by Mignon Mykel
Strong hands gripped my waist as my own came down from my poorly put up hair, to rest on the wall’s biceps. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I said as I looked up from the blue chest in front of me, up to an almost familiar square-jawline that was adorned with a close goatee. My eyes traveled further up to a slowly growing smile, lifting more to the right than the left, showcasing a deep dimple.
When my eyes met the laughing green ones aimed down at me, I couldn’t help but smile myself. “Caleb! How are you?” I squeezed his arms gently and nearly groaned at the feel of the thick muscles under my hands. I controlled myself, though. I wasn’t his type, I reminded myself. “I didn’t think I’d run into you with all the people.”
His hands seemed to linger a moment too long, making my girly heart yearn to lean into him. Before I could succumb to my inner romantic, though, he slid his hands off my waist, brushing my hips lightly, before stepping off the stair he was on and onto the landing with me. “I’m good. It’s good to see you. I was hoping to, to be honest.”
“Really?” Again, that damn girly heart of mine fluttered. “I mean, here I am.” I took my hands off his arms and lifted them in a ‘who knows’ gesture, paired with a cheeky smile.
God, I was better around him when I first sat down with him. What was with the nerves?
He chuckled and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Where you headed? Your room?”
“I was, yes. Just wanted to bring my stuff in. I’m under the understanding that they just drop your bags off outside your door.”
“Yeah, I just brought mine in. I’ll walk with you?”
“Sure,” I said. “Did you bring a friend?” I asked as I started back up the stairs and he turned to go back the way he’d come from.
“Nope. Just me. I’m glad to see a familiar face, though. I wasn’t sure I could do the solo thing sanely.”
I flashed a grin over at him. “I’m sure you would have found someone to bond with. Oh, speaking of bonding…”
When his brows lifted, I flushed but managed to continue. “I’m excited about the ladies we casted. I know you’re going to love them.”
We reached the next landing and I cut in front of him to maneuver to the hallway. He followed easily as I walked slightly in front of him, watching the numbers until I found mine. “I’d tell you about them, but I wouldn’t want any of them to get an unfair advantage. But I think you’ll like them.”
“I’m sure, Chief.”
I found my door and looked over my shoulder at him before digging out my key card. “Chief?”
He shrugged. “You were in charge of casting, more or less. Makes you chief of something, right? So ‘Chief’.”
I shook my head with a partial grin, before putting the card in the slot. “I’m hardly a chief of anything. I told you, I was the assistant’s assistant.” When the light turned green, I pushed the door open but when I reached for my suitcase that was hanging out in the hall, Caleb’s much larger hand was already on the handle. With his other hand, he reached over me to push the door open, holding it there for me to walk in. “Thank you,” I said, a bit of my timidity coming out again.
“No problem.” He stepped in and, showcasing a gentlemanly side, stayed at the door, his foot propping it open while he leaned in to deposit my suitcase. “My suite is actually down the hall a little bit. We’re practically neighbors.”
“Is that so, neighbor?” I moved the bag closer to the bed before tossing my purse on the mattress. “Well I was going to change quickly.” I hefted my bag on top of the bed before unzipping it. My girly items were in zippered pockets, so I wasn’t embarrassed by any lacy things popping out and scalding Caleb’s retinas.
“If you want, we can maybe go to the observation deck, watch as we leave port? You can meet me down at my room,” he said, adding his room number before inching toward the hall.
I shrugged as I quickly pulled out a white sundress. “Or you can just hang out here for a moment. It won’t take me but three seconds to pull this on.” I was trying really hard to treat him like my brothers.
You don’t have a chance, Syd; you don’t have a chance.
Friend zone. Brother zone.
I could totally do this.
The super confident hockey player seemed to stumble over his thoughts for a moment before stepping fully into the room, letting the door close behind him. “Sure, ok.”
I smiled at him and waved to the room that was likely much smaller than his. “Make yourself at home.” I snuck past him and stepped into the small bathroom, closing the door behind me.
A glance in the mirror showed a rosy hue to my freckled cheeks and my eyes were brighter than they typically were. I was going to have to work harder at keeping my attraction to myself -- you could read it all over my face.
I toed off my flats before pulling off my slacks and blouse. Next to come off was my generally unnecessary bra. I then pulled the white sun dress with crisscrossed straps in the back over my head. I folded my slacks and blouse and put them on the counter, stuffing said unnecessary bra under the pile, before bending to grab my flats. I left the sanctuary of the small bathroom, flats in hand. I plastered a smile on my face again when Caleb turned from his place by the balcony door.
“All set?”
“Just need to switch out my shoes,” I said, lifting my flats lamely. I put them down next to the bed then found flipflops in the front pocket of my bag. I dropped them unceremoniously to the floor, sliding my feet into them. “I’m good now.”
He stared at me a moment, making my slightly self-conscious, before he shifted and grinned. “Well, we better go if we want to do the ceremonial wave to onlookers.”
Caleb
Shit, she was pretty. I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to work this whole show thing and Sydney thing.
Not that there was technically a Sydney thing, but…still.
She changed out of her clothes and was now in that white dress she’d held up a little bit ago. In her hand, it was just a floppy piece of white fabric. I was in no way prepared for the dress on her. And if I thought I liked her ass, I had another think coming at the sight of her toned, thicker thighs that the shorter hem of her dress showed off.
Feeling a twitch of desire, I shifted my feet and tried to think of one of my sisters. Hell, Porter even. That kid got into enough trouble to raise any of the Prescotts’ blood pressures. Surely I could think of something he’d done to get my mind off of Sydney and her creamy skin, her freckles, and pretty red hair falling out of that bun I was now positive was her signature look.
I grinned easily at her, motioning toward the door. “Well, we better go if we want to do the ceremonial wave to onlookers.”
She grabbed her clutch and headed that way. “You haven’t cruised before, right?” she asked, pulling open the door before stepping into the hall.
I reached above her head, not hard to do, to grab the door from her, following a bit closely behind.
Probably too close, but I wasn’t going to mention it.
“Nope. I don’t really like the idea of being trapped on a boat with nowhere to go.”
“With just water surrounding you?” She threw a grin over her shoulder as she walked us toward the staircase we’d met on.
“Yeah. I need land on one side. But,” I shrugged, “this redhead talked me into it, so I figured, what the hell.”
She only laughed lightly, but I could feel it in my gut. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this sort of reaction to a woman, but I kind of liked it.
Tony’s words echoed in my mind but I brushed them away.
I could hook up, hang out, do whatever the hell I pleased. The contract was only valid for filming.
I read most of the small print, trust me.
Granted, I wasn’t too sure that ‘hook up’ was going to be in Sydney Meadows’s vocabulary, but hang out I could see. Take example A. She was currently hanging out with me.
“You know where you’re going?” I asked as we c
limbed half a flight of stairs.
“I think our best bet is going to be one of the upper decks. If I studied the map correctly, once we get to the eleventh floor, we can exit and walk outside.”
I should have figured she would have studied a map of the liner. I fought a grin at the organization she seemed to exude. As our rooms were on the eighth deck, a few more flights seemed easy enough.
It was a lot of stairs, though. I’d rather get my cardio elsewhere, to be honest. “Any reason why you prefer the stairs?”
She grinned over her shoulder again. “What, a pro athlete like yourself is afraid of a couple’a stairs?”
“Well, no, but there are working elevators.”
She shrugged and put a hop in her step, jogging up the next flight easily. I decided then that the stairs weren’t too bad when following her.
“Something about elevators on water freaks me out a little bit.”
I nodded, continuing my easy pace up the stairs. She could run them all she wanted. “Understandable.”
She slowed down some and finished the last two flights beside me. It was comfortably quiet. I didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with small talk, or worried that I needed to put on my pro-athlete, media face with Sydney, and I found it refreshing.
I barely knew the girl but everything simply felt right. Maybe my dad knew what he was talking about.
As we headed through the double doors that led to not only a pool deck but also quick food stations, Sydney started talking again. “Have you thought about what you wanted to do on your down week?”
I didn’t think Hang out with you was the appropriate answer, as I was 99-percent positive she didn’t know I had asked for her to be on the cruise, too, so I went with the generic, “Nope.”
“What, no excursions?” She looked over at me. “I would have pegged you for any sort of adventure.”
We walked out onto the outer decks. There weren’t too many people out here just yet, so we maneuvered easily to a railing. “I like adventures. I just didn’t really think the whole thing through. I barely got home to Wisconsin before having to get ready for this thing.”
“Wisconsin?” She leaned a hip against the rail, resting a hand on the railing as well. “I know your family’s there, but I figured you stayed in California.”
I took a place beside her, my back to the rail, and crossed my arms as I shook my head no. “My brother and I go home for the off months. I still have siblings in school so I don’t get to see them much when I’m out in Cali. Jonny and I AirBNB the condo for the summer months and then go home to give back to the community we grew up in.”
“So you grew up in Wisconsin, too?”
I grinned at her. “What, didn’t your research tell you everything?”
Sydney grinned crookedly, close-lipped, as she turned to face the rail, both hands in front of her now. “Don’t make fun. I like my notes.”
“I bet you’re the type of person with lists all over her house.”
“I am, you got me.” She grinned over at me. “I don’t always follow the lists, but I certainly write them. Anything and everything gets written down. And there’s nothing wrong with researching people and places. I found with my internship that I actually really enjoyed it.” She shrugged shyly. “I was planning on the event planner route after school, but I think I may stick with SMG if they’ll keep me on. I can’t tell you how much I dreaded a reality show—”
“You dreaded it too?” I lifted a brow and grinned. “Girls love reality TV, I thought.”
“I tend to find the people fake.” She grinned quickly over at me. “You’ve been pretty real, though. I just…” She paused and her brows lowered for a moment. “I had done a lot of research for TV-movies, so I’d just assumed that if I ever helped with casting, it would be that route. I wasn’t prepared for my first casting to be with an insanely good-looking hockey player and a bunch of girls.” Her eyes widened immediately.
“You find me insanely attractive?” I couldn’t help but goad, angling my body toward hers.
Her lips twitched before smiling, as if she couldn’t stop it from blooming on her face. “Doesn’t everybody?”
I leaned in close to her and, lowering my voice, whispered in her ear, “You’re pretty insanely attractive yourself, Sydney Meadows.”
When I pulled away, I saw that her smile had morphed to a frown and she squinted her eyes some at me. “Let’s not forget who casted your girls, and your requests, my friend.” Then, as if a switch was flipped, she plastered a smile on her face again.
I was starting to see the differences in her smiles—the quick grins with sassy comments were often accompanied by a brightness in her amber eyes. I had never paid much attention to eyes, but this smile didn’t reach them, didn’t make them dance.
I would have to remedy that.
Sydney
I was getting along extremely well with Caleb until he pulled that attractive crack.
I really had a feeling that he wasn’t the playboy that athletes were known to be, but here he was, flirting with me. I had been flirted with plenty in my life; I wasn’t so naïve to notice whether or not he was pulling moves. It was in his body language, his eyes, the way he angled his body toward me.
God, I hated flirty men, especially when they couldn’t back it up.
Putting a smile back on my face, I turned toward the railing again, glancing down at the port. “So Wisconsin’s home. Tell me about your family. I know you told me you had an older sister and four younger siblings.”
He turned around to face the railing beside me, resting his forearms on the bar and leaning down. “Well, my dad played for the Enforcer organization for… ” He shook his head in thought. “Years. Met my mom before being called up to the NHL. They moved to San Diego, had Myke, my sister. Mykaela’s her name. I think dad was excited about having a kid and he put her on skates before she could walk. We’re fourteen months apart. Then there’s Jonny, who you met.”
“Is it true he’s still with his high school sweetheart?” I interrupted. I loved stories about athletes and being with the same person since school.
Caleb scoffed. “Unfortunately. Jenna’s a bit of a money whore and no one likes her, but Jonny won’t hear it.” It was his turn to grimace at his word choice. “That was a bit harsh, but hey, it’s his life.”
“Maybe she’s actually really sweet, she just doesn’t know how to get along with such a fascinating family,” I said with a grin. “I think with your father’s history, and then you and Jonny playing hockey, too, you may just be an intimidating bunch.”
He shrugged a shoulder, brushing off the comment. “They’ve been together for four years. She’s been to plenty of get-togethers. She knows the family and we know her. She just doesn’t… I feel like saying her not clicking with the family is an inappropriate answer, but she doesn’t click. I swear she’s with Jonny for his money. She likes the limelight and the fancy cars. She comes from money and I think she just likes the lifestyle. Anyway,” he said, going back to the original subject. “So Jonny’s just about three years younger than me. Our parents slowed down for a few years then,” he said with a smile. “Because it was almost another three and a half years before McKenna was born.” A huge grin broke out on Caleb’s face. “She is the most girly girl I have ever met. She’s the only one of us that doesn’t play. Hell, she can’t skate.”
I couldn’t help but smile at his expression. “So no hockey for her.”
“No, no hockey. Not directly, anyway. She’s heading to college this fall and she and I were talking about what she wanted to do. I think you two would get along pretty well. She’s interested in marketing. Maybe you could talk to her sometime.”
I nodded slightly, still smiling. “I’d be happy to. So that’s…” I went through his siblings again in my head. “Three siblings. You have two more?”
Caleb nodded again. “Yep. Next is Avery. She’s fourteen and a fu-freaking pistol. You know I said Myke was on skates befo
re she could walk? Avery was wielding a stick before that. Girl’s an ace with the game. So that’s what we call her. And after her is my baby brother. Porter is thirteen going on juvie.”
I turned my head back to Caleb and lifted a brow, a skeptical half grin on my face. “Why do you say that?”
“He’s always been a bit of a troublemaker. Hell, I remember he was born like…a month or two early and it was right after dad left for a west coast trip.”
“So he came out trouble, that’s what you’re saying?” I grinned, thinking of this teenager. “Surely he’s not a terrible kid.”
Caleb shrugged before pushing up on his forearms to stand fully. “He’s not a bad kid, per se. He just does stupid things. He’s talented, though.”
The horn chose that moment to blast and I squinted my eyes, shrinking down into my shoulders at the noisy intrusion. Caleb chuckled at my reaction. “Looks like we’re headed out. Goodbye, Honolulu, hello, other islands of Hawaii and lots of water.”
I couldn’t hide my excitement and smiled wide. “I’ve never cruised before, either. I’m pretty excited.”
“Well I guess you and I will just have to be cruise-buddies.”
The night had been pretty uneventful. After we were completely at sea, Caleb and I had explored the ship a little, finding the different restaurants, bistros, and clubs, as well as the shops. I laughed when he put on a fedora for me, but honestly, the man looked good in anything. We walked through the casino and caught an introductory night show at one of the theaters before heading back to the eighth deck at two in the morning, where he walked me to my room with the promise of more adventure the next day.
Well, it was the next day, and I was rudely awakened by the shrill noise the room’s phone made. I debated not answering, but eventually my conscious won. While I didn’t get cell coverage on the ship, if there were any emergencies at home, my parents or brothers knew to call the ship and the ship would direct the calls to me. And aside from a wake-up call from the captain himself, I wasn’t entirely sure who else would be calling me. It was, after all, almost eleven back home.