by Shen, L. J.
I snapped my head to the other side, making a show of checking out my two-inch nails.
“What the heck was that, Costello?”
“Nothing, Turner. You were just looking at me weird, so I searched for obvious signs of a heart attack. Your pupils are dilated, by the way.”
“Uh-huh. Just remember you have a girlfriend.”
“I don’t, actually.”
I had no business feeling as gleeful as I felt when he said that.
He resumed his sauntering with me in his arms. Only now, he was trudging. I felt his irritated footsteps on my spine.
We still couldn’t spot our families at the bar. It was packed, loud, and spilling over with people in different states of undress and intoxication.
The scent of BO, chlorine, and cheap alcohol drifted into my nostrils. Heaven. How come no one had ever bottled it into a perfume?
“Nawwww.” I made an exaggerated gesture, placing a hand on my heart. “But you were so perfect together. Oatmeal Couple of the Year. So, am I your next conquest? Your rebound?”
“Rebounds aren’t my speed.”
Was it me, or had he not flat-out denied it?
“So why’d you look like you were going to kiss me? Is it because I don’t fall at your feet?” I taunted.
“I usually like my dates at crotch level. If they’re at my feet, they’re doing something wrong.”
“Gross. Also—sexist.”
“Natural. Also—not if I’m reciprocating. Which, for your general knowledge, I always do. Anyway, you said I could be myself around you, right? That’s me. Take it or leave it.”
“I choose to leave it,” I said emphatically, my heart beating a thousand miles a minute, because what was going on?
Were we actually discussing sex?
“Well, sweetheart, I was never yours to begin with. Now call your parents again. I’ll try my mother.”
He put me down, having had enough of my malice. I caught a glimpse of the ocean for the first time. It was endless and blue and promising, spread at my feet, and I reminded myself that in a few minutes, I wouldn’t have to deal with Haughty McHotson at all.
I’d be too busy with my family, my son, and my tan.
No more basket making, no more tables to serve. Things were finally, finally looking up.
I called my mother, then my father, then Bear. I was waiting for Bear to pick up when I heard Cruz’s mother’s voice blasting through his phone’s speaker.
“Cruz? Where are you, darling?”
“Upper deck. Waterpark bar. We’re looking for you.”
I whipped my head to catch him video-chatting his mother, pacing from side to side. I wasn’t the only one who was staring. The entire female population of the cruise ship was ogling this piece of prime meat. Some of the men, too.
Stupid pride filled my chest. Everyone could look, but he was with me. But then I was also filled with dread, because not only were we NOT together, he was literally trying his hardest to get away from me.
“Yes. We’re at the lounge, which is right at the back. You’ll see the beautiful chandelier, made of empty vintage liquor bottles. So very pretty. I’m wearing an ivory dress and a straw hat, and Donna is wearing…oh, I don’t know what she is wearing, darling. These people wouldn’t recognize a good fashion choice if it whacked them across the tush.”
Welp.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to hear that.
I had no doubt I was lumped together with these people. The blue-collared folks of Fairhope.
Cruz had the decency to shoot me an apologetic glance before hurrying to the back of the waterpark’s bar.
“I can’t see the lounge. Are you sure you’re at the waterpark?”
“By the waterpark.”
“Yeah, I don’t see any chandeliers, either. Just a bar that looks like a yellow submarine.”
A panicky feeling began buzzing in the pit of my stomach. The ship’s horn sounded, drowning out my heartbeats.
“How about we meet somewhere else? I can wait for you by the spa center on the nineteenth deck.”
“The decks only go to eighteen, Mom.”
“Nonsense, Cruzy. You’d think a man who finished med school would know how to count.”
The panic in my abdomen slithered up, up, up toward my sternum, making it almost impossible to breathe.
Cruz stopped pacing, rubbing at his face tiredly and shaking his head.
“It’s right in the brochure, Mom. The Elation has eighteen decks. Look it up.”
“The Ecstasy has nineteen decks. Check for yourself—why are we even having this conversation?”
The panic ball inside me was now blocking my throat.
I couldn’t draw a breath.
Nausea washed over me.
Pluck, pluck, pluck.
Cruz slowly turned toward me, his bottomless ocean eyes flaring with accusation. Meanwhile, the Elation chose this exact moment to begin sailing, leaving the port while hundreds of vacationers lazed against the bannisters, watching as it drifted farther from land.
“The Ecstasy?” he repeated, for my ears, not hers.
“Yes, darling. Why? Wait, what ship are you on?” There was a little, nervous, what-are-the-chances laughter at the end of the sentence.
“The Elation,” he said point-blank, his gaze not leaving mine, growing hotter, darker, scarier.
I want my mommy.
“Why on earth would you be on the Elation?” his mother exploded.
Around her, our families had begun conversing hotly. The words “why?” and “not again” and “her fault” were thrown in the air.
“That’s a very good question, Mother. Why don’t you let me get back to you with the answer after I find out for myself?”
With that, he killed the call and turned fully to me. My only consolation was that we were in front of a lot of people, so it was unlikely he was going to throw me overboard.
Yet.
“The Elation,” he said simply. His voice rough and dead and so chilly, a shudder rolled down my spine.
I bit my lower lip. “I remembered something with an E.”
“You remembered.” He strode toward me, cool as a cucumber, but also formidable as Michael Myers. “But you didn’t think to, oh, I don’t know, double-check?”
I stepped backward, retreating toward a raised ramp on which a wet t-shirt contest was taking place, trying to avoid his wrath.
More than stupid, I felt hopeless, because I knew everyone was currently discussing how useless I was. How it was probably a miracle I could even hold a tray and take a pancake order.
“Perfectly capable of booking two tickets to a cruise,” Cruz mimicked my voice and did a good job of it, as he took another step in my direction, like a predator zeroing in on his prey. “That’s what you said at the diner. Should I have specified that I meant OUR FAMILIES’ CRUISE?”
“I…I…I…”
But the excuses died in my throat.
There was no justifying what had happened.
I’d been drunk, flustered with Rob’s return, and made a huge mistake. I’d confused the Elation with the Ecstasy, and now I remembered why: as soon as my parents had told me the Costellos were booking us a cruise, I’d begun researching the different cruise ships.
The Elation was the one I’d kept coming back to, because it seemed the nicest and came highly recommended. Though it didn’t do me much good now that I was sharing it with a man who wanted to drown me.
“Can I have the nice and phony Cruz back?”
I winced when he was so close, I could practically smell him. The tantalizing scent of sandalwood with leather on a moneyed man, and the sharp, potent musk of male.
His body was hard and large and flush with mine, humming with the need to break something. Preferably my bones.
My back was plastered against the raised ramp. Behind me, women were giggling and comparing wet t-shirts. I had nowhere to go.
“No,” he whispered, his minty brea
th fanning my three-tiered cake beehive. I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe if I didn’t look at him, he’d disappear. “Nice Cruz is dead to you, Turner. Jesus. I can’t believe you’re actually so…fucking…stupid!”
Out of all the offensive things people had said about me along the years, I genuinely thought this was the most cutting.
First of all, because it came from Cruz, a man who was notoriously incapable of hurting a fly, even if the darned thing was me, and who’d specifically dedicated his life and work to making people feel better.
Secondly, because this time, I believed him.
I was stupid.
I looked away, trying hard not to cry, aware we were gathering a small and curious audience. My ability to burst into tears at a moment’s notice was legendary and was becoming a huge liability at the age of twenty-nine.
I tried to keep my voice calm. “I suggest we both go to our rooms to regroup and talk about it when you cool down a little.”
“You do?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Look at me now, Tennessee.”
I dragged my gaze up from the floorboards of the deck, using every ounce of courage in me to do so. He held up our boarding passes in front of my face.
“Does something about this look weird to you?”
I blinked. I couldn’t register anything, the adrenaline was so thick in my bloodstream.
Naturally, I felt even stupider.
I could practically hear his thoughts.
She can’t read. Unbelievable. My brother is marrying a woman whose sister is illiterate.
“What’s the matter?” I huffed, frustrated.
“How many rooms do you see here?”
“One.”
“And how many of us are here?”
“Two.”
“Good girl. Now let those numbers sink in.”
I hung my head in shame. How drunk, exactly, was I when I’d booked those tickets?
Very much, by the looks of it.
I could no longer hold back the tears, and I didn’t want him to see me cry, so I pushed at his chest, turned around, and made a run for it, leaving him right there, surrounded by women in bikinis and wet t-shirts and men who catcalled them to get off the stage and give them some sugar.
My feet still burned, but I was too numb to feel the pain anymore as I wandered aimlessly around the ship. Bear tried to call me back, but I stuffed my phone into my pocket after switching it to silent mode.
I couldn’t face my son with hot tears streaming down my cheeks after screwing up yet another simple task. To be honest, I couldn’t even look him in the eye after the mistake I’d made.
Mom, Dad, and Trinity called, too, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.
Instead, I kept hiking round and round in circles.
This helplessness, this smallness of my being, felt like a symptom of something bigger.
Of my entire existence.
I couldn’t believe this woman.
She was a goddamn menace in a skimpy dress.
I should’ve never let her handle the ticket-booking. This was the girl who’d infamously gotten knocked up under the bleachers of Fairhope High’s football field, while I spotted for her and Rob, the honorable wingman that I was.
I remembered that scene too well.
Cara Loughlin had been buttering me up, trying to get me to ask her to prom in roundabout ways, and all I could think about was the fact that Rob was taking Tennessee Turner’s virginity not even a few feet away from me.
I heard his feral groans, like he was wrestling a pig, not making love with his high school sweetheart, and one soft sigh from her.
Four months later, Tennessee dropped out of high school and started wearing baggy clothes, and we all knew what it meant.
Didn’t help that Rob broke up with her, and in one drunken moment post-prom, while we were all getting tanked at the gazebo by the library, he climbed onto the white pagoda’s roof and hollered, “I’ve been in Tennessee and it felt hella good, y’all!”
The woman who, when asked what was good at Jerry & Sons, replied, “The restroom. Sometimes. When they get cleaned.”
This was the woman I’d trusted to book us the tickets.
I had no one to blame but myself.
In lieu of plan B, I went to locate our stateroom, which was spacious for a cruise (a low standard) but far too small to avoid a woman with a personality the size of Mississippi.
Next, I retrieved my lifejacket and headed to the muster drill.
Anyone who’s ever been on a cruise knows you have a better chance of becoming the first unicorn astronaut than getting out of muster-drill duty. Their announcements are loud enough to wake the dead, and they call your room and make your existence a living hell until you attend the mandatory exercise.
One of the cruise staff scanned my ID card, confirmed my identity, and pointed me to a seat in the corner of the stand-up comedy lounge, my assigned muster station.
While I waited to hear the thirty-minute safety spiel, I tried to think back to how Tennessee Turner had become my one (and only) enemy in Fairhope.
I knew exactly why I detested her, even though my reasons might not be so fair to her, but I hadn’t the faintest idea why she hated me.
I only knew that she did, because she was one of the very few residents in Fairhope who opted to register with a physician all the way in Wilmington instead of staying local.
After the muster drill, I stopped by the guest services desk, which had emptied up considerably, and asked about getting off on the nearest island and joining the Ecstasy.
“Well…” The representative in the extra-ironed uniform beamed timidly. “The issue wouldn’t be leaving the Elation, but finding available rooms on the Ecstasy. Not to mention, both cruise ships would have to be on the same island at approximately the same day for that to happen, which may only occur on day four, depending on the weather.”
“What happens in case of an emergency?”
“We do have an in-house medical clinic, fully equipped, and a helicopter landing pad for medical emergencies. Could you explain the situation to me? Maybe then I’ll be able to help,” the representative encouraged.
I would, but even I don’t understand it very well.
“Do you happen to have any spare rooms, then?” I sighed. “I’ll pay anything.”
Anything.
My lease on the Q8 was ending in half a second, and I was going to upgrade to a Land Rover Sport, but screw it, avoiding this woman took precedence.
“No, I’m so sorry.”
“So am I,” I muttered.
I left her my details and room number, anyway, and asked her to let me know if and when I could escape this unexpected slumber party with the elder Turner.
I think I dropped the “money is not an issue” line three or four times, which made me feel like a smarmy L.A. pimp, but desperate times screamed for desperate measures.
After that, I gave myself a tour around the popular decks, familiarizing myself with the area. As far as cruise ships went, the Elation was probably the best one I’d been on.
It had a dozen restaurants, beauty salons, two waterparks, two casinos, a tennis court, a mall, libraries, bars, a movie theater, an ice skating rink, a performing arts theater, a submarine, and a rollercoaster.
I was beginning to cool off and subconsciously (but evidently not that subconsciously) kept an eye out for Tennessee. I was still angry enough that texting her was out of the question—she’d screwed both of us over and I wasn’t done reminding her—but she’d also looked genuinely upset when we’d parted ways, and I wasn’t used to seeing her wearing any other expression than sheer, stubborn pride. Plus, I knew she was probably freaking out about being away from her son. They’d been attached at the hip from the moment he was born. That must’ve been hard realizing they weren’t on the same ship.
I secretly liked her fight.
The thumb-in-the-nose attitude she gave Fairhope. How she didn’
t back down, didn’t leave, didn’t frantically try to convince everyone she was not who they thought she was.
She got a raw deal when it came to Fairhope, as far as I could tell, making one mistake, for which she’d been one-hundred percent accountable yet held one-hundred percent at fault.
True, she found it hard to concentrate and got some orders at the diner wrong every now and then, but I chalked it up to inattention or phoning in parts of a shitty job, not stupidity. Once you got talking to the woman, you could tell she was a lot of things, but by hell, she was not a moron.
I found Tennessee three hours after we’d parted ways, exactly where I was expecting to locate her—at the open bar, flashing her tanned legs and white teeth. Earlier, the check-in receptionist had confirmed all-you-can-drink packages on our ID cards.
And, of course, Tennessee being Tennessee, she’d already made good use of her package and was nursing a white cocktail, a Maraschino cherry dangling from her full lips, still in her work uniform, chatting up a man in his sixties.
Even from afar, I could tell she was shamelessly flirting. He wore Bermuda pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and a half-drunk smirk that told her wordlessly what he wanted to do to her.
She was probably working her way to his wallet. Rumor around town was that she’d gotten pregnant with Rob’s child purposefully to try to lock him down. The other option, that she genuinely wanted to frolic in the cornfield with Mr. Rich Tourist, shouldn’t have surprised me considering her reputation, but it did.
Either way, fresh anger roared in my blood when I saw her purring and giggling like all was well in the world.
I tromped my way over to her, plastering on my best, your-trusted-doctor smile as I ran my hand up her spine from behind, sprawling my fingers inside her sprayed blonde hair.
I’d have kissed her temple, too, if I didn’t think it’d result in my not being able to have children in this lifetime.
She whirled back almost violently, ripping her body from mine. When she looked at me, the beam dropped from her mouth, and I had to admit—it pissed me off even more that somehow, even though I was the town’s favorite, she was practically allergic to my face.
“Sweetheart.”
I pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, marveling at how small and aesthetically pleasing everything about her was, even when she tried hard to look like the drag queen version of Christina Aguilera.