Page 8 of Guarding the Princess
The verbal butt kicking at the coffee shop isn’t what I expected from the demure girl I’d been following the last two weeks. She’d shown a spirit that made me alternately want to laugh and then beg for her forgiveness.
My size can be intimidating, which is handy as a bodyguard, but not so nice when you want someone to like you. Charlotte had no issue confronting and teasing me, both about my muffin consumption and my occupation which required stalking her. My size didn’t intimidate her at all. And she’d shown she’s smart, knowing I’d been following her the whole time.
I don’t see her again the rest of my shift, handing it over to John, the guy I’ve worked with on quite a few jobs over the years. I trust him with my life, which means I trust him with Charlotte’s life.
I cruise home, enjoying the light traffic at night and the cool air coming through the cracked window of my truck. My own apartment is nice, luxurious even. Guarding rock stars pays well. But as I let myself in, it feels empty. All my family lives a few hundred miles away, not that I make the effort to connect with them very often. My mom had every right to lay a guilt trip on me today. I love my family but distancing myself from my brother is what I needed to find my passion in life. My stomach knots at the thought of going to some award banquet and seeing everyone fawn all over him. It would be like reliving high school all over again.
So I do what I always do when stressed or bored or angry or any feeling other than sleepy: strip out of my work uniform and pull on athletic wear. I’ll hit the gym on the bottom floor of my apartment building to distract myself. No late nights out partying with friends for me.
Guess Charlotte and I have more in common than I originally thought.
* * *
I’m sipping my travel mug of mud water in the truck, enjoying the sunrise as I wait for Charlotte to exit her building and head to work. Before he left, John reported nothing exciting from the night before. I’d told him to be on even higher alert. When clients got stressed, and Charlotte definitely appeared overly stressed recently, they tended to behave erratically. If we had a runner on our hands, we needed to be ready.
The lobby door swings open and Charlotte emerges, dressed in a long flowing skirt and a white top that slips off her shoulder, leaving the expanse of skin exposed for anyone to see. Flashy strands of necklaces swing from her neck as she walks. Red lipstick, the kind girls wear because they know it draws our attention right to their lips, is a fancy edition to her normally conservative fashion sense.
“Where’s your sweater?” I mumble to myself.
I grit my teeth and wonder what’s gotten into her to start dressing so provocatively. Just makes my job harder when I see heads turning her direction everywhere she goes.
I leave my coffee behind and hop out, trailing her to the coffee shop where I order a single muffin and sip a new cup of the tastiest coffee money can buy. Charlotte gives me a quick head nod but mostly just ignores me the whole shift. Nora pings my phone with another text, the directions about needed travel arrangements a bit more terse than yesterday.
I’m watching Charlotte clean off a table and push in chairs while I finish the last delicious bite of a huge BLT sandwich several uneventful hours later. I throw my trash in the garbage and nearly jump when Charlotte thumps me on the back.
“Time to go,Stor Kille.”
I hop up and follow her out, her skirts swishing against the legs of the tables and chairs we pass on our way out the door.
“What did you call me?” That’s the problem with people who know a bunch of languages. They could curse you out and you’d never know. Though I prefer her cursing at me in her native language than ignoring me all morning.
Her laugh trails back, mocking me even as it delights. Dang, she’s moving fast and clearly not going to wait for me to catch up. I put some speed into my limbs until we’re side by side and I can catch the scent of her perfume again.
“What’s the emergency? Apartment on fire? Cat fall down a well?”
She finally slows down and turns to look at me, her mouth in a cute little “o.”
“Did you just crack a joke?”
I shrug and feel a smile tugging on my face, inwardly delighted I could surprise her yet confused as to why I care. “I do have a sense of humor, you know.”
She lifts her eyebrows and tilts her head to the side. “Duly noted, though I must say in my defense, you don’t exactly project the image of a guy who laughs a lot. I called you ‘Big Boy,’ by the way.”
I ignore the knife to the chest about my lack of humor. I swear I used to be funny. A very long time ago. I’m not even really sure what happened to my lighthearted jokes. Instead of dwelling on that dark thought, I take offense to the Big Boy nickname.
“Not exactly the most original nickname.”
She pauses at the door to the lobby of her apartment complex. “Maybe I’m not telling you the exact translation.” That perfectly sculpted eyebrow just a few shades darker than her hair lifts toward her hairline. If she’s going for evil, she misses the mark by a mile.
I lean in closer. “I’ll just use Google Translate and find out.”
She leans in closer, our faces mere inches from each other. “Go ahead and try to spell it, Big Boy.”
With that, she spins on her sandal and enters the lobby, the door swinging shut and almost clipping me in the face. Well, she got me there. I have no idea how to spell words in another language, especially Swedish or Norwegian or whatever it is she was speaking. Her sass does something weird to my stomach. Almost makes me want to crack more jokes around her just to prove I still can.
The door swings open again and I pull my head back quickly. I really should step away from the door before I get hit.
“You might as well come on up. I’m having a little party and I wouldn’t want you on the street frisking everyone before they come up.” Charlotte stands before me, arms crossed, her pert little nose lifted in the air like she’s doing me a favor.
