by Shen, L. J.
I squinted up, using my hand as a visor against the sun. The guy in front of me looked like your typical frat boy, not a day over twenty, with a baseball cap turned backward, Hawaiian swim trunks, and a Bros Before Hos tattoo across his chest that I wagered his fraternity friends had inked themselves with, too.
“Name’s Dale.”
Of course it was. I bet when his mother had an ultrasound, all they saw inside her uterus was a cardboard sign that said douchebag.
“Nessy.”
“That’s a cute name. You from around here?”
Where would that be?
The middle of the Caribbean Sea?
“Look, I’m real flattered you saw my tush and didn’t think I was a twenty-nine-year-old overworked, underpaid single mother, but that’s what I am. So can we skip the chitchat, and may I suggest you try the waterpark across the deck? Lots of girls your age there.”
I was entirely too direct. But struggling single moms did not have the luxury of blipping around with flunk-boys.
“I don’t mind you’re twenty-nine.” He was rolling a swizzlestick from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Well, I do.” I let my head drop against the sunbed and turned it in the other direction, considering the conversation over.
It wasn’t that I was against dating men, but if I were to end a thirteen-year man-strike, it wasn’t going to be with Dale here, who found it fitting to ink himself with something so classless, even by my standards.
“Age’s just a number.”
“That’s a very romantic take.”
Pucking chit, would this guy ever leave?
“Oh, I’m not a romantic. I’m only looking for something casual, honey pie.”
“Thanks for clarifying. I was just debating what kind of diamond I want on my engagement ring.”
I was going to have to evacuate myself from the spot soon.
I couldn’t afford to brawl with someone on this boat. The Costellos were already watching me with hawk eyes, waiting for me to deliver the final blow to my reputation’s back and make them beg their son to cancel his engagement to my sister. And their informer, Cruz, was on this boat.
Nope. I was walking on thin ice as it was already.
Stumbling, more like.
“Damn, Nessy. Just give me a chance. I’ll make it good for you.”
Douchebag Dale placed his hand on my elbow, giving it a squeeze. I withdrew quickly, like he’d put fire to me. Maybe it was an exaggeration, but I hated men touching me.
Perhaps because the last man who had left me in the most vulnerable position I’d ever been in. Or maybe because it was far too common in Fairhope to pinch my waist or pat the small of my back—too close to my butt—to grab my attention when someone wanted to place an order with me.
“Don’t touch me!”
The words didn’t mean to sound like a whimper, but they came out like it, anyway.
“Sweetheart,” I heard a familiar, raspy brogue. One that couldn’t belong to just any ordinary mortal. Every inch of my flesh blossomed into pebbles, and the fine hair on my neck stood on end despite the sun pounding down on me. “There you are. Sorry I’m late. I decided to take the advanced jujutsu class after kickboxing.”
Before I knew what was happening, Douchebag Dale’s hand was off of my elbow, tossed away physically by another, much larger male hand.
Cruz landed on the edge of my sunbed, making it dip to one side. He was shirtless now, wearing a ball cap the correct and grown-up way.
I was glad I had my shades on, because now I could drink him in without him having the satisfaction of knowing I was looking.
His torso was mouthwateringly muscular, his skin golden and smooth. He had bulging arms, with veins that snaked all the way to his forearms. A thin strip of blond curls snaked from below his navel and disappeared somewhere under his shorts.
I wanted to follow that trail with my tongue.
I should really remember to charge my vibrator when I get back home.
Cruz polished a shiny red apple on his swim trunks, then took a juicy bite.
Slammed with this surprise lust toward Dr. Costello, and an unexplainable desire to switch places with his apple, I turned my head away and ignored both men.
“She your wife?” Douchebag Dale mumbled.
“The one and only,” Cruz replied. “The lucky Mrs. Weiner.”
“Weiner,” DD repeated, giving a Beavis-and-Butthead type snort.
“Problem?” Cruz asked.
“No. No. Great last name. German, right?”
There was a pause. Cruz picked up the sunscreen beside me, squirted a generous amount of white lotion onto his hand, and began massaging my back with it.
Holy wow, this feels good.
“Gotta keep you safe from the sun,” he said with the apple still trapped between his teeth. “You know I’m the only thing allowed to make your behind red.”
Oh. My. Grub.
His hands were strong and confident, his fingers long, and I told myself I was letting him do this because I didn’t need another fight on my hands with a Costello.
Not because it was stirring all kinds of things in the lower region of my body, or because the minute his skin touched mine, I realized that my back had really needed a massage for the last decade or so.
“You’re still here,” Cruz said casually, referring to Douchebag Dale. “Do you want your face punched, or are you waiting for me to forget you’re hitting on my wife and go grab myself a beer?”
“Uhm. Yeah. No. I’m…” Young Dale stood up, looking around him, as if he forgot something. Maybe his pride. “Sorry. My dad…I mean, bad! My bad.”
“Go on. And tell your friends she’s taken, too. I don’t want to see any of y’all getting anywhere near my missus.”
Cruz made a show of flexing his muscles, giving Dale a front-row ticket to the gun show.
I had to admit, I was impressed.
I knew Cruz was a runner and that he took it upon himself to coach the T-ball little league at our local elementary school (which, frankly, I found creepy considering he had no kids there), but I didn’t know he was that ripped.
He was considerably taller than Dale and had at least twenty more pounds of muscle on him.
“All right. Yeah. Fair.”
As soon as Dale was gone, Cruz withdrew his hands from me as fast as humanly possible, shifting to the sunbed next to mine. I mourned the loss of his touch, but celebrated the fact I might get to relax enough to nap under the sun for a couple more hours before dinner, now that the frat boy was gone.
“You’re welcome,” Cruz said, when I didn’t offer him a thank you.
I propped my cheek against the sunbed, staring at him through my shades.
“You really like being everyone’s hero, don’t you?” There was no cure for my pettiness where this man was concerned.
“What’s not to like?”
He braced the sunbed from both sides, his biceps poking out, his six-pack on full display. Beside them, his apple was eaten to the core. He’d demolished it.
I wonder if he eats his apple the way he eats pu…
“Heroes are such simple creatures,” I heard myself exclaim passionately. “I, for one, am always hot for the villain in the movies.”
“That could explain a few things about your life.”
“Hey.” I curved an eyebrow. “You calling your best friend a villain?”
Now that Rob was back in town, I was sure he and Cruz would rekindle their bromance.
“No, I’m calling you a woman with very few scruples.”
I laughed throatily, turning on my back and propping one leg over the other. I noticed that not even Saint Cruz was able to rip his eyes from my swollen breasts, which made the strings holding my bikini top work extra hard.
“Nice truce, we’ve got here.”
“What can I say? You bring out the worst out in me.” He shook his head.
“Then why did you save me from Mr. Douchebag?”
“
Only one person is allowed to give you a hard time on this cruise, and that person is me.”
I mulled his words over.
On one hand, I liked the fact that despite our banter, Cruz Costello truly was completely harmless, in a sense that I knew he would never be cruel or downright mean to me. He just didn’t have it in him. He was genuinely a good guy, and he would never do anything to spite me. He would protect me from Dales.
On the other hand, that was precisely what made him so dangerous. He was lovable to a fault, and I…well, I couldn’t fall in love. I couldn’t afford the distraction.
As it was, I was flailing to survive.
And he had Gabby. Or not? Why tell me that?
When I realized we’d been silent for over a minute, I told Cruz, “Look, we need to try to be cordial with one another. It’s important to Trinity and Wyatt.”
“I’m cordial.”
“Can you pretend I don’t appall you?” I stressed.
“I can try.”
“Good. Your approval of me in Fairhope is like getting absolution from the pope. While you’re at it, my eyes are up here.” I motioned to my face, when it became apparent Dr. Costello couldn’t stop looking at my cleavage.
His cheekbones flushed pink, and he swung his gaze to the pool.
“You’re wearing shades,” he said.
“Then look elsewhere.”
“Already on it.”
“They’re not fake, you know.”
I sniffed. It was one of the many rumors about me around Fairhope. That I got myself a new pair of tits for my eighteenth birthday to try to bag a wealthy husband who’d accept my toddler son as a package deal.
In truth, my breasts just never fully bounced back (pun definitely intended) from being Bear’s open buffet for the two years I breastfed him (formula costs a fortune).
“I never bought into those rumors.”
“Then why were you looking?” I challenged.
“Because I’m a red-blooded man, and you’re…” He stopped himself from finishing the sentence.
“What?” I asked, almost frantically.
Up until a second ago, I found it impossible to believe he found me more attractive than a warm bucket of spit.
“Nothing.”
I ripped the shades from my face, swinging my legs across the sunbed and sitting up straight. My harlot smile was scarlet-red and on full display.
“What am I, Cruz?”
“Hot,” he said gruffly, his voice low and measured and full of the things he wanted to do to me. “Extremely hot.”
“You think?”
“Now you’re just fishing.”
“Humor me,” I pouted.
“Why?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, which was slightly pink in comparison to the rest of his bronze self.
Ha!
So Cruz Costello didn’t get an amazing tan all over. This insignificant imperfection made me feel way more happy than I should.
“Because we have eight more days after today to spend together in a stateroom the size of a postage stamp, and I want to know what to expect.”
“An abundance of alone time and zero hanky-panky.”
“You just said hanky-panky.” I may or may not have giggled.
“You say gasshole, lady. And I’m leaving.”
But he didn’t stand up, and I suspected I knew why. My eyes slid down to his crotch.
He shifted on the orange Moroccan deck chair, crossing his legs.
I pouted, pretending not to notice. “Not good enough for you, am I?”
“You’re full of bull, Tennessee Lilybeth Turner. You wouldn’t have me if I were the last man on Earth.”
He remembered my middle name.
A flutter passed under my belly button.
“And why do you think that is?”
“Because you hate men.” His ’stache twitched. “All of them. No exceptions. We scare you. You do realize Bear’s going to grow up to become one, too, right?”
Yes, and I’d rather not think about it.
There was a beat of silence. I didn’t deny his analysis. There was no point.
We both leaned back on our sunbeds, watching people doing laps in the pool, couples making out and splashing one another.
“What’re you thinking about?” he asked after a few minutes.
“Why’re you asking?”
“You always think about weird stuff. Like that pearl thing. The blister story.”
“That’s a hard fact, Dr. Costello.”
“Well.” He tipped his ball cap down, like a cowboy, a smile tugging on his lips under his perfect mustache. “Indulge me.”
I frowned. “I’m thinking there are so many germs and semi-exposed genitalia happening in this water every single day. There’s absolutely no way on Earth you’ll find me inside a cruise ship’s pool.”
He laughed.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“That you’re different from what I thought,” he said. “Very different.”
“Whatever,” I answered, because he didn’t seem like he said it in a bad way, but frankly, I had enough pride that I didn’t want to be caught fishing for compliments twice in ten minutes.
“So. Wanna have dinner together? A friendly dinner,” he asked.
“You’re buying.”
“It’s free.”
I sighed. “The drinks, too?”
“I’m afraid so.”
A woman walked by in a fancy dress.
“Then how about a nice Prada dress? I really do want to live the kept woman life, even if only for a day.”
“That’s a no.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re a clappy husband, Mr. Weiner.”
“And you have a weird aversion to profanity.”
He got up and offered me a hand, and I took it.
And that’s when the trouble began.
If this cruise had taught me anything med school hadn’t, other than the fact Tennessee Turner had no future in the travel business, it was that you could, in fact, have a three-hour erection without prescribed erectile medication.
Fine, five.
Six, but honestly, more like five-and-a-half.
Non. Freaking. Stop.
At first, I’d noticed her from across the pool, tiny pink bikini on her supermodel figure, tanning her ass.
There was not one man in the vicinity who didn’t drink her up with his eyes, until finally, every self-respecting woman in the area dragged her beau from that row of seats, leaving Tennessee completely alone and easy prey.
I’d watched from a safe distance, the majority of my blood concentrated between my legs and again wondered why she was so hard to avoid on a cruise ship the size of Long Island.
I’d planned to catch up on some medical journals, but the only thing I learned during the afternoon was that Tennessee Turner had zero bad angles.
Trust me—I checked.
Finally, a tatted fuckboy put some moves on her.
I’d studied her reaction closely. Word around town was that she was a hussy, but I had a zero-bull-crap policy and only believed what my eyes could see when it came to people.
And what I noticed over the years was that Tennessee not only actively blocked everyone’s advances, but she hadn’t been seen with a man since Robert Gussman.
I could tell by her body language that Tennessee didn’t appreciate her new admirer’s attentions. I struggled with staying out of the situation, until the asshole put his hand on her elbow.
I was there in half a second, shooed him away, and stuck around for the—wait for it—conversation.
Because, as it turned out, Tennessee Turner was pretty damn entertaining to be around. Or, at least, she didn’t blow smoke up my ass and treat me like I walked on water (although I didn’t doubt for a second she’d unceremoniously toss me off the ship just to be sure).
She was the only person in Fairhope who saw past my shiny exterior, and I was curious to know
what, exactly, she was seeing.
We made our way to our room. I carried her straw beach tote, grateful to have something to conceal my raging hard-on as she blabbered happily about the strategy we’d use for the open buffet we’d chosen for dinner.
She seemed to mistake a cruise vacation for a war, and was getting pretty animated about it.
“The poultry and meat section is always packed. The lines are terrible, I noticed yesterday. I suggest you stand there and get each of us double portions while I take care of the pasta and salads. Unless you want potatoes with your meat? I don’t know. I don’t think I can look at potatoes the same way since I started working at Jerry & Sons. Coulter has done some pretty dreadful things with them over the years.”
“I eat there every week, you know.”
She waved her hand to disregard me, something I found oddly endearing. Even her fingers were sexy.
“Nothing too unhygienic. Besides, you always order the BLT with a salad on the side.”
“Comforting.”
We left the elevator and rounded the hallway leading to our room. In the distance, I spotted two women dressed in management uniforms and a middle-aged couple talking animatedly.
“So how come you never looked for something else for work?” I asked.
“I’m not very bright.”
“Not many people are.”
Pointing out that she was smart, or at the very least more quick-witted and eloquent than anyone I knew, would be considered ass-kissing.
Plus, I had a feeling she wasn’t going to believe I saw her as a fully rounded, nuanced human being, no matter how fervently I pleaded my case.
“Fairhope is a small town. Not a whole lot of job opportunities.”
“They pop up every now and then.”
“Come on, Cruz. I appreciate it, I do. But people don’t like me, and it would be cruel to make me want to try.”
I was starting to get irritated, but I wasn’t sure if it was with her, with the town we lived in, or both.
“It’s a chicken and egg situation, Turner. No one knows what came first. You’re not even trying. Of course people think the worst about you.”
“Good. Let them.”
As we came closer to the couple and the management representatives, their voices grew louder. The middle-aged lady was crying and flinging herself against the wall dramatically, while her husband rubbed her back to comfort her, looking at a loss.