A rewrite of the best Keadlyn scene in The Crown, which still could have been WAYYYY BETTERRRRRRRR. Y'all I have been having SUCH A HARD TIME with the one shot collection. I have all these ideas, but does it work when I try to write them? NO! Send help please.

Major Keadlyn project coming SOON. I have 4 chapters done, but I want to be a little bit more ahead before I start HEAVILY EDITING and then posting it. I will get there though. Out of pure stubbornness more than anything else.

Hope you like this chapter 3

"Do you…" He paused as he gazed into my eyes. "Do you need to not think right now?"

I swallowed, processing the offer. Here with just the two of us in the dark, quiet evening, it felt so similar to the night of our first kiss. Only this time there'd be no one watching, no one to print it in the newspaper. Our parents were nowhere in sight, and the guards weren't trailing our steps. For me it meant that, for just one moment, there was nothing to keep me from having what I wanted.

"I'd do anything you asked me to, Eadlyn," he whispered.

I shook my head. "But I can't ask."

He squinted. "Why not? Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you idiot," I said, pulling away. "Apparently…" I huffed. "It seems you did something right. I can't just kiss you like it's nothing, because it turns out that you're not nothing."

"So kiss me like I mean something, then."

My stomach dropped, like missing a step down the stairs. Surprise made me defensive. "It is not that simple, Kile."

I've never felt this way about anyone before, felt too scary to admit out loud, but I was thinking it.

"Why not?" he reasoned. "You're not nothing to me either. If anything, that makes me want to kiss you more."

"It's not that I don't want to. It's that…" I trailed off, unable to find the words.

"You're scared?" he finished for me.

I wasn't thrilled to admit that either, but it was the truth, and I nodded shortly. Despite being born half of a matching set, I'd always been fiercely independent. I hadn't been interested in romantic companionship, because for so long, I'd been just fine on my own. The idea of wanting someone- or, God forbid, needing them- went against everything I thought I knew about myself.

"I'm scared too," he admitted. Oddly, that was more comforting than you have nothing to be scared of would have been. In so many ways, Kile was my opposite- I kept my cards close to my chest, and he seemed to have no problem spreading his on the table. "Believe me, I never intended to feel anything for you. It's…not convenient. But that doesn't make it any less real."

Real.

Nothing about me was real. I put on a show, staged Selections and kisses, showed the public the best version of myself that was more or less entirely fake. Kile had played a major part in "putting on a show"—to this day, I was still pretty sure the nation's favorite thing about me, their queen, was that I was romantically attached to Kile Woodwork—and now here he was claiming he felt something real for me, when truth be told, I'd done nothing to deserve it.

I hated the way my heart climbed into my throat, the complete lack of control I had over the situation and even my own unsteady voice. I managed his name, barely. "Kile."

"Yes?"

"I have no idea what to do with a real relationship."

Hopeful but hesitant, Kile offered to show me, and it was impossible to say no. My pulse tripled as he caught me by the waist, pulling me in for a heart-wrenching kiss that blew our first dozen-to-hundred kisses out of the water. How had I survived my first eighteen years on only fake kisses? Now that I had my something real, I knew I could never go back. My nerves vanished along with most of my inhibitions; I heard myself suggesting we finish this conversation upstairs, in whoever's room was closer. Obviously we had a lot to talk about.