Princess Charming: A Sweet Lesbian Romance

by Mia Archer

  No thank you.

  This felt different. This was a girl I could be into, and she was into me. Talk about a jackpot. Talk about being the happiest girl on earth in that moment of realization.

  The doors slid open and I suddenly felt a touch of nervousness. The entire time I was off on my little adventure I’d been free from worry. It’s not like anyone from the band was going to sneak away from the park. It’s not like I had to worry about running into Mr. Fredericks or any of the chaperones out there. Now I’d be going into the park, though, and that meant they were out there. Heck, a part of me worried that Fredericks might’ve realized I was gone and decided to send someone looking for me.

  I wouldn’t put it past him to station guards at the buses and the train station if he thought someone had defied his orders and flown the coop. And so I found myself rooted to the spot even as Amelia started to get up. Now I was the one acting like a first rate weirdo.

  Amelia tugged on my arm and then fell back against the seat. Now it was her turn to fix me with a curious stare.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked. She started to pull her intertwined arm away from mine, but I put my hand out to stop her.

  “Not that. That’s definitely not what’s wrong,” I said.

  The train beeped a couple of times and we were the only two left in our seats. In a moment the door on the other side of the cab would open and people would get on.

  “Then what is wrong Dani?” she asked.

  “I might’ve snuck away from my group,” I said, some of that honesty she encouraged in me hitting at the worst possible time.

  “You snuck away?”

  “Yeah. I kinda was supposed to stay in the park, but I’ve got all this drama going on with an ex-boyfriend right now and I didn’t feel like dealing with it so I snuck off and…”

  “Ex-boyfriend? So you were dating a guy?”

  The question slammed into me like a freight train barreling into a soda can. The enormity of what I’d just said hit me. I mentioned an ex-boyfriend, which would naturally give her the idea that I was interested in boys. Which would make all this flirting and cuddling we’d been doing over the past half hour seem like a tease if it was true that she was into the ladies as much as I was.

  And yet now I was in a position where I had to either come clean about my sexuality and lay all the cards on the table or let the opportunity that was developing here on a slow burn fizzle out. The idea of admitting that to Amelia was somehow even more terrifying than the night I’d finally admitted everything to Colin. I realized the states felt a hell of a lot higher here than they did with my ex.

  My stupid ex. Even mentioning him was enough to cause me trouble. I’m sure somewhere in the park he was getting a good feeling out of nowhere because he was causing me misery without even knowing it. The bastard.

  Still, I didn’t want this to fizzle. If it turned out I was wrong about what this was then I was wrong about what this was. It was something I was going to have to get used to if I was dating girls. It was time to put on the big girl pants.

  “I sort of broke up with him because I realized I didn’t want to date boys,” I said. “At all. And he didn’t take the news that well.”

  There. That was as close as I could come to saying it without coming right out and saying it. I still felt like a coward, but I was new to this whole thing. I just hoped this aspect of dating girls, figuring out if a girl I was interested in dating was even interested in the same gender, got easier over time, because damn was this difficult on a level I’d never anticipated.

  Amelia didn’t run. She didn’t frown. She didn’t immediately pull away from me and look at me in disgust. Those were good signs. No, instead she smiled, leaned in, and kissed me on the cheek. It was a simple motion. It lasted for the space of maybe a second, but that single kiss on the cheek was somehow more intense than any kiss I’d ever shared with Colin. It set me on fire. It made me want to jump for joy and do a little dance.

  “I can understand why your ex-boyfriend would be so upset,” she said.

  Okay. Not exactly what I was expecting. Sympathy for the devil incarnate? Seriously?

  “You can?”

  “Of course I can. You’re obviously a special girl to make him so upset at losing you. I know if I had a girl like you I’d do anything to hang onto you.”

  She winked. Okay then. It looked like I was still in the game! Sure she hadn’t exactly come out and said she was into girls. Not in as many words. To be fair I hadn’t exactly come out and said that either. We were both heavily implying things, but I was going to take that implication and run with it.

  So I stood and Amelia stood with me. I did stop to peer out of the doors to make sure there weren’t any chaperones waiting. If there were then I was going to do everything in my power to avoid them. I figured if ever there was a place where I could hide in the crowds and avoid Fredericks’ wrath it was in the busiest amusement park in the world.

  “Is the coast clear?” Amelia asked.

  I turned to her and grinned. “More than clear. Just a bunch of tourists out there.”

  Amelia breathed a sigh that seemed very much like relief. Again I wondered what the heck was going on with her. I briefly wondered if it had anything to do with all those assholes back at the resort, but I pushed that thought out of my head. People like that were usually on top of things. One of them had walked by and looked right at us when the train was about to pull out. They weren’t looking for Amelia.

  We stepped off the train and made our way down the ramp leading up to the park. There was a decent line that had formed where it looked like they were searching everyone who had a bag. Luckily I hadn’t brought a bag. It was just the card I had for my hotel which also included my electronic meal vouchers. Amelia looked to have one of those band things that some people wore.

  We stepped up to the entrance and she stopped for a moment. She looked down at her band and frowned.

  “Something wrong? Does that not work yet?”

  “I’m afraid it does work,” she muttered.

  I didn’t know what the heck that was supposed to mean, but I didn’t get a chance to really ask. She put the band out and the machine next to the lady babysitting the entrance dinged and Amelia walked through. I swiped my own card, got the same ding, and I was through. Almost immediately Amelia wrapped her arm around mine and dragged me into the park at a much faster pace than I thought was strictly necessary, again more weirdness but I was just going to go with it.

  Things were going too well for me to look any gift horses in the mouth right about now.

  “So what were you thinking of riding first?” I asked. “I’ve always wanted to check out the Princess Cruise ride! They have animatronics and everything and it’s supposed to be pretty… um… cool.”

  Yeah. Nice save there at the end. It was supposed to be pretty romantic, but I didn’t want to go assuming too much right at the get go. I didn’t want to scare her off by making her think I was just interested in doing date stuff. Was this a date? I didn’t know.

  I instinctively glanced around, wondering if anyone from the school was around. The last thing I needed was for Colin or one of his lackeys to show up and ruin my day. Thankfully it was a big place, and there were big crowds to go along with. I didn’t see a single face in the crowd that was recognizable.

  Good.

  “The Princess Cruise? Yuck,” Amelia said. “I want to go on a roller coaster!”

  I stopped and stared at her. A couple of people shot us dirty looks as the crowd parted around us.

  “A roller coaster? Seriously?” I asked.

  “Well why not? They were always my favorite, but I’ve never had a chance to go on a real American roller coaster!”

  Huh. Well how about that. The cultured European chick was into roller coasters. They’d never been my favorite, a sacrilege for someone from Ohio, I know, but I’d be willing to go on one and risk an almost certain headache if it meant spending more time with Am
elia. Plus I knew Colin was a little bitch who was terrified of the things, so it’s not like I had to worry about running into him in line or anything.

  “How about a compromise?”

  “A compromise?”

  She said the word as though I was speaking in a foreign language. Really rolled it around in her mouth for a moment as though trying it out for the first time. As though it was a completely foreign concept. I know I’d been saying this a lot lately, but talk about weird.

  “Yeah, you know. You get something you want and I get something I want?”

  “Right,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I just don’t hear that word that often.”

  “Um, okay then,” I said. “So how about we go on your roller coaster first, and then we hit up the Princess Cruise after? I’ll need something to calm me down after going on a coaster anyways.”

  Amelia smiled and took my hand. “That sounds wonderful. Now let’s go!”

  10: Amelia

  I turned around and looked at the small mountain that had been constructed as part of the ride. I frowned in disappointment as the coaster went roaring past behind us with people screaming and holding their hands in the air.

  I didn’t know why they were screaming.

  “Are all roller coasters that boring? Because that wasn’t the American coaster experience I thought I was going to have.”

  I crossed my arms and cast an irritated look at the mountain again. The thing barely moved faster than a car. I felt more wind in my hair driving around in father’s Phantom with the top down. There was more acceleration in the Phantom as well.

  “That was pretty tame as far as roller coasters go,” Dani said.

  She moved up next to me and I felt her fingers brush against my own. Without thinking I coiled my fingers in hers and enjoyed the thrill of her hand held in mine for a moment. It was both wonderful and disappointing that the simple act of holding her hand brought me more of a thrill than the roller coaster we’d just been on.

  “Are there better ones here in this park?”

  Dani fixed me with a look as though I was being silly. To make her point she pulled out a map of the park with her free hand and I reached out to take one end so we could open it up and have a look without sacrificing that hand hold that was causing my breathing to pick up and my pulse to quicken.

  “There’s one other coaster over in the Little Princess part of the park,” Dani said.

  She tried to point to it but the map started to fold in on itself so she quickly grabbed it to pull it back in place. I noted that she also didn’t seem to want to break the contact from our hand hold.

  Good.

  “I’m guessing a coaster in a part of the park that’s labeled ‘Little Princess’ isn’t going to be any more exciting than the one we were just on?”

  Dani sighed, though she didn’t seem too disappointed. From the moment we got on the coaster and she held my hand in a white-knuckled grip that I didn’t mind at all I got the impression that she wasn’t a big fan of thrill rides. Perhaps it was a good thing that this one turned out to be less than thrilling.

  “I’m afraid if you really want good roller coasters you’re going to have to go to Ohio,” she said. “But that’s okay. I think you’ll really like the Princess Cruise! That’s the sort of thing that’s the real fun at this place.”

  She carefully folded up the map and put it in the back pocket of her shorts. I took advantage of that motion to catch a glimpse of that backside. What can I say? It was a particularly nice backside. Worth looking at. Definitely more of a thrill than the sub par roller coaster we’d just been on.

  “How far is it to this Ohio place? Is it part of the park?”

  Dani tugged on my hand and we dove into the crowd. Presumably heading for the Princess Cruise which I was not looking forward to, but if she enjoyed it then I would do my best to enjoy it. I also did a quick glance at the crowd to make sure there wasn’t anyone paying too much attention. I still had on the hat and sunglasses, but I was terrified someone would recognize me even if it wasn’t Felix’s security people. My face was certainly plastered on enough online gossip rags that it wasn’t improbable to think I had international recognition right now.

  Dani fixed me with another one of those looks. It told me I’d just said something that was silly, ridiculous, or maybe a little bit of both all wrapped up into one neat little package. I was as out of my element here in the park as she’d been back at the resort, though it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. I loved learning new things, and I was quickly learning that what little I’d learned from America by watching their movies and television shows was barely scratching the surface when it wasn’t completely wrong.

  “Depending on whether you want to go to a place with okay coasters or the best coasters in the country it’s about a fifteen to sixteen hour vertical drive across the country,” she said.

  “Oh. So it’s not part of this park here,” I said, a little disappointment creeping into my voice. One thing I was still having trouble getting used to was just how damned big everything was in this country.

  “Definitely not someplace we can just take a bus to. Not unless you want to spend hours in an uncomfortable chair with crappy padding, and I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime in the past day.”

  My face lit up as an idea occurred to me. It was so simple that I didn’t know why she didn’t think of it.

  “Why don’t we just fly up there? It couldn’t take more than an hour, right?”

  Another one of those looks. Oh dear. I’d just said something wrong again. I was getting a look as though I was a space alien from one of those American movies come down to take over the world or something.

  “Are you serious? Even if we could afford the plane tickets, which I can’t, we’d still take an hour to get out to the airport if there’s no traffic and it would take hours to get through security. It’d be shorter than the bus, but it’d still take awhile.”

  I decided it would be best not to press the issue. I figured she knew the rules of flying commercial far better than I would. I was thinking in terms of having my limo escort us out to the private airfield where I’d hop onto the jet and it really would probably only take a couple of hours to get up to this Ohio place.

  I also had a sneaking suspicion that if I said anything along those lines I’d just get another look that clearly communicated I was crazy for thinking that way. So I kept my mouth shut.

  “Right. I guess that would be silly,” I said with a laugh that I hoped made it sound like I was playing this whole thing off as a joke. I’m not sure how well it worked.

  “Yeah, silly,” Dani said. She was still giving me one of those odd looks, though.

  Then she smiled and I shivered. She reached out towards me. I looked down at her hand for a moment, shivered again, and reached out to take it. Her touch was electric. Maybe I was crazy for getting in this deep this fast, but I liked it.

  Besides, I was on vacation and I’d just snuck away from Felix and his people. I was on my own in a real way for the first time in my life and I was going to enjoy this in my own way.

  “So look,” Dani said. “You didn’t get much excitement from the roller coaster. What if we tried something else?”

  My heart skipped as my mind immediately went to some things I could see myself doing with Dani that would be more thrilling than a roller coaster ride, but of course I knew we couldn’t actually do anything like that. I’d just met this girl, I wasn’t entirely sure this wasn’t just a friendly outing despite all that talk about realizing she wasn’t into boys, and doing something like that would be way crazy.

  I blushed thinking about it, though.

  There was also the pesky fact that we didn’t have anywhere to go. My room would be crawling with Felix’s people and it sounded like she was on some sort of school trip so I’m sure her room was being watched in some way as well.

  No, that couldn’t possibly be what she meant, as much fun as the thought was.
There was also the matter of that “compromise” she was talking about. Now there was a word I wasn’t used to. With everyone else it was my way or else. With father and mother it was their way or else. There was never any middle ground.

  “What are you talking about Dani? I thought you wanted to go on that Princess Cruise ride?”

  Dani gave my hand a squeeze. “That ride has been here for years. It’ll still be here in a little while. How about we go have a few thrills in the meantime?”

  I allowed myself to be led by the hand through the twisting turns of the park. Crowds surrounded us on all sides and it was so weird to have people moving in and out of my personal space so casually. I was used to having a firm bubble of people surrounding me and this press of humanity lumbering forward almost like a wave rather than individual people was very disconcerting.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

  Dani turned and winked. There was a twinkle in her eye. Even moving in this incredible heat with a bead of sweat running down her forehead she looked amazing. I’d heard of people falling for someone like they were being hit by a bolt of lightning from the sky. It was a common theme in Royal Company movies, come to think of it. I just never thought it was something I’d get to experience firsthand considering father’s idea of romance for me was probably finding a suitable match in some equally powerful family.

  “If I tell you where we’re going then it’ll ruin the fun,” she said. “Trust me. I think you’ll like this.”

  I pursed my lips but decided she could have her moment of mystery. We moved out of the fantasy princess-saturated portion of the park and into an area that looked like it was styled after the American West. I didn’t know much about this area since it hadn’t been a pop culture obsession of mine, though father was fond of this type of movie. It seemed odd to even have a place like this here at Royal Realms, but in many ways the sections of the park were like a layered archaeological record of American pop culture obsessions.

  Westerns and cowboys had been big when this part of the park was built even if that wasn’t the case now. I suppose it was too expensive for them to demolish and rebuild. That or it stayed around because of nostalgia.