Page 66 of Passenger Princess

"You're tolerable, is that enough?"

I'll take it, I think. It feels like a colossal win, all things considered.

"Now get in the car, Princess," he says lower.

And I do as he asks, but I do it with the world’s biggest smile on my lips.

THIRTY-TWO

AVA

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 stupidalpha 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 kissedbyJaime, 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 andeveryone 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,reallygood 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 wasintriguedby 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'mnoton 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 thingsprofessionaleven though it was the absolute best kiss of my life.”

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

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