The Bodyguard (Hosie)

Chapter 4

Josie opened her mouth to thank the bodyguard but just at that moment, her friends came looking for her.

"Josie!"

The bodyguard had stepped back, putting respectable distance between them and Josie turned to Penelope who was first to get to her. "Hey."

Penelope gave the bodyguard a polite smile before turning back to Josie with questions in her eyes. "We were wondering where you went and Alyssa got worried so we came out to look for you."

"Sorry, I came out to talk to her," Josie replied, jerking her head at the bodyguard.

"She your friend?"

"Yeah, I'm her friend," Hope answers quickly, moving forward to wave a hello to Josie's friends.

At this point, Hope's friend had come out looking for Hope too. And they were introduced. So, it became a group of six, Josie, Penelope, Lizzie and Alyssa, with the addition of Hope and Wendy. Hope explained that she was from Mystic Falls, Virginia too when they asked about her and so was Wendy, who happened to be on a job assignment there in Japan. Meanwhile, Josie remained silent, privately unhappy about how things had turned out. If her friends noticed anything, they didn't mention it. Instead, they chatted and laughed merrily with Hope and Wendy for the next hour till Hope and Wendy bade them goodbye.

Back in their hotel room, Alyssa washed up and fell asleep as soon as she crawled under the sheets but Josie stayed awake. It was a dilemma for her; a stalemate. Letting her friends know that Hope was really the bodyguard hired by her father was not something she wished to do, but neither did she want her friends to worry about if Hope hadn't accepted Lizzie's invitation to go out shopping with them the next afternoon. But it was a problem now and she had to decide what to do about it.

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Josie woke up feeling a little less enthusiastic about the day ahead. She had decided to come clean with her friends. It was time to stop the lies. But the trouble with her decision was putting it into action. Admitting the truth was never easy.

Come to Room 3981. ASAP

The pop up on her phone displayed the message from the bodyguard. There it was again, the cold instruction, ordering her about when she was the employer. Nevertheless, she wanted to tell the bodyguard about her decision, so she got out of bed and got ready to go out.

-----

The bodyguard opened the door and welcomed her. She entered, looking around the smaller room. There was no one else in it.

"There's no one else here. I came back alone," the bodyguard said in a tone with a mocking edge.

It riled Josie. "It's none of my business who you spend the night with but you're in my father's employment and you're on duty."

The bodyguard cocked her head to the left. "You seem angry with me but I haven't done anything that warrants it."

Ludicrous. This bodyguard was ludicrous. "There's no reason for me to like you, much less welcome you."

"I agree. But you've been trying to get rid of me from the beginning. Maybe you don't like having a bodyguard around you, but don't you think you're taking it out on the wrong person?"

Josie bristled. "I did not get out of bed and come all the way down here to get scolded by an arrogant bodyguard."

A hand grabbed her wrist and prevented her from leaving the room. "We need to talk about what we tell your friends about us."

Shaking her hand hard didn't work. "Get your hand off," Josie minced out each word with a hostile glare.

The bodyguard released her wrist but moved swiftly around her to the door, obstructing the only way out. "We need to talk about it now that your friends have met me. Wendy doesn't know about my job either so we really have to get our story right."