the time, especially given our positions.
Eventually, Ella comes to her senses and manages to tear herself away from the kids. I grab her hand, giving it a squeeze, and then we hurry down the steps to the waiting car.
“I’m a horrible mother,” she sniffs as the car pulls away, my loyal bodyguard Einar at the wheel.
“Ella,” I tell her, holding her hand. “You are not a horrible mother. And you’re not only just a mother, okay? You’re a woman. You’re Ella. You’re allowed to go off and have fun too, you know?”
“But they’re hurting, Magnus.”
“They’re kids and they’re crying and they’ll miss us. Or at least Bjorn will, Tor thinks I’m one of his stuffed animals half the time. But they’ll get over it.” I raise her hand to my lips and kiss the back of it. “I wish you didn’t look so fucking sexy when you’re upset.”
That brings a look out of her. Her blue eyes narrow. “Magnus. Come on.”
I shrug. “What? I have you alone now.”
Her eyes go to Einar at the wheel.
“You know Einar doesn’t count. He’s a cyborg, anyway. He’s viewing the road right now like one of those digital screens, like the T-1000.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Einar says stiffly.
“Yes, I know. You always hear me,” I tell him, rolling my eyes. I smile at Ella. “Hence why he’s heard it all. Now, what were we talking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh wait, I was saying you’re sexy when you’re upset, and you were getting mad at me for it.”
“I’m going to feel guilty this whole time,” she says, looking out the window.
“No, please don’t. You have to get over it. It’s two days. Tonight, and then tomorrow night’s New Year’s, and then we’re back home. It will go in the blink of an eye and it’s such a rare thing for all of us to be together like this. It’s going to be fun, I promise.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
I stare at her for a moment, her blonde hair pulled off her face into a tight bun. We’re opposites in so many ways. She’s organized, I’m chaos personified. She’s singularly focused, my thoughts are bounding through my head like fucking Tigger. She’s the ice, and I’m the fire.
Usually I try to conform to her ways, because it’s not always easy (or useful) when you’re reckless, impulsive and forgetful like I am. She keeps me in line, keeps me “adult” when I really am just a giant man-child at heart, and she often saves the day.
But today, for these next two nights, I want to bend her to me. She needs to let loose, relax, remember what life was like before she got married to
