Passenger Princess: A Grumpy Sunshine Bodyguard Pageant Queen Romance (Evergreen Park Book 1)

Jaime has been nothing but a professional gentleman.

He has been perfectly attentive and kind, but he hasn’t touched me, not even a gentle guiding hand on my lower back, which I hadn’t realized I’d gotten used to.

Some sick part of my mind can’t help but think he was proving a point and nothing else. I kissed him, and he wanted me to know in his stupid alpha male world, men make the first move. Men kiss women, not the other way around.

Something about that, about him using that moment that I’ve hung in my mind in a gilded frame as some perfect moment in time to one-up me, makes my tummy hurt every time I think about it.

I’ve given it a week. A week where I sat on the emotions of kissing Jaime, of being kissed by Jaime, of letting it simmer and see where it was going, only to get more and more disappointed with each passing hour.

Finally, though, I have some alone time. One glorious hour locked in this hotel room, the deadbolt and chain up, and some crazy pole Jaime has taught me to put across the door, keeping me in and everyone else out while he goes for a run and I get ready for the fundraising ball we’re going to tonight.

Once I shower at lightning speed and sit in the bathroom to get ready, I don’t waste a moment of time calling my best friends to see if they can help me make some sense of my life.

‘Hey—’ Jules says when she answers the FaceTime request.

‘Don’t talk. I’m waiting for Harper, and I’m not telling this story more than once,’ I say, stopping Jules before she can even say anything.

‘What?’

‘I—’

‘Hey, girl. Ooh, look at the tan! Are you making sure to put something in your hair before you go in the water? Even natural blondes—’ Harper starts as she pops on, but I have no bandwidth for her, even though it’s really, really good to see her face.

‘I kissed him,’ I blurt.

Silence takes over the line.

‘What?’ Jules says cautiously

‘I kissed Jaime. And then he kissed me. And then some, I⁠—’

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Harper starts. ‘Back up. Go back to the beginning. Didn’t he hate you, like, a week ago?’

Jules shakes her head, disagreeing. ‘That man never hated her. Even at the bar, he didn’t hate her. He was annoyed with her, probably because she was the tenth woman to come and try to use her girlish whims to say hi to the band, but he didn’t hate her. He was intrigued by her.’

‘What?’ I ask, suddenly thrown off because where was this intel weeks ago?

‘Oh, for sure,’ Harper agrees. ‘I didn’t mean he actually hated her,’ she says to Jules as if I’m not even on the line. I just mean⁠—’

‘Can we pause your personal dissecting of my non-relationship and whether he’s been into me all along or not until I’m not on the phone because I’m actively having a meltdown?’

‘What? Why?‘

‘Because some crazy shit went down with a weird fan right after and he thinks being distracted put me in danger, so now he’s insisting we keep things professional even though it was the absolute best kiss of my life.”

“Of your life?” Harper asks, and I nod.

“Okay, but like…why is that giving you a meltdown? You had a good kiss, and now he’s being an idiot. His loss, right?” Jules asks, and I sigh. Normally, I’d agree. If it was anyone but Jaime, I’d agree. But…Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“Because…’ I start, then pause because suddenly, I’m nervous about admitting everything.

If I admit this, it becomes real. If I admit it to my best friends in the whole world, I can’t play things off like it’s just a silly little crush.

‘Because…?’ Harper asks.

I mumble an answer and watch a look pass between them, the split second making me so homesick that I can barely focus.

‘What?’ Harper asks.

‘I like him,’ I whisper under my breath.

‘What was that?’ Jules asks, a small smile playing on her lips now.

‘I like him,’ I repeat through gritted teeth.

She grins now, and I know what’s coming.

‘I’m sorry, one more time? I can’t seem to hear yo⁠—’

‘I like him, okay? I like a boy,’ I say, putting down my curling iron that I was pretending to use and putting my head in my hands.

‘That is not a boy, Ava. That’s a man,’ Jules says, and I roll my eyes and look at my phone again.

‘Fine, I like a man. But like…I really like him.’

She lets out a whistle and leans back, and finally, I let it all spill, a dam breaking after having no one to girl talk with for the past month or so.

‘He’s kind, even though he pretends he’s not. I like how he’s sweet with Peach and that he puts up with my bullshit. I like that he lets me flirt with him and that he really, really wants to keep me safe and not just because it’s his job. I like that he wants to find a way to let me be me. And I like that he knows I’m going to be crazy and wild and a little cringey, and he doesn’t care. I don’t know.’ I pause, staring at the ceiling. ‘I just like him.’

Silence fills the line, and with each second, my stomach gets more and more anxious, waiting for my friends to tell me how stupid this crush is, how I need to use my head and think about the real world.

‘Wow, I never thought I’d see the day when Ava Bordeaux admits she likes someone for real.’

‘I have liked people,’ I say with a roll of my eyes, exasperated.

‘I mean, yeah, but not like…for real. Not like…this. This is different.’

‘Is it?’ I ask, a strange mix of nerves and excitement filling me.

Maybe it’s not just me. Maybe it’s not all in my head, and I’m not just blowing things out of proportion because he’s a hot man attached to my hip.

‘It so is,’ Harper says.

‘Yeah,’ Jules agrees. ‘So what’s the problem? You like him; you kissed him, it sounds like it was a good kiss…’

It so was, and I’m about to confirm that when Harper speaks.

‘She has to stay single,’ she says, and I groan aloud at the stupid fucking contract. It’s ruining my life, and I mean that in the most melodramatic way possibly. ‘Or else she could lose the crown and the tour, and that dumb bitch would win.’

I, of course, had filled my friends in more than a few times about Anne and the bullshit she’s been dishing me, and they hate her potentially more than I do at this point, as all good friends do.

Are your friends really friends if they don’t hate who you hate with a fiery passion?

‘I mean, am I breaking my contract if I’m just imagining him touching me? Because if so, I’m fucked.’ I can hear rather than see Harper’s eye roll.

‘No, Ava, you aren’t going to get sued by thinking about fucking your bodyguard. In fact, I don’t think you’ll get sued for fucking him at all, just if you have a boyfriend, obviously ruining the idea of the perfect Miss Americana, the effervescent, single, unattainable, pure woman men can fantasize about.’

I gag a little at that.

‘But in my opinion, you’d be even more of a badass if you said fuck it and stopped caring about what that stupid contract says about how you act and who you can or cannot date. Imagine the press firestorm you could start if you just leaked something about how they’re expecting you to act,’ Jules says.

‘Absolutely not. Don’t even give her that idea. Something tells me if the Miss Americana organization is fine with putting a clause about remaining single, they definitely put in something about not openly talking about the contract they made her sign,” Harper says.

‘I could read it, figure out if there’s some kind of NDA in there.’

‘Jules, you’re a dance instructor, not a lawyer.’

‘I could figure it out, I’m a wiz with Google,’ she says. I shake my head, remembering why I actually called and my limited time before Jaime returns.

‘It doesn’t even matter,’ I say loudly to stop their arguing.

‘What?’

‘That’s why I called you. Ever since we kissed, he’s been ignoring me.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Not ignoring me, that’s not fair. He’s ignoring us. And everything that happened that morning.’ I fill them in on how, for the last three days, he’s been absolutely nothing but professional. How, before when we had a few free hours in a hotel room at night, he’d hang with me, joke with me…flirt with me in a very Jaime way that I still considered flirting, and how now, every night he locks himself in his room, and I don’t see him until morning.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Jules says when I finish.

‘What?’

‘What are you going to do about it, Ava?’

‘I don’t know, I just wanted to call you guys and complain. I⁠—‘

Harper shakes her head, cutting me off. ‘I have never known you, Ava Bordeaux, to just sit back and let the chips fall as they may.’

‘I don’t⁠—’

‘You always have a plan. You need a plan, Ava. Something that will put his shit into gear. Something he can’t ignore,’ Jules says.

‘You guys, I—’ I start, but Harper sits up straighter, an idea forming on her face.

‘The pink feather dress,’ Harper says.

‘What?

‘No, no. Floor-length champagne,’ she says. ‘Yes, that one’s perfect. The slit is high, the back is non-existent, and your boobs look phenomenal in it.’

Jules nods like she sees where she’s going. ‘Oh, yes, definitely that one. Pink lip, classic cat eye. Highest heels you packed.’

Slowly, I pick up what they were saying. ‘Okay,’ I say with a nod.

‘And be you. Gloves off, babe, no more playing nice. Be flirty, sexy Ava. Remind him that, if he doesn’t want you, that’s fine. There will be at least a dozen men there who would love to be with you.’

And as I continue to get ready with my friends on the phone, I start to feel good again, reminded of just who I am.