Page 7 of Her Royal Daddy
It was under her seat. Putting her empty glass into the sink in the bar behind us, I bent to retrieve her bag and she immediately hugged it. Douchebaggery, flirting, even jokes took an instant backseat.
“It’s okay,” I said instead.
She flinched when I touched her arm, and almost immediately tried to brush it off with a faltering laugh. “I hate heights. I don’t know why I thought I could do this. If I’m more than two rungs up on a ladder I freak out. How far off the ground do you think we are right now? Would you look for me? I don’t think I can look right now.”
Her right knee was jiggling wildly up and down. A vaguely greenish tint was starting to creep in under the pasty white color of her face.
Reaching past her, I closed the window so neither of us could see out.
“Too late,” she moaned. “I already know we’re off the ground.”
“We’re fine,” I told her. “Everything is just fine. They don’t let people who don’t know what they’re doing fly important people in royal jets back and forth across the ocean.”
“I’m not an important person,” she said, her grip on her duffel bag tightening.
I opened my mouth to commiserate—I might be the son of a king, but that didn’t exactly make me important either, and especially not when few if anyone had ever heard of Osei and I wasn’t planning to stay long enough to be anyone’s prince—but she erupted out of her chair.
“I’m going to be sick,” she said, still hugging that bag as she rushed past me for the bathroom.
Poor kid. That iced tea had not been a good idea. If I’d known about the fear of heights, I... I caught myself. I, what? Wouldn’t have let her have it? She might dress like a little girl, but she wasn’t my ‘little girl’ and I had absolutely zero business getting all macho protective over someone I’d only just met. Even if she was right now in the bathroom throwing up five different liquors at our cruising altitude of forty-two-thousand feet.
I got up and walked through the plane, closing all the windows. I put my beer and her empty glass both away, and dug through the mini fridge in search of waters instead. I also found two ready-made plates of appetizers—sliced meat and cheese, a variety of crackers, carrots, cucumbers and olives, with slices of apples, pears, melon, and mango to go with it. I brought those out too. Once she’d purged the alcohol, having something solid in her stomach might actually help settle it so she wouldn’t have to spend the whole flight hugging the aircraft toilet.
Leaned up against the bar to keep an eye on the bathroom, I checked my watch. Ten minutes later, I checked my watch again. She was taking an awfully long time, and being awfully quiet in there. Was she done throwing up, or was she still fighting back the queasiness? Or was she sitting in there, hiding because she was too embarrassed to come back out again?
Pushing off the bar, not sure if I had any right to be as concerned as I was, I approached in on the closed bathroom door with a cold bottled water in my hand. I didn’t want to invade her privacy, but needing some assurance that she was okay, I listened closely for any telling sound. Finally, I heard it. A watery sniffle. She wasn’t throwing up anymore. She was crying.
I tapped lightly at the door. “Are you okay?” I called.
The inside of the bathroom fell silent again.
I tapped again, gentle proof that I was not going to just go away and, I hoped, reassurance that she didn’t need to hide. She had nothing to be embarrassed about. Not with me. “Norah?”
She sniffled again. “I’m fine,” she called out, her voice both warbling and slurring. I don’t know if she threw up or not, but the alcohol was starting to affect her.
“I brought you a water,” I coaxed, and it worked. Sort of. After a brief silence, I heard rustling and movement inside, then the lock clicked and the pocket door slid open, but only far enough for her to squeeze her hand through it.
“Thank you,” she said, waiting for me to pass her the water.
Admittedly, I couldn’t see much of her through that slightly cracked door. She had cozied up to the door, using her body to block my view of the interior, everywhere but the white marble floor around her feet. That was a mess. I don’t know why or how it had happened, but whatever the reason, her bag had been upended and the contents spilled all over the floor. Crayons were rolling loose, dozens of them, plus keys, her cellphone, a change of tights and underwear, makeup and hair ties, a bathing suit, at least two coloring books and, just barely glimpsed via the wall mirror directly behind her, a giant cloth bunny that she held clutched by its arm behind her back.
Gone was the porno eroticism that I had experienced back at the strip club the first time I’d seen her. In its place reared an unexpected need to comfort. To get her to open that door the rest of the way, to come out so I could see the situation in its unobstructed and raw entirety. Putting to rest that niggling voice of reason that was even now whispering in the back of my head, No way is that really a doll she’s holding behind her back. No way are those coloring books and crayons rolling around the floor at her feet. You are not seeing what you think you’re seeing, Mazi.
Because if I was, then that meant Norah was more than just a woman provocatively dressed in a style of clothing better suited for cosplayers, porn stars, and kink clubs. It meant the little side of her went deeper than just what she wore and what she allowed the people around her to see. This was the hidden part. The part that flush on her cheeks said she wasn’t ready for me or anyone else to see.
Norah was a grown-up little girl having a very real meltdown in the bathroom of my father’s private jet because she was scared. And she wanted comfort, when no one and nothing was available to give it. And now, she was a little bit tipsy too. And she was hitting every single hidden Daddy fetish button I owned. She could not have hit them harder had she used a sledgehammer.
“Come on out,” I coaxed, putting the water in her hand, but not letting go. “I’m pretty sure you’re camping out in the only bathroom. It’s going to be a very long trip if no one else gets to use it.”
A frown tugged at her mouth, just like she tugged at the water bottle. If I let go, I had no doubt she’d have retreated all the way into the bathroom and closed the door again. Not only did I not let go, but I took hold of the pocket door and slowly, gently, giving her plenty of time to object if she really wanted to, forced it open.
When she backed up, I stepped inside, but I left the door wide open. I didn’t want to scare her, and I certainly didn’t want her to feel trapped in here with me.
I’ve always heard airplane bathrooms were cramped, narrow spaces, but this was anything but. In fact, it was bigger than my bathroom back home, with a comfortable commode, dual marble sinks, and a shower with shiny gold fixtures that offset the sheer opulence of the dark wood panel walls and white marble floor.
“Looks like we made a mess,” I said without judgment, looking at her upturned bag and the scattering of all these crayons on the floor between us.
She looked at me for a long time before, obligingly, she looked down at the messy floor. Both water bottle and bunny were held forgotten in opposite hands.
