More than a little.
I’d let Lee take the lead as soon as we stepped onto the docks, since he clearly had a destination in mind for the day and I hadn’t given it any thought. Up until the ship had left port, I’d half-expected to be saved from having to go on this vacation at all by an emergency at work or with my sister’s family.
Now, though, under the Caribbean sun and with a new friend walking beside me, I was glad I’d agreed to go. Nothing about this was how I’d expected.
“I was obsessed with pirates as a kid,” he explained as we stepped around a corner into what several signs had told us was Old San Juan.
Immaculate Colonial-era buildings lined the streets, painted in the bright, tropical colors of a beachside cocktail—which, honestly, was what I’d been expecting from today. I’d imagined being Lee's fake boyfriend to involve a lot of lounging around in the sun.
But this was a long way from a disappointment. Lee was clearly a man of hidden depths.
I was starting to get the impression that no one had ever bothered to explore them.
“Did you have a favorite?” I asked, brushing against him as we turned onto cobblestones.
“Calico Jack,” Lee said proudly, taking his straw fedora off to tuck a few curls behind his ears.
My fingers itched to play with them, and I wasn’t sure where that urge came from.
“A short but eventful pirate career and two women on board his ship,” I said, pushing the thought aside. It was probably fine that I liked his hair.
“You know pirates?” Lee asked, his dark eyes lightening to amber in the bright sun.
“Clearly,” I said. “I was eight years old once, too.”
“My school librarian got sick of me asking for books about them. Don’t you want to read about something else? I must’ve driven my parents insane with the whole thing.”
“I had an ally in my dad,” I said. “He loves everything to do with sailing and the ocean and he was more than happy to dive deep into pirates with me.”
I’d forgotten most of it by now, but I remembered sitting next to him on the couch, peering at a world atlas and having him point out all these places to me. Now I was standing on one of them.
A thrill of childlike excitement ran through me at the thought. I had to take pictures for Dad.
“Well, consider this fair warning that I will be eight years old again in Nassau,” Lee said, grinning broadly.
I’d seen him upset last night, so close to tears that I’d wanted to hug him until everything was all right, but this morning he was back to his usual bubbly self.
What I didn’t understand in all this was why anyone who’d captured his heart would give it up. Craig was more of a mystery to me the longer I knew Lee.
“Should I be holding your hand?” I asked, thinking of Craig.
Lee chuckled. “Only if you desperately want to. Craig will be lounging on the beach in a pair of trunks that don’t leave a whole lot to the imagination, people-watching. Maybe getting Benji to put sunscreen on his back.”
“He’d have to do it with a squeegee,” I said, and then realized that I was still talking about a man Lee had loved and I probably shouldn’t be so rude. “Uh, I mean… he’s just… very broad.”
Lee laughed again, bright and open and genuine. Maybe I was worried about nothing.
“No, you’re right. And I know you don’t like him, it’s okay. Actually kinda helps, y’know? I’ve only ever been around people who thought Craig was great for a long time. His friends. Makes it kind of hard to feel like him leaving me was anything short of a disaster.”
“I don’t think it was,” I said. “I think he made a mistake in losing you, but I think you dodged a bullet. You can do better.”
“That’s sweet of you to say.” Lee smiled at me. “Hey, I told you all about my broken heart last night. Does that make it your turn to tell me about yours?”
I hesitated. On the one hand, Lee had poured his heart out to me last night, and I felt like I owed him the same level of trust.
On the other hand, there wasn’t much to tell. A short string of unhappy relationships that had ended in being left for someone less frustrating, that was all. No dramatic tragic backstory. Nothing to confess.
“It’s all right if you don’t want to,” Lee said after I paused a beat too long. “You don’t owe me anything. Just… thought you might wanna talk. You’re a good listener, which probably means you don’t get listened to a whole lot.”
He was right about that, but I thought it had more to do with my tendency not to talk about things. Although… there wasn’t anyone in my life I would have talked to, either.
“I don’t have much to say,” I said, which sounded like a lie. “I know how that sounds, but I’m not just… brushing you off. I appreciate the offer and I’m happy to tell you my whole life story, I just don’t want to bore you to death.”
Lee stopped dead in front of me, turning to look me in the eyes.
“Imagine the paperwork, right?” he said, smiling up at me.
“A nightmare,” I agreed.
And I’d miss you, I thought, which took me by surprise. This was only the third day I’d known him. Would I really miss him already?
“Gimme your phone,” he said, holding his hand out expectantly.
I handed it to him, unlocked, without a second thought. Something about Lee made me trust him.
The next thing I knew he was throwing his arm around me, holding the phone out in selfie mode and grinning broadly.
“Smile,” he said. “Smile like you’re having the hottest vacation fling anyone’s ever had.”
I laughed, and watched the screen as Lee kissed my cheek, still grinning, and took a burst of photos without another moment’s warning.
A swarm of butterflies I didn’t remember swallowing all took off at once in my stomach, the sudden rush leaving me light-headed as Lee’s stubble rubbed up against my clean-shaven cheek.
My ears were ringing when he pulled away again, all sunshine and laughter, handing my phone back to me. As if nothing had happened.
As if he hadn’t just rocked my entire world with one brush of his lips against my cheek and I wasn’t quietly dying here in the Caribbean sun, surrounded by tourists in Hawaiian shirts.
“There. First photo done.” He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his shorts, cheeks flushed and a stray curl flopping over his forehead. “You’re gonna have the most convincing paper trail ever.”
I flicked through the photos as we walked down the street, finger hovering over the delete button for the blurry ones. Then I glanced at Lee, walking a half-pace ahead of me, and closed the gallery app instead.
The delete button would always be there later.
“Ah, I thought I’d have the place to myself again,” a strangely-accented voice broke through my thoughts.
I looked up to see an older man standing a few feet away, tall—taller than me, perhaps—and dark-haired. Imposing. Not in the way Lee's ex-boyfriend had been, but there was still something about him.
I’d retreated to the ship’s library—a small room furnished with a few couches and desks, as well as a wall of sparsely-populated bookshelves that declared take a book, leave a book.
Until this moment, I’d been the only one here.
“Oh, umm. I can go,” I offered. I’d only been staring into space.
I was here to give Lee a break from my constant company, which I figured he’d want by now. We’d had a nice, calm, relaxing day, but I knew better than to think he wanted to spend every waking minute with me.
Even if we were still pretending to be together.
“Not at all,” the older man said, sitting down in the armchair opposite me. “Do you play?” He nodded to the chipping, ancient chess board between us.
“Uh. Not since college,” I admitted.
He smiled. “Then I will have you at a disadvantage.”
By the time I realized what was going on, he was already deftly
setting up the pieces for a game, and it was too late to argue. At least this would pass some time.
“Uh. Rowan, by the way.”
“Andries,” he responded. “And the accent is Dutch, before you get any more awkward about asking.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Andries said. “Your curiosity is natural and your awkwardness is charmingly American.”
He took a pawn in each hand, shuffled them so neither of us could see, and then held both closed fists out. “Since I am bullying you into a game, I shall give you a fighting chance.”
“The left,” I said, and he opened his hand to reveal a white pawn.
“Your move.” Andries set both pieces back in place, turned the board so white was on my side, and waited.
Three years of chess club in college hadn’t quite prepared me to play chess on a cruise ship with a complete stranger. All the same, I made a first move, glanced up at my opponent’s face, and took the way his brows drew together to be a good sign.
“You are here alone?” Andries asked, moving his knight as an opening play.
Damn. I’d have to tell him I was here with Lee, wouldn’t I? This wasn’t a small ship, but there was still some risk that if I said I was alone, it would get back to Craig.
Not that Andries seemed like Craig’s kind of person, but it’d only take one confused question about who Lee was in front of him to ruin the whole thing.
“With my boyfriend,” I said. “I’m giving him a break from me.”
“You fought?” Andries asked.
I shook my head. “No, I…”
This was harder to explain than I’d thought. “We’re not overly similar people. He’s by the pool, I think.”
“Ah.” Andries smiled. “So is my husband.”
“Oh.”
There was a plain gold band on his ring finger. I hadn’t noticed it at first. I hadn’t been looking.
“You fought?” I asked cautiously.
Andries laughed. “Oh, no. I think, like you and your partner, we are not overly similar people.”
Except that unlike Andries and his husband, we weren’t actually dating.
“He’s American,” Andries continued. “I’ve developed a fondness for your people since I met him.”
“He must be something,” I said, making my own move. “If he’s endeared you to a whole nation.”
“He is. Forgive me if I talk too much about him, I’m just…”
“In love,” I said, understanding the impulse. I’d never really felt it myself, but I listened to the way my brother-in-law talked about my sister and smiled every time, knowing for certain that he loved her with all his heart.
Andries was the same. He talked about his husband like a man very deeply in love.
“Yes,” he said, smiling shyly at the chess board.
“How long have you been married?”
“Five years,” Andries said, tapping the edge of the board. Considering his next move. “All of them happy.”
“And do you live in New York? Or…”
“San Diego, in fact,” Andries said. “You live in New York, but you weren’t born there.”
I blinked. How could he tell that?
I supposed my accent was as strange to him as his was to me, and that might have made it easier to tell the difference. “I grew up in Washington,” I admitted. “Is it that obvious?”
“Not to most, I imagine. What about your partner?”
I froze.
This was a normal, friendly conversation, and I had no idea what the answer was. Lee certainly sounded like he was from New York—he sounded like he was from Brooklyn—but I didn’t know for sure, because I hadn’t asked.
If I was really his doting boyfriend, I should have known. Shouldn’t I?
“He’s from New York,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t come back to haunt me. If he sounded like it to me, he’d sound like it to Andries, too.
Hopefully.
“We haven’t been dating long,” I added, hoping that would explain… well, everything.
“And yet you chose to be trapped together on a ship for ten days?” Andries raised an eyebrow. “Well. It will be a test, certainly.”
It would have been for me. I wasn’t sure how I would have coped being in confined quarters with someone I really was romantically involved with.
Lee and I had managed to reach a silent understanding, and sharing space with him wasn’t hard at all. Definitely easier than with college roommates.
I hadn’t woken up with him wrapped around me this morning, which had saved him a lot of stress. No amount of telling him I didn’t mind seemed to convince him that I really… didn’t mind.
I’d never woken up with someone cuddling me like that before.
We lapsed into silence, playing seriously now that we’d introduced ourselves to one another.
The sound of the library door opening some time later made me look up, a smile spreading across my face the moment I saw Lee enter—and another man, deeply tanned with striking lagoon-blue eyes.
“Tyler,” Andries greeted warmly, waving the stranger over. “I’ve just been telling my new friend Rowan all about you.”
This was Andries’ husband?
I’d been expecting… well, I’d been expecting a lot of things. For them to be about the same age instead of having a fifteen-year gap between them, for a start.
I hadn’t expected Tyler to be stunningly attractive and vaguely familiar. But the way he greeted Andries with a soft, comfortable kiss to the cheek and then settled on the arm of his chair told me that they were genuinely very much in love.
Lee sat next to me, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, and let his head rest on mine.
“The famous Rowan,” Tyler said.
That was the second time in two days someone had called me that. I already liked Tyler much better than Craig.
Lee chuckled. “You’ll make him think I was talking about him non-stop.”
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “I don’t remember you stopping,” he teased.
“I’m glad you’ve already met,” Andries said. “I was going to suggest the four of us going to lunch tomorrow, in fact. Unless you have other shore plans?”
I glanced at Lee, who nodded eagerly. Clearly, he liked Tyler.
The faintest stirring of something I would have called jealousy if Lee was actually my boyfriend and Tyler wasn’t married twisted in the pit of my stomach.
“I think that’s a yes,” I said.
“Excellent,” Andries smiled at all three of us, clearly happy with this turn of events. “This is a happy coincidence.”
Tyler chuckled, and I suspected I was missing something. Nothing sinister, just an inside joke between him and his husband of five years, which seemed normal.
I’d never really known…
Well, I didn’t know many other gay people at all. Definitely not married couples.
This was nice. It was nice to feel completely normal for once. Not that I’d had a life full of blatant discrimination or I was aware of ever having been treated all that differently, but this was still comforting.
Knowing for sure that no one was going to say anything made it easy to take Lee's hand, absent-mindedly, forgetting for a moment that we didn’t really have to pretend in front of these two people.
“Mm,” I agreed. “It’s nice to make a friend.”
8
Lee
Morning walks had turned out to be a good idea after all. Starting the day with the sun on my face felt so good that it was a habit I wanted to take home with me, heading out for just a few minutes every day before breakfast to get my bearings in the world.
Besides, it gave Rowan a little space. I didn’t mind showering while he was in the room, but I got the feeling he minded the reverse. That was fine, and I didn’t take it personally.
He’d needed space last night, too, but he’d been good about keeping up our cover story with his new friend. I couldn’t have asked for a better
partner in crime.
Well, not crime. He was a good partner, though.
St. Kitts was on the horizon now, the gentle row of peaks toward the tip of the island stuck up like hands waving hello, or reach out to its sister island, Nevis.
Basseterre—the capital—was a small enough town, but full of things I thought Rowan would enjoy. He’d been impressed by the architecture in San Juan, and I’d heard there was just as much to see there.
He’d even lined us up a double-date for lunch, which would be the perfect thing to add to his story of a whirlwind vacation romance. I grinned at the thought, excited to go on my first date in years. Even if it was make-believe.
“He kicked you out already?”
My good mood burst like a soap bubble as Craig came to lean against the railing beside me.
“Sleeping in,” I said. “Wore him out.”
I wanted Craig to believe that Rowan had the best and most active sex life on the whole goddamn ship. That he was getting everything Craig had wanted me for and more, that I was giving him orgasm after mind-blowing orgasm and that we only came up for air to be disgustingly in love in public for a few hours a day.
“Sounds like he wears out easy.” Craig laughed.
My knuckles went white on the railing as my hands tried to ball themselves into fists reflexively.
“He doesn’t,” I said, as sweetly as I could manage. “Just still can’t get enough of him. You remember what it was like in the beginning.”
“Mm, it’s amazing he gets out of bed at all,” Craig agreed with absolutely no sincerity.
I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be talking to Craig and listening to him insulting both me and Rowan. I didn’t want him in my life anymore.
“Better get back,” I said, pushing away from the railing. “He’ll be wondering where I am.”
Without waiting for a response from Craig, I turned and walked away, keeping my eyes firmly ahead. He couldn’t just demand my attention anymore, and I wasn’t going to let him. I’d already let him push me into telling a lie I hadn’t wanted to, and following it up by dragging Rowan into it.
As much as I liked spending time with Rowan, it wasn’t fair.
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