Young Royals: What...now?

Relief.

Simon

Simon padded over to his mother's room, where she sat filling out a Spanish crossword puzzle that she'd printed from the internet. It was kind of cute. Since she couldn't find Spanish language puzzle books in Sweden, a few years ago she had printed out a few hundred, plus the answers. She just hole-punched them and put them in a binder, and she'd been working through them ever since. It was kind of endearing, he thought. Though she cheated with the answer sheets. A lot. 

"Hola, mamá. Te puedo molestar?" asked Simon hesitantly, as he walked into her room.

She sat up, looking mildly alarmed. "Claro, hijo. Qué pasa?" she asked.

"Um, I just invited Wilhelm over for dinner, you know, since I'm cooking and all. I just wanted to give you a heads-up. That's fine, right?"

Linda sighed. "If you want him here, then I want him here. But, you know, it's hard to be nice to someone who hurt my baby, even if you are 16 years old."

Simon backed out of the door, shyly. "Thanks, mamá. If it helps, he feels really bad. He's been trying to make it up to me forever."

"Do you think he learned his lesson?" she asked, pointedly.

Simon paused before hesitantly uttering, "I hope so."

"Me too," replied Linda. "Anyways, do you need any help getting things set up, now that we have company coming over?" Linda huroomphed. "Guess I should change into real pants."

Simon laughed, "I don't think he'll mind, but ya know, where Wille goes, a bodyguard goes, and you wouldn't want those snazzy dressers judging you."

With that, Linda grabbed a sock and threw it at Simon, which ended up narrowly missing him and in the end hitting the chair by the door. "Esa actitud. Oye, Señor!"

Simon gleefully skiddadled out of the room before she threw her shoes at him too, and he started setting the table for 4. 

--

Simon heard a knock at the door exactly 30 minutes after he got off the phone with Wilhelm. 7pm sharp. Man, the guy was precise. He opened the door. Wilhelm held a huge grin on his face.

"Hey," said Wilhelm,  looking bashfully at Simon.

"Hey. Um, come in," he replied. "Hi, Malin," he greeted the security guard. 

"Hi! I'll be in the car outside, if that's okay." 

Wilhelm turned to her quickly, "Yeah, that's fine. Tack, Malin. I'll be out in about 2 hours?"

Malin nodded and turned to leave.

"Should we bring her something to eat?" asked Simon.

"Nah, we stopped at Burger King on the way. It's her favorite. That's why she wanted to wait in the car. So she can relish eating her burger and fries by her lonesome. This is like vacation to her."

Simon laughed. He had to hand it to Wilhelm, he always knew how to make Simon smile. He'd missed this guy. Simon grabbed Wilhelm's hand and pulled him into the kitchen, filled with steaming pans and boiling pots.

"Holy shit, you made all of this?!" exclaimed Wilhelm, sticking his fingers into every sauce in the kitchen. 

Simon blushed. "Well, I had to do something with all my free time. Figured I might as well do something productive."

"Productive is right! This is amazing. I can't believe you can do all this. I can barely boil pasta."

"Seriously, you just like follow the steps and you're there. As long as you can read, you can do this. I promise. And if you can't read, there's Youtube," teased Simon.