by Shen, L. J.
From the moment Bear was born, I hadn’t been away from him for more than twelve hours.
This was unheard of.
The pain of missing him gnawed inside me like a nocturnal animal.
Quickly, and before my logic overrode my intense sense of pity, I kissed Brendan’s cheek goodbye and retired to my stateroom. When I got there, I found my suitcase, along with Cruz’s, waiting by the door.
Ours were the only belongings still waiting in the hallway, sitting side by side but still far enough away, like two quarreling lovers.
I decided to bring both of them in, mainly because I didn’t want him to pin it on me if someone stole one of his precious Hermes socks or made-of-silver dental floss or whatever nonsense he was spending his salary on.
I shut the door, pressed my back against it, and closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, I noticed an upholstered crème vanity chair pushed beneath a mirrored desk. I pressed it against the door, its backrest jamming the door handle.
Then I slipped into my pajamas and slid into bed.
I was too tired to wait it out and see how Cruz would react to his position as a temporarily stateroom-less person.
Turned out, I didn’t have to.
He banged on the door like bloody murder at one in the morning, waking me up.
“Tennessee Turner. Open the damn door right now.”
Sitting upright in bed, I held my breath and stared at the door like he was going to Hulk his way through it.
I wasn’t mean.
I didn’t want to share a bed with Cruz Costello.
I didn’t trust him.
And besides, I hadn’t shared a bed with anyone in my entire life. Even my virginity had been taken on a patch of cool grass under the bleachers, peppered with weeds.
But most of all—I thought Cruz might make a move, seeing as I was the town’s favorite harlot. And I didn’t trust myself to turn him down as I obviously should.
“I know you’re awake,” he gritted out from the other side of the door.
“I am,” I said casually. “So what?”
“I’m not going to sleep outside.”
“Sure about that?” I yawned.
“Goddammit, Tennessee.”
“Don’t say God’s name in vain. He has nothing to do with this situation.”
“You’re going to pay for this.”
“Can I pay you with the same tips you give me? Because I think you should be investing in better manners now.”
Dropping my head back to a mountain of pillows, I grinned.
“Well, at least tonight you’re safe from my gonorrhea, Mr. Weiner.”
“Could’ve happened to anyone.”
Bear shrugged adamantly the next day, referring to the Cruisegate debacle—again—while we were FaceTiming.
I held my phone high in the air, drifting around my room in my hot pink bikini, over which I’d thrown a pearl caftan that looked very much like something you’d find in Victoria’s Secret’s raunchier side of the store, not the beach.
I headed over to the bathroom where I slathered my face with makeup.
“No, it couldn’t. And anyway, it didn’t happen to anyone. It happened to me.” I pouted at the mirror in front of me.
“I just don’t understand why you’d make us look so bad.” My mother, of course.
She peeped behind Bear, joined by my father, who gave me a tired grin and said, “Hi, Nessy.”
“Hope you’re being nice to Dr. Costello, pumpkin.” Mom’s voice held a note of a warning. “He’s a stand-up guy. Doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the middle of this.”
That stand-up guy told people I was his cousin and we were passing sexually transmitted diseases to one another last night—before hitting on anyone in a skirt, I wanted to scream.
Instead, I told myself that I was currently riding this jerk’s overpriced internet package talking to my family, so it wasn’t like karma didn’t get him at all.
“Yes, he knows how terribly sorry I am.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. “Where’s Trinity?”
My mother looked over to the other side of the room and winced.
Oh, goodie.
So Trinity was there and didn’t want to talk to me. Again.
I didn’t know what had happened between us, exactly.
I’d always been so close to my younger sister—even after I fell pregnant and became an embarrassment to my family—but in recent months, she’d grown detached, cold, almost judgmental.
It made no sense.
Trinity had always been the one to jump at someone’s throat when they said something mean about me.
She defended me with everything she had and maintained that people gave me a heck of a bad time, conveniently ignoring Rob’s wrongdoings. Some even said they understood him for not choosing to screw up his life and stay.
Trinity and I hadn’t fought, or anything like that to warrant the sudden way we’d drifted apart. Though, I had an inkling why she was reserved.
Dr. Costello Senior and his wife Catherine were arguably the most honorable citizens of Fairhope. While Trinity didn’t give a clap about what her classmates had said about me, Catherine and Andrew’s opinion was an entirely different matter.
She didn’t want me to mess it up with the Costellos for her sake—for her future as part of their family.
Which meant I had to make an effort with Dr. Satan. If not for myself, then for her.
“Gotcha.” I popped my lips around a scarlet lipstick. “She doesn’t want to talk. That’s fine.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk.” Trinity’s face invaded the phone camera, two stains of blush marring her cheeks. She looked otherwise pale and worried. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, was also dressed like a nun in an attempt to impress her future in-laws. “It’s just that…Christ, Nessy, Catherine is already such a pain in the…”
“Mass,” Bear completed for her.
He knew I didn’t like profanity.
“That,” Trinity agreed. “And now she is going around muttering mean things under her breath about us. Oh, Nessy, she is so awful.”
Something in my chest eased that she was talking to me again. Maybe it was just wedding stress?
“Look, I’m sorry. It was an honest mistake. What does Wyatt say about all this?”
I applied a third coat of mascara, waiting to hear a knock on the door and find a wrinkled-looking Cruz. So far, the morning had been blissfully Costello-free, but I wasn’t counting on that to last.
“He’s not saying anything.” Trinity sighed. “His parents are his idols. He’ll never go against them.”
“Sounds like a catch.”
“Don’t give me lip, Nessy. You’ve no right after the life choices you’ve made.”
Ouch.
“Well, hang in there, okay? I’ll make it better when I see them. I’ll apologize a thousand times. I swear.”
After hanging up and looking overly made up—I didn’t need a weekly therapist appointment to know it was a camouflage technique designed to protect myself from society—I strutted out of my room, swinging a little faux-fur purse.
I looked about as classy as a ketchup stain on a strapless cropped top and was perfectly okay with that.
After all, I couldn’t be accused of trying to bag a British royal on a cruise from North Carolina to the Bahamas.
I couldn’t find Cruz anywhere during breakfast, which contributed greatly to my sense of urgency to fix whatever I messed up between my family and the Costellos.
Afterwards, on my way to the pool, I strutted by a glass-walled library overlooking the ocean and spotted him sitting by himself, looking fresh as a daisy, wearing an entire outfit I’d seen on a mannequin the day before from the boardwalk in Prada’s window.
Black Bermuda shorts, a chunky navy top, and his big, bold watch.
He’d so spent the night in Cruise Director Lady Woman’s room. If anyone was giving anyone STDs, it was this gasstard. I made a note not to
get anywhere near Gabriella Holland’s southern region when we did our bridesmaids’ fittings.
He was sipping an espresso and catching up on the news on an iPad attached to the table by a security wire.
Taking a few calming breaths, I pushed the glass door to the library open and sashayed toward him, stopping right in front of him.
Low elevator music filled the room, which was full with men of fifty-five and over. I wondered at what point in time, exactly, Cruz Costello had morphed from a dashing Q1 with steel buns to a Floridian pensioner.
“Did you know constantly reading the news is almost as detrimental to your heart as smoking?” I blurted. Because saying stupid stuff had always been easier than apologizing.
He didn’t look up from the iPad, swiping his finger across it to turn a page.
“I didn’t know that, because it’s not true. Cite your source.”
“Southern Belle magazine.”
“Allow me to be skeptical. Is this your version of an apology?” His words rippled through me.
Dang, he had a good, low voice.
“If I’m going to apologize, so should you.”
He looked up, lounging back on the plush, brown recliner he was occupying, a puff of his undiluted woody scent invading my nostrils, making everything under my naval tingle.
“What for?”
“Telling Brendan we were cousins, and married, and carrying STDs. In that exact order.”
“Fair enough,” he surprised me by saying. “You go first.”
I closed my eyes.
I wasn’t four anymore.
Then why was it so hard to apologize?
Your sister’s happiness is on the line. Now’s not the time to have pride.
“Sorry I booked us the wrong tickets. I truly, truly didn’t mean to.”
“In that case, I apologize for embarrassing you in front of your little friend, but reserve the right to do it again when provoked, on the grounds it was more fun than I’ve had in years.” He motioned toward the chair next to him. “Coffee?”
“Please.” I sat down, feeling a little awkward.
The truth was, I wasn’t used to being served. I’d always been the one doing the serving. Nonetheless, a waitress from the attached coffee shop came to take my order—a flat white and a French-sounding pastry I couldn’t pronounce, but could point out on the menu.
It occurred to me that I had to pay for my food, and I hated myself for not sticking with free breakfast, served earlier, or the free twenty-four-hour buffet on the lido deck I had too much pride to bail to.
But I had the tip money from yesterday in my purse, so I wouldn’t have to tally it up on my monthly Excel sheet. I could still get Bear his video game at the end of the month. Maybe.
“So. Did you get lucky yesterday?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
“If by lucky you mean I didn’t have to spend the night with you, then yes.”
“Did you spend it with someone else?” I asked casually.
“Yes.”
Okay, that was not supposed to hurt. Certainly not the way it did. I was tangled in tight vines of jealousy that suffocated me.
“Nice. Is she from our neck of the woods?”
“Unsure.” Cruz flipped another page on the iPad. “She was a fifty-year-old Prada saleswoman who secretly rented me her top bunk on the staff deck and opted to sleep with your Brendan, making a hundred-percent profit margin.”
Holy clap.
Dr. Costello was resourceful.
He must’ve mistaken my surprised face for another emotion, because he said slowly and thickly, “Sorry it didn’t work between you and lover boy. Unless, of course, you don’t mind being Bonnie and Brendan’s fifth wheel.”
“He can have Bonnie.”
“From what she told me, when she came to get her electronic card back this morning, you also told him I have two penises.”
I could feel myself getting redder and redder, but I didn’t reply to this.
Cruz threw me a little patronizing smirk. “Actually, I have just the one, but I can see why you’d make that mistake, considering its length and width. I’m flattered you paid such close attention.”
“Why’d you say you weren’t alone, then? She wasn’t with you.”
“Just to see your face. You hate seeing me win.”
“True.” I sighed. “Which sucks, because you’re Dr. Cruz Costello, so you always win.”
“Not always.”
There was a lull in the conversation, and I felt the urge to fill it, somehow.
“I have to say, it’s pretty creative of you to find a way to take my potential sugar daddy away from me before I even made a move.”
The waitress served me my flat white and pastry and hurried to the next table, where people weren’t discussing penises and sugar daddies. Or were they? I took a bite of the buttery dough, washing it down with the hot liquid.
This was definitely better than an orgasm. Or so I told myself, since an orgasm wasn’t in the cards for me. I was bad at giving one to myself and always forgot to plug my vibrator into its charger, since I could only do it when Bear wasn’t home.
Anyone who had a teenage son knew better than to leave things in plain sight. Bear always looked for something in my room, be it a charger, a battery, an elastic band, or some change.
“You don’t need a sugar daddy.”
Was it just me or did Cruz Costello sound super annoyed all of a sudden?
“Why not?” I purred.
“You can get an actual damn husband if you put your mind to it.”
“Ha.” I took another sip of my coffee. “Not in Fairhope.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” He gave me his superior look. The one that reminded me he was so much better than me.
“What’d you hear?” I cocked my head, curious all of a sudden. “Is it Tim Trapp? Because you know I cannot, in good conscience, marry that man and have my son become Bear Trapp.”
Cruz stared at me with a mixture of irritation and revulsion, shaking his head.
“I haven’t heard anything specific. All I’m saying is that if you put a bit of effort—and a lot more clothes on—you’ll find people aren’t as allergic to you as you think.”
“I thought guys liked big hair and boobs and tiny clothes.”
“Not the kind you want to attract.”
“And who should I want to attract?” The conversation was taking a surprising turn once again. “People like you?”
“For instance.” He took a sip of his espresso, crossing his legs like George Clooney in a private plane commercial or something. “Why? Would ending up with someone like me be so terrible?”
No, it’s just that someone like you would never look at me in a billion years.
“Yes,” I said curtly, the sting of rejection already prickling my soul before he blew me off. “It actually would.”
Cruz snarled, baring his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile but left me feeling cold and a little queasy. He stood up, setting the iPad down, handing the waitress his cruise ship ID card, so I wouldn’t have to pay.
If he thought I was going to take the high moral ground and demand to go Dutch, he had another thing coming.
“For the sake of this trip ending without any murder charges being pressed against either of us, I suggest we stay away from each other and meet in the stateroom at the end of every day,” he suggested.
“Sounds good.”
“Where we will share a bed, seeing as I’m not going to sleep on the floor or let Bonnie run my bank account into the ground.”
“That’s fair,” I said evenly. “But there’ll be a pillow barrier between us.”
“All the better.”
“Good. Great. Glad it’s all settled.”
“Oh, and Tennessee?”
“Yes?”
“Next time you lock me out of my own room, paid for by my family, I’m smearing you with blood and tossing you off the ship as shark bait. Understood?”
I could tell by the darkness gleaming from his ocean-blue eyes that he wasn’t completely kidding.
Still… I had to push.
It had become a game.
One I couldn’t find the maturity to stop.
“Whose blood would that be?”
Two hours later, I found myself in what should be my natural habitat—poolside, on the upper deck, tanning my butt cheeks.
After talking to my parents and ensuring that Bear was having a blast (apparently, he hadn’t left the arcade since ten in the morning and had even found a fellow smelling-of-goat teenage friend named Landon), I snagged a sunbed, grabbed a soft paperback someone had left behind, ordered a fruity cocktail, and did something I hadn’t done since age sixteen—relaxed.
No double shifts at the diner, cleaning, washing, doing the laundry, or helping Bear with his homework—or Trinity with her wedding preparations. No bending over for teenage boys or braving the wrath of my ex-high school friends who sneered down at me, with their wedding rings and mortgages.
Even the book was really good for something I’d found with a discounted sticker and a suspicious white stain.
The day was turning out to be too good to be true, which was how I knew things were about to go sideways. Mark my words, if the Elation didn’t suffer a fate similar to the Titanic by the end of the day, then the entire cruise was going to suffer from food poisoning.
Shortly after I had a refreshing salad full of fruit and nuts for lunch, me and my food belly returned to our sunbed. I turned on my stomach and flipped a page in the book when a shadow cast over my body, descending down to my right as someone took a seat on the sunbed beside me, even though the whole row was empty.
There’s a special place in Hell reserved for people who choose to sit beside you when everywhere else is available. And I truly, sincerely hoped this place was overcrowded, and that everyone there had BO, because that’s what these kind of people deserved.
“Why, hello there, sweet cheeks.”
He was definitely not referring to the pair on my face.