Cruising

by Sean Ashcroft

  The only problem was that it was a lie.

  “That’s great!” Craig smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  Good. It wasn’t my job to keep him happy anymore, and he’d left me crying in my apartment. This was the least he deserved.

  “What’s he like?”

  “He’s…”

  Shit.

  I wasn’t much of a liar. Never had been, never would be. Didn’t have the imagination for it.

  “Quiet,” I blurted out, thinking of Rowan.

  Craig’s eyebrow crept toward his hairline.

  Quiet wasn’t my type, was it? I went for…

  Well. Craig. Who was a long way from quiet, or shy, or unlikely to bring anyone back to his room.

  “Grown up,” I added offhand. The way Craig’s nose wrinkled told me the insult had landed.

  Good.

  If I was digging a hole for myself, he was coming down with me.

  “Settled, y’know? Dependable.”

  I was making him sound boring. Every fantasy I’d ever had about the perfect man had left my head. The only two men I could remember meeting in my entire life right now were Rowan and Craig. It was like being asked what your favorite movie was and suddenly not remembering a single movie in existence except the last one you’d seen.

  What did I want? What was the perfect man to me?

  “We talk for hours about all kinds of things,” I said.

  That… was a surprise. Did I want that? I’d definitely never had it with Craig.

  “And he’s funny, but only once you understand him. I feel like I’m the only one who sees the real him.”

  Now I was starting to sound boring. Was this really what I was looking for?

  I was just now realizing that I’d never thought about it. Reasonably attractive and enthusiastic about having sex with me were the only things I’d ever worried about before now.

  Dear God, I was a mess.

  “And he’s patient and he never raises his voice,” I added.

  I was describing the polar opposite of Craig. These were all things I wanted. I was starting to form a picture of this man now, and I liked him.

  Maybe I should have been writing all this down and begging Santa to leave this fantasy boyfriend under the tree for me.

  This conversation had certainly been educational.

  “Sounds too good to be true,” Craig said.

  My heart sank. Did it? And did it seem that way because I was a terrible liar, or because I was expecting too much?

  “He is,” I agreed, forcing myself to smile. “I think that every time I wake up next to him.”

  Craig didn’t look convinced.

  Great. Now I looked even more pathetic than I had last time he saw me.

  “Well, I hope I get to meet him,” Craig said. “Make sure he’s good enough for you.”

  As if he had any right to decide that.

  “Tonight, maybe? Meet you for drinks before dinner?”

  Oh no.

  Oh no, he was serious. He didn’t believe me, and now I’d have to produce this perfect boyfriend.

  “I, uh…”

  Think, think dammit.

  “Actually, he was away for work all last week and I think we’ll want to… y’know, stay in.”

  “Tomorrow then. Ah—” Craig held up a hand to stop the protest on my lips. “I won’t take no for an answer. You look good, Lee. I want to meet the man who’s making you glow like that.”

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  We were going to be at sea for ten days. I couldn’t keep making excuses and brushing him off the whole time. I wasn’t cut out for it. Saying no to Craig had never been one of my strengths.

  “Sure,” I said, feeling my stomach drop into my sneakers.

  Would Rowan play along? He didn’t have any reason to. What did I have to offer him?

  In a situation like this I might have offered someone else a blowjob for their cooperation, but he’d said he didn’t have sex with strangers. He probably wouldn’t accept it as payment.

  Definitely not the way Craig would have.

  I was screwed. I’d talked myself into this and now I’d have to come clean if I couldn’t convince someone to play the part of perfect doting boyfriend I was hopelessly in love with.

  Rowan was my only hope, and I had nothing to offer him in exchange for his help.

  3

  Rowan

  I had no idea how much time had passed since I’d fallen asleep, but when the sound of the cabin door opening and closing woke me I could tell we were at sea. It wasn’t that I could feel the boat moving, exactly, but some primal, innate sense was ringing in the back of my head, like a persistent notification on my phone lock screen.

  Since this was the first time I’d ever been on any kind of boat, it came as a surprise.

  Lee was pacing between the bed and the window. He either hadn’t noticed I was awake or didn’t care, but the distress rolling off him was so strong I could feel it in the pit of my own stomach.

  Was it my place to ask?

  Probably not, but if I didn’t, then who would? I’d realized as I was falling asleep that I was going to have to rely on Lee’s patience and good graces to get through this, so it stood to reason that he’d have to rely on mine.

  “Something wrong?” I asked, sitting up in the bed.

  Lee turned to look at me, eyes wide, fingers shoved deep into his hair mid-stroke.

  “I, umm.” He paused, looked to the door, looked to the window, and then back at me. “Ran into an ex-boyfriend out there. The ex-boyfriend, y’know?”

  I didn’t know, but I nodded anyway.

  “You…” I hesitated. This was dangerous territory, and I didn’t want to set off any landmines while I crossed it. “Didn’t part on the best of terms?”

  Lee laughed a bitter, hollow laugh that made the back of my neck crawl.

  “Last time I saw him I asked him to marry me,” he said. “He laughed. Not because he thought I was joking. I was serious, and we both knew it. I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life with him, but… he laughed. And told me he’d have to be an idiot to marry me, and that I’d clearly misunderstood what this arrangement was.”

  My stomach clenched. I could feel the pain in every word Lee said.

  “Anyway.” Lee paused to clear his throat, scratching the back of his neck. “Told him I had a new boyfriend.”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  He looked at me evenly. “Clearly not.”

  Right. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been sharing a cabin with me.

  The mattress creaked as Lee sat down on it.

  “The only solution is to jump overboard and swim back to shore,” I said.

  My tongue was getting away from me.

  Was that insensitive? I’d meant it as a joke, but I knew my sense of humor didn’t always come across that way. My sister’s constructive criticism was that my delivery was too dry.

  Dammit. He was already in a bad mood and I was making it worse.

  I didn’t normally risk joking with new people, but he was so upset and I didn’t want to see him suffer.

  After a moment of silence, a snort of laughter escaped Lee. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Have the place all to yourself.”

  Oh. Okay. He got the joke and he was teasing me back.

  “Oh no,” I smiled at him. “I thought I was a walking disaster when it came to men right up until now, but you… you made up a fake boyfriend.”

  “You don’t need to rub it in,” Lee said, but there was still laughter in his voice.

  “I don’t need to,” I agreed. “To be fair, if a fake boyfriend is more appealing than your actual ex? That doesn’t say a lot of good things about him.”

  “Oh no, I made up the perfect man on the spot,” Lee said. “Funny and patient and kind and he probably had a ten-inch cock, I dunno. And he was everything Craig—my ex—wasn’t.”

  “Ten inch?” I asked, horrified at the thought.r />
  Lee chewed on his lower lip. “I don’t think I actually said that. Might be a little big.”

  “Imagine trying to buy underwear,” I said, wanting to make him smile again. I couldn’t do much, but I could do that.

  Lee laughed, eyes finally sparkling. I hadn’t known him long, but I got the feeling that was a sign of a good mood.

  “No, you’re right, and you’d never get it all in, anyway. Let’s go for a sensible eight.”

  “Eight would be sensible?” I asked. I’d never measured my cock or anyone else’s, but I thought that was bigger than average.

  On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how I compared with average. Lee would’ve laughed at me if he found out how narrow my experience really was.

  Lee shrugged. “My perception might be warped. Maybe Craig’s right, maybe I am a slut. My first thought was to offer you a blowjob to play the part of doting boyfriend in front of him. But then I remembered what you said about strangers.”

  “W-well, umm…” I paused to clear my throat. “I, uh.”

  Lee's eyes widened. “Offer’s definitely on the table if you’ll do it for me.”

  “No,” I said.

  His shoulders slumped, and my stomach sank. I couldn’t look at him miserable. If there was something I could do to help…

  “I mean… no, you don’t need to… do that.” I swallowed.

  Was I really about to offer this?

  It wasn’t the worst idea. If Lee was planning on pretending to be my boyfriend, then there was no reason I couldn’t tell my family I’d met someone on this trip. A whirlwind vacation romance.

  Which might’ve been enough to shut them up about my love life—or complete and total lack thereof—for a few months, at least.

  Boring, not-on-vacation Rowan wouldn’t even have considered this. But if I was supposed to be leaving him behind in New York…

  “If you point Craig out to me, I’ll tell him we’re dating if he asks?” I offered, blood pounding in my ears and my stomach tied in knots.

  Being someone other than my normal cowardly self was easier said than done, but I was doing it. I was talking to a beautiful man and offering him help. Help that involved letting people believe we were dating.

  That would never have happened in real life. But this wasn’t real life. This was an escape from that.

  “Was that a question or a statement?”

  “Both? I know I’m probably not your first choice, but…”

  “You’re my roommate,” Lee said. “It has to be you.”

  Of course it did. That was why he was asking me and not some gorgeous stranger he could ply with sexual favors.

  “He wants to meet you tomorrow night,” Lee continued. “Told him you’d been away on business all week and we’d be too busy having sex tonight for anything else.”

  “All night?” I asked.

  Lee shrugged. “He knows me,” he said. “I wouldn’t last long with a partner who couldn’t keep up with me.”

  He chewed on his lower lip again, turning it bright pink under the pressure of his teeth.

  What were we talking about, again?

  “Right.” I nodded.

  A partner who could keep up with him.

  All night? I’d never… once had always been… more than enough. I’d always secretly suspected I wasn’t having particularly good sex, but I’d never talked to anyone who’d had better. At least, not anyone who was willing to tell me all about it. Lee wasn’t just willing, but volunteering the information like we were best friends and this was a normal conversation.

  It should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t. I was more uncomfortable about not being uncomfortable than I was about talking like this to a stranger.

  Maybe my sister was right. A vacation was a chance to get away from Rowan, who was boring and constantly tired and didn’t have time to date or a lot of success when he tried it. I could be anyone I wanted.

  I could be the perfect boyfriend of the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. He was asking me to be. Even if it was only make-believe.

  When was I ever going to get the chance again?

  “All night?” I asked again, the thought still spinning around in my head.

  Lee chuckled. “You’re adorable. Or you’re not getting laid enough.” He paused, looking me up and down. “Maybe both.”

  “I’m not particularly adorable,” I said.

  He laughed again. “You are adorable. We’ll… figure out getting you laid enough. You seem like you could use it.”

  When other people said that to me, it felt cruel. Dismissive, or like I couldn’t be in a bad mood without it being directly related to my sex life.

  When Lee said it, it felt… different. Kind. As though he was suggesting I should do something fun, because fun was good for me.

  “So, how perfect was this boyfriend?” I asked. I couldn’t promise long-term perfection, but I could act for an hour if I had to. Maybe.

  “Funny,” Lee said. “Which you’ve got. Patient and kind. Quiet and mature and a good listener. Great in bed, obviously, goes without saying.”

  “I assume I won’t have to demonstrate that in front of your ex.”

  Lee flopped back onto the bed beside me. “No. I’ll take care of making it look like you’re the best I’ve ever had, don’t worry. It’s only for one night. Two drinks, maximum. Promise.”

  I wondered how he was planning to make it look like I was the best he’d ever had, but he’d just told me not to worry about it, so I wasn’t sure I should ask. The last thing I wanted right now was Lee to think I was an idiot.

  “How did we meet?” I asked, flopping down beside him, our hands brushing against each other before I moved mine away.

  “How do you normally meet people?” he asked.

  A snort escaped me before I could stop it.

  “That bad, huh?” he shifted, and I could feel him grinning at me. It still wasn’t cruel, though. I turned my head to look at him—the bed was huge, sharing it wasn’t going to be a big deal—and found him looking at me like I was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but whatever the feeling was, it tugged at my belly button.

  “In my defense, I work a lot.”

  “Blind date, then. You haven’t got time to meet anyone any other way. I was lucky enough to see you first and grab you with both hands.”

  He was still, somehow, making everything sound like an innuendo.

  No one had grabbed me with both hands—or even one hand—in a very long time. That was probably why everything sounded as suggestive as it did.

  Much as I hated to admit it, I did need to get laid.

  “How long have we been dating?” I asked.

  “Well, I broke up with Craig five months ago, so… three and a half months?”

  “Am I a rebound?”

  Lee laughed. Did he ever stop laughing?

  “Are you that worried about the state of our completely made up relationship?”

  “Well… I’d rather you weren’t using me for my eight-inch cock,” I said. “I think we should have a real connection.”

  “As opposed to, like, being physically joined at about hip level a handful of times a day?”

  A handful of times a day.

  I was starting to understand what he meant about needing someone who could keep up with him. Could his ex do that?

  “You’re blushing,” he said. “So cute. How are you single?”

  “I’m not.” I licked my lips. “I’m dating you.”

  More laughter, bright and warm enough to make me smile back this time.

  This was a terrible idea. The worst, stupidest idea I’d ever even considered going along with, and yet…

  Lee was smiling at me, and I liked it when he did that, and what else was I going to do? I’d been imagining spending ten days all alone and watching everyone else have fun around me.

  If I was meant to be dating Lee, at least I’d have company. Maybe
I’d even come out of this with a friend.

  I hadn’t had time for friends, either, for a long time.

  “Are we really doing this?” he asked.

  My last chance to back out.

  It was stupid. Immature. Very un-Rowan-like.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I think I can handle pretending to date you for one night. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Lee grinned, eyes sparkling again, and I knew I’d made the right call. At least one of us was happy, and I could see one or two benefits to having a fake boyfriend myself. Having a ready-made excuse on the off-chance anyone offered to buy me a drink, for a start.

  “You might fall in love with me,” he said. “That’d be a disaster.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “I promise not to.”

  4

  Lee

  I woke with a smile and a yawn, snuggling closer to the warm body I was wrapped around, content to nap for a few more minutes until he kicked me out. Couldn’t immediately remember his name, but either it’d come back to me or I’d think up a cute nickname and never have to address it.

  In the meantime, this was bliss. He was a little thinner than I’d usually go for, but he smelled incredible. What time was it? Could we get another round in before breakfast?

  My fingers trailed down the length of his side, hitching the edge of his t-shirt up so I could slide my palm under it to let him know I was ready to go again if he was.

  “Uh.”

  Shit.

  Shit.

  The bedclothes tangled around my legs as I rolled away in a panic, overshooting the mark and tumbling over the side of the bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

  Tangled in the sheets, staring up at the cabin ceiling, blood pounding in my ears.

  And half-hard. On account of the whole warm body thing.

  Fuck.

  Rowan. Rowan my roommate. Who I was definitely not supposed to be cuddling with, even if he had agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend in front of Craig.

  “Are you all right?” his voice floated down from the safety of his own side of the bed.

  I was…