How to Find a Princess

  Dedication

  For Corey.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from When No One Is Watching

  Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Also by Alyssa Cole

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  M akeda Hicks was used to delivering quality customer service with a smile no matter how bad she felt, but as she rushed into the manager’s office of GrabRite Supermarket #074, Atlantic City, New Jersey location, out of breath and sweaty from surviving a gauntlet of needy customers, disappointment tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  As she sat down, she already knew what her manager, Mr. Romano, was going to say from how he kept wiping at his mustache with thumb and forefinger though no trace of his lunch remained. She was good at anticipating people’s needs and desires, and Mr. Romano currently desired to be done with whatever he had to tell her.

  I didn’t get the promotion I wanted, she thought.

  The promotion you deserve, the little voice that occasionally shouted from the help-y abyss of her soul called out.

  The promotion she needed to begin to chip away at the debt that had just emerged from nowhere

  —no, not from nowhere. From her foolishly thinking that doing something nice couldn’t ever come back to bite her in the ass.

  “Ballsy being late to our meeting,” Mr. Romano said gruffly, though there was a familiar teasing in his voice.

  “Sorry,” she said, lacing her fingers together. “Customers kept stopping me to ask questions and

  —”

  “And you kept letting them stop you, like you always do,” he finished for her. He shook his head and gestured toward her with both hands. “Makeda. You know I think you’re a wonderful human. But the assistant manager position requires the ability to say no, to delegate instead of just taking everything on yourself, the ability to . . . to . . . not be you.”

  He paused, then waved a hand. “Sorry. I’m sorry, that sounded meaner than I meant.”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said, her lips stretching tightly over the familiar frame of her reassuring smile. “I know how I can be. I’ll work on that and maybe next time, I’ll be ready for the promotion.

  Don’t worry. I’m not upset.”

  Inside she was shriveling up like the earthworms she used to find drying in the sun after a rain shower when she was a kid. She’d rehydrate them, then drop them back into the grass, keeping herself busy while her mom slept off her hangover. Her mother had gotten sober eventually, but Makeda had continued to be everyone else’s watering can.

  Drip, drop.

  “Is Lindsey going to get the promotion instead?” she asked without a trace a venom, even as she thought about how her coworker spent most of her time smoking out back, never memorized the weekly sales circular that Makeda designed, and still called aisle seven “ethnic foods” even though Makeda had renamed it “International Tastes.”

  Mr. Romano nodded, his gaze darting to the side as if he felt her willing him to at least give her

  the respect of eye contact.

  She ran her thumb over the ring on her middle finger, a rounded gold band covered with finely etched fish scales, the familiar texture beneath the pad of her thumb a reminder of how quickly a good thing could go bad.

  Makeda had busted her ass studying retail store design and customer psychology in her precious downtime, researching the healthiest products to stock for customers using WIC, the most expensive products with the highest profit margin to stock for tourists and big spenders. She’d thought the promotion was in the bag, that if she worked hard enough, kept her nose to the grindstone, she’d maybe end up in corporate one day. Instead Lindsey would probably fail her way up to smoking in front of headquarters instead of behind GrabRite #074.

  “I’ll have to congratulate her,” Makeda said with perfectly measured politeness.

  “And . . .” Mr. Romano’s mustache trembled and he exhaled, his gaze finally meeting hers.

  “Damn, I hate this so I’m just gonna say it. I have to let you go.”

  Makeda stared at him, her forgiving smile pasted on her face even as her thoughts whirled wildly.

  Maybe she was misunderstanding.

  “Go where, Mr. Romano?” She was blinking too quickly but couldn’t help it. “Are they finally opening the GrabRite location in Linwood? The commute would be a bit much, but you know I’d love to help build—”

  Mr. Romano held up a hand and cut her off before she could finish. “The new location went over budget, and sales have been down with the drop in tourists and so many people out of work.

  Corporate brought in some people to figure out how to streamline things.”

  “But I’m the one who streamlines things,” she said through the smile she couldn’t seem to let go of

  —she didn’t know what would happen if she stopped smiling right then. It was like the support structure holding up a rapidly crumbling building. She huffed a laugh, a panicked sound strained through cheer. “Streamlining is what I do. For little money. And no promotion.”

  Drip, drop.

  “Well, that little money was too much for headquarters. They decided to cut several full-time positions and yours was one of them.”

  “But—can’t we figure something—” Makeda pressed her lips together. She was helpful, and part of that helpfulness was being able to anticipate responses and quickly assess situations so she could best deal with them. She already knew that even she couldn’t fix this.

  Listing everything she’d done for GrabRite over the last few years wouldn’t change what was currently happening, and it’d only hurt Mr. Romano, who was a good enough guy even if he did overorder wholesale toilet paper for the employee bathroom so he could bring some home.

  Thoughts of how she’d pay her bills made her fake smile falter.

  “Do I get a severance package?” she asked calmly.

  She’d never been fired before. She was too useful to be fired. She was competent, too, but that wasn’t her appeal—she was useful, doing the things no one else wanted to do, fixing things before others acknowledged they were broken, organizing without making anyone feel they’d made a mess. If you were useful, then people were less likely to get rid of you. But, somehow, useful hadn’t been good enough this time.

  “I got you two weeks,” Mr. Romano said, rolling a ballpoint pen back and forth on his desk. “I asked for two months, but they denied it.”

  She was almost glad when she saw the sheen of tears in his eyes and heard the waver in his voice.

  It allowed her to push her own pain aside and tend to his guilty conscience instead.

  “Don’t feel bad. It’s not your fault and I’ll land on my feet.”

  She was certain she heard the sound of her grandmother sucking her teeth, as the old woman always did whenever Makeda went out of her way for others.

  “Don’t you know what happens when you give all your own sweetness without saving any for yourself?” Grandma Ora, or Grandmore as she preferred to be called, always asked whenever she caught Makeda in an unprompted act of kindne
ss. “You get left with nothing but the bitter. You gonna mess around and end up like me.”

  Makeda wouldn’t call Grandmore bitter, but the woman was tough. She’d once threatened a guest at the B&B for calling Makeda a sentient welcome mat, though the woman hadn’t meant it as an insult. Sometimes Makeda wished she were more like her grandmother, who did what she wanted, said what she wanted, and had a flair for adventure and drama that caused dustups to this day—dust that Makeda swept under the proverbial welcome mat that was herself.

  No adventures, no drama, and always there to lend a helping hand, even when her hands were full, that was Makeda. And that usually worked out just fine for her—until it didn’t.

  After giving Mr. Romano a pep talk and going through all the initiatives she’d been working on that would likely never be finished since Lindsey would just let them gather dust, she made her way to the employee lounge. The thought of everyone knowing she’d been fired—including Lindsey, who always teased Makeda for being too eager to please and had managed to not only keep her job but walk away with a promotion—made her stomach churn, so she grabbed her belongings and slipped out before any of her shift buddies noticed. She didn’t want to upset them or, worse, have them try to console her.

  It felt a bit deceptive, but they’d find out soon enough and she’d message them her goodbyes later.

  When she walked out into the parking lot, the overcast morning had turned into a beautiful, warm early spring day; the clear blue sky might have been mocking if she didn’t decide to take it as a sign of better things to come. It was possible that it just hadn’t sunk in that she was, for the first time in her adult life, jobless. She’d already heard from Steph, who’d been hunting for a new job for weeks, that prospects were terrible so she wasn’t looking forward to doing the same, though maybe it would help them reconnect after a rough couple of months. She also wasn’t looking forward to having her grandmother inevitably ask the question she’d never quite been able to answer: what do you want to do with your life?

  Makeda was a planner, with a never finished to-do list of work tasks, projects at her grandmother’s B&B, requests from friends, and even requests from strangers, but one section of the list was always conspicuously blank—the part where she should have set down her own hopes and dreams. She’d just helped Steph make her five-year plan, and regularly gave advice when people seemed stuck, but she never took the time to do the same for herself.

  What do I want to do with my life?

  The first thing that came to mind was “be gainfully employed” and the second was “make Steph that casserole she likes” and she wrinkled her nose. Well, no one would ever call her exciting, and that was just fine with her.

  Excitement was overrated.

  She drove the short distance to the studio apartment she shared with Steph on autopilot, steadfastly ignoring the strange noise coming from under the hood of her old-ass Honda Civic. She’d take it to Roger, her mechanic, who wasn’t the greatest but who she was too loyal—or guilty—to abandon for greasier pastures. Or maybe she’d use her new free time to look into learning car repair so she could fix things herself.

  She spent the short ride soothing herself by creating work for herself. She’d spend an hour each day watching car repair videos on YouTube and narrowing down her own car’s problems. Four hours submitting job applications, split into two-hour blocks. Evenings she would keep free for quality time with Steph—maybe there were some YouTube videos that would help her repair that situation, too.

  Despite the bad news that she hadn’t allowed herself to truly accept, her planning calmed her, and she had a little bounce in her step when she opened the front door to her apartment building and walked in. That bounce bottomed out when she saw Steph turn down the rundown stairwell in her jeans and a T-shirt. She came to a halt when she spotted Makeda, stiffening as she looked down at her from the landing. The giant hot pink suitcase at her side was a stomach-churning beacon against the peeling beige paint and cheap brown linoleum.

  “Oh. You’re not at work,” Steph said, sounding annoyed, then tucked a shock of curly black hair behind her ear. Her other hand gripped the suitcase handle resolutely.

  “Neither are you,” Makeda said.

  Steph shrugged, seemingly unconcerned even though Makeda had never missed a shift in their two-year relationship and was more likely to be late getting home after agreeing to cover for someone else.

  “My last day was yesterday actually,” Steph said, frowning down at her from the landing. “I got to thinking while filling out those worksheets you made for me and I decided I’m moving back to Cincinnati. I wanted to have all my stuff out of your place before I told you.”

  Your place. Steph had been living there for a year.

  “Your last day? Cincinnati?” Makeda blinked up at her. “And you were just going to . . . leave?”

  “No, I was trying to get my stuff out so we could talk after. It would’ve been easier that way.”

  Steph sighed. “Now you’re going to look at me with kicked-puppy eyes but still offer to help me carry this.” She jiggled the suitcase handle.

  “I mean, yeah. Of course I’ll help you,” Makeda said as calmly as she could manage. Maybe if she just acted like she always did, Steph would get with the program and go back to how she’d been, too. “Did you pack using the rolling technique I showed you, to fit more stuff and so your clothes don’t wrinkle? Those travel containers are in the storage box under the bed. I can repack for you if

  —”

  “Are you kidding me?” Steph flung a hand in the air and then shoveled it through her hair. The question was an accusation, sharp even if it wasn’t loud, and it cut right through all the excuses Makeda had been making for her partner lately.

  It wasn’t frustration with work, or a bad day, or hormones. It was disdain.

  “Sorry,” she said quietly.

  “This is why—ugh, I can’t with this.” Steph shook her head, dislodging the strands she’d tucked behind her ear a moment ago, and exhaled deeply.

  “You’re mad that I want to help?” Makeda asked, focusing on that instead of the fact that Steph was leaving, for good. No more cuddling on the couch, no more sharing funny memes. God, was she never going to kiss Steph again? Feel her cold feet under the blankets, or make her special treats to take to work?

  “I’m mad that you think helping is a personality,” Steph bit out. “I can’t do anything without you butting in and trying to do it for me. This morning, you took my cereal spoon out of my mouth because you had washed my favorite one.”

  Drip, drop.

  “But you love the little cereal spoon. It was our joke. I thought . . . I thought . . .” Makeda’s eyes

  burned. She’d thought she was brightening Steph’s morning, but she’d been laying down the straw that broke their relationship’s back instead.

  Steph began dragging the heavy suitcase down the stairs toward Makeda, a loud thump echoing in the hallway as the rolling wheels hit each step. Some desperate part of Makeda hoped that Steph would fall so she could catch her. Then they would laugh, remembering all the things they loved about one another, and the moment would pass and—

  Steph grunted as she dragged the suitcase down another step and then another. “Living with you isn’t even like having a roommate at this point. It’s like having a robot that was programmed to be helpful but has no concept of boundaries so it’s constantly asking, ‘What do you need? What do you need?’ but never really listening.”

  She lugged the suitcase down the last step and stood in front of Makeda, her angry expression crumpling into sadness as tears sheened her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, okay? You’re great, but it’s overwhelming—it’s like if I told someone I liked mozzarella sticks and they kept shoving them down my throat every time I opened my mouth, whether I was hungry or not.”

  Righteous resentment flashed through Makeda. “Okay, I get it. You didn’t seem to mind when it benefited you, though.”
>
  Steph nodded and kicked the toe of her Converse against the wheel of her suitcase. “Yup. You get to throw all the shit you’ve done for me in my face when I’m not grateful enough, too, and I have no ammo to lob back because I’m not constantly trying to win the perfect special helper award.”

  A tear trailed down her cheek, passing over the scar from when she’d walked into the revolving door at the Borgata when they’d gotten tipsy on their third date. Makeda had patched her up with the Band-Aids she carried in her purse in case of emergency.

  “Okay. I can work on that,” Makeda said, despite the mild protest from her sense of self-respect.

  She ignored it. “I can change.”

  “I think I’m done,” Steph said. “Because most of all, I’m tired of knowing that I could be absolutely any-fucking-body and you’d treat me the same way. It’s the fixing that makes you happy, not me. And that’s not something you can work on. It’s how you are.”

  Something shriveled in Makeda at this second reminder that being her was bad somehow, when all she ever did was try to be good.

  “That’s not true,” she replied, blinking back her own tears even though she was still in the this can’t really be happening zone. “It’s not. I love you, Steph.”

  Didn’t she?

  Steph’s brow wrinkled. “Maybe you do, in a white knight kind of way. But hey, you’ll love the next person you turn into your personal fixer-upper project, too,” she said, then began pulling the suitcase.

  Makeda reached for the door of the building to hold it open for her, out of habit, and Steph’s shoulders went to her ears.

  “Don’t! Makeda, I’m leaving you. Let me struggle a little!”

  Steph pulled the door open herself and shouldered her way through it, but the wheel of the suitcase got stuck on the jamb. Makeda reached out and held the door against the wall so the suitcase would fit through. Steph didn’t say anything, but as she walked off her shoulders heaved the way they did when she cried in earnest.

  Makeda watched as she turned and walked down the street without looking back.

  “What a day,” she said quietly to herself, then pressed her teeth against her trembling lower lip.