by Max Walker
His expression shifted from one of apprehension to something bordering on excitement.
“All right,” he said, clapping his hands together and sitting up a little straighter. “Let’s figure out who the hell is snapping shots of us.”
“So you’ll help?”
“I’ll take your case, Prince Nick.”
I smiled. “Perfect.” I kissed him then, as if I were unable to stop myself, like the excitement had come over me in a tidal wave.
“I’ll keep my eyes open for anyone suspicious, but let me ask you a couple of questions so I can figure out what I’m looking for.”
“Shoot.”
He walked over to the bedside table and grabbed the black leather notebook sitting next to a miniature Christmas tree, shiny red ornaments hanging off its tiny branches. “Did you come on the ship with anyone?” he asked, walking back to the bedside, pen and notebook now in hand.
“The head of my security team, yeah. Her name’s Luna. She’s been watching me for the last fifteen years, though. I trust her with my life. Quite literally.”
I could tell Shiro still had a few question marks over his head. He wouldn’t be a good detective if he didn’t.
“What’s she look like?”
“Tall, with short brown hair. A pointed nose and a kind smile. Blue-gray eyes… Actually, forget it, I’ll just introduce you two.”
“Perfect. I’d like to ask her a couple of questions, too.” He jotted something down, clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “Did either of you tell anyone about this trip? Was it planned way in advance?”
“We bought the tickets weeks ago and told no one. I wanted it to be as quiet as possible. Even my father didn’t know, which is a rare occurrence.”
“And you haven’t recognized anyone on the ship so far, right?”
I shook my head. “No one. Besides Luna of course.” I rubbed my chin, my stubble scratching an itch on my finger. “Is this an impossible task? Did I just ruin your vacation?”
Shy huffed out a laugh. “Are you kidding? You’ve made this vacation, Nick. I’m going to figure out who’s on this ship and leaking photos of you. That’s beyond fucked up. You should be able to live without worrying over who’s profiting from rumors and unsolicited photos of you.” He pursed his lips into a tight smile. “And me.”
“Thank you, Shy.”
“Of course.”
I kissed that smile of his, kissed him until he said we needed to go down to the sweater party before Ace knocked down the door SWAT-style. I didn’t want to go anywhere, just wanted to keep kissing him until we ended up as a tangle of arms and legs and tongues. I never wanted to leave the confines of this room, just wanted to stay with Shy, exploring his body after shedding off all our clothes, cruising into Christmas with his naked form against mine, not worrying about the outside world for a single second.
That sounded like it would end up being one hell of a holly jolly Christmas.
10 Shiro Brooks
The ugly Christmas sweater party was popping. The Frosty Ballroom had been packed from wall to wall with cruisegoers wearing their ugliest of sweaters. The grand room had been transformed so that it looked like we were inside of a large igloo. The walls had been covered in big, opaque bricks that looked like they were carved from ice blocks, blue and white light shining from behind them, casting an icy glow on the party. The temperature also reflected the setting; the air-conditioning must have been working on overtime to cool down the huge space. There was a lot of dancing and drinking and eating, along with a corner that had an assortment of different board games and card games people could play. It didn’t help that the ship appeared to be going through some rough waters and was slightly choppier than usual, but the drinks and good company minimized any discomfort.
Nick and I sat next to a Christmas tree, which looked fake but still gave off the fresh pine scent that always teleported me to the holiday season. It was decorated in blue and silver ribbons and balls, a bed of golden gift boxes wrapped up and piled underneath.
None of it really mattered, though, and that was all because I could hardly take my eyes off the man sitting in front of me. A man whose secrets had been unraveled and who now felt even more surreal than before. I had initially thought Nick looked princely, making him feel like he had waltzed onto the ship after walking straight out of a fairy tale.
I had no idea that Nick actually was a prince. And now I wondered if there actually was a fairy tale.
If things weren’t complicated before, they sure as hell were now.
I couldn’t continue staring at him forever, though. One: because that was creepy as hell, and I wasn’t here about to scare off the man of my dreams by acting like Krampus. And two: I found myself back on the job even though vacation was far from over.
I didn’t mind it. I loved my job, and I loved to help people with their problems, even when those problems quite literally fell on my lap. I wasn’t about to tell Nick I couldn’t help him figure out who was leaking the photos because I was off the clock. So I would occasionally peel my eyes off Nick and his perfect princely jawline and scan the crowd, trying to spot any lingering cruisegoers, anyone who had their gaze in our direction for too long. I already clocked one lady wearing a vomit-green sweater with two elves holding hands on the front who angled her phone toward us a couple of times already, and then there was a man in a maroon sweater with silver tinsel attached randomly around it, who I had caught staring on multiple occasions.
I filed them away in my memory, noting the woman’s halo of orange hair and the man’s bald head and crooked-toothed smile. I was going to keep my eye on them, same way they appeared to be doing to us.
“Hey, Nick, when you get a chance, stretch to your left and look at the man in the red sweater. Do you know him?”
Nick put his arms in the air and gave a convincing yawn as he stretched, twisting his body so he looked in the direction I asked. But, just as he did it, the man turned and moved behind the large Frosty the Snowman cake sitting on a tall table against the wall.
“Who?” Nick asked, finishing his stretch.
“Forget it, he moved.”
“Think he was taking photos of us?”
“I’ve just spotted him looking our way a few times.” I grabbed my snow-colada and took a long sip through the paper straw. The sweet taste of strawberry and coconut mixed with pineapple and rum hid how drunk I was beginning to get. I could see Nick suddenly go tense in his chair, sitting up straighter, both hands on the table, eyes looking somewhere behind me.
It broke my heart. He was so scared of getting caught just being himself. It was a tragic existence. Like he was a caged circus animal, trained to act in the way that appeased his captors, ignoring the way he was born to act. He looked younger to me then, the sadness subtracting years from his twenty-three.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “even if they get photos, it’s just two guys chatting at a themed holiday party. That’s it.” I tried to reassure him but felt like I missed the mark. The way he half-heartedly smirked at me only verified that.
“One of those guys who happens to be the prince of Spain, and who happens to be drooling over the other guy in front of him. Yeah, that won’t end up trending.” Nick’s sarcasm was welcome. I enjoyed a little back-and-forth teasing.
“Drooling over me?” I batted my lashes. “Here I was thinking you just wanted another serving of that pizza.”
“Are you calling me out for eating five slices?”
“I’m just impressed,” I said, tilting my head, smiling. “And honestly, I’ve never had someone make me wish I was a slice of cheese-and-pepperoni pizza before.”
Nick laughed at that, the sound coming as a sweet relief. I enjoyed the sound of his laughter, even if I’d only just become acquainted with it yesterday. It didn’t feel like his laugh was anything new in my life. I felt like I’d been hearing it for years and years.
“All right, so since this is just ‘two guys chatting,’ let’s
chat.” Nick leaned back in his chair, but his leg moved forward, brushing against mine. The table was covered in a thick white tablecloth that rippled to the floor, making me positive the crossing of our legs was hidden.
“Let’s,” I said, moving my leg up and down, rubbing it on Nick’s. My jeans bunched up my ankle, feeling tighter around my crotch. “So, Nick, what’s your daily life like, then? As a prince?”
Loud pop music filled the room, and the tables surrounding us had been emptied as people got up to dance, drinks high in the air, so I was sure no one could overhear us.
“Should I give you the real version or the dressed-up one?”
“What kind of question is that.” I arched my brow. “The real one.” Nick’s leg pushed against mine, pressing my legs together, adding pressure to my growing bulge.
“Well, it depends on the day and what era of my life we’re talking about. When I was in my late teens, all I’d do was sleep and go out to party, with very little school on the side. Somehow, I managed to pass everything I needed to and went on to university, where I think my professors were terrified of flunking a prince, and so they let me skate on through. Those days had me drinking even more. I was definitely hiding my pain, stuffing it down with bottles. I never let anyone see, and for the most part, I don’t think anyone cared. They all wanted the next story, and a drunk prince could deliver a story much better than a sober one. So I did.”
“So you’ve never talked to anyone? About how you’ve felt?”
Nick shook his head, his eyes turning down at the glass of vodka cranberry in his hands. “It was pretty lonely. I almost broke and told this one girl I’d been seeing. She made me feel absolutely terrible, every single day. And not because of anything she did. I just saw her falling more and more in love by the day, and meanwhile I was drifting further away. So I almost told her what was really going on.”
“What happened?”
“I broke up with her instead. Moved on to someone else—a girl who was clearly in it just for the throne. For the money and the paparazzi and the designer jewelry. That was easy for me. Being with someone who had no real connection to me, because I knew I could never connect with them.”
“You protected yourself by surrounding yourself with monsters.”
“Basically. Yeah.” His gaze dropped. “Except for my last girlfriend, Cristella. She was a good one, too. It broke my heart breaking hers.”
I wanted to reach across the table and put my hand on his. Wanted to draw his eyes up with a kiss, one that told him he no longer had to be scared.
Of course, it was a fragile dream that shattered moments after it formed. I couldn’t reach over. I couldn’t kiss him. I couldn’t do anything that I wanted to for fear of someone seeing. Our connection had to be hidden by a tablecloth.
“You should never have to do that again—surround yourself with empty relationships,” I said, speaking with conviction.
“I don’t want to.”
It barely registered to me that I was consoling royalty. Nick appeared princely to me after finding out his true heritage, but still, he felt so grounded. Like he had grown up just down the street from me, went to the same school as me, watched the same cartoons as me.
“I can tell you aren’t a monster, Shy.”
My breath hitched. I swallowed a lump in my throat. Hearing Nick call me by my nickname, and the way he said it, it… fuck. It did something to me.
Or maybe it was the fact that his leg rubbed harder against mine under the table, as if the desperation between us was seconds from screeching like a boiling teakettle. “I’m not,” I said.
Under the table, I kicked back my foot and slipped off my shoe, my sock pulling off with it.
I couldn’t take it. Nick rubbing his leg against mine was making me wild. I wanted to show him how he could connect with me, how I could be everything he wanted and more.
Nick, who had been wearing sandals, must have kicked them off, because my bare foot rested against his, the warmth and softness of our skin on skin lighting a fire in my chest. Nick’s gaze locked on mine, and his tongue traced the lines of his upper lip.
“What, uh, else does a prince do?” I asked, my wires crossing.
Nick, wearing the cockiest fucking smile ever, answered with a simple “This.”
And, before I could ask what he meant, he leaned a little farther back in his chair and lifted his leg, his foot pushing my thighs apart, landing directly on my hard bulge. His smirk grew as he started to rub. My jaw parted, and I was sure I must have looked dumbfounded to anyone who was watching, but there was no way of knowing that Nicholas Silva, the prince of freaking Spain, was currently giving me a foot job, the two of us glowing under the ocean-blue lighting.
“Sounds, very, you know.” I swallowed. Flames licked at my chest. “Like you do very important things.”
“Very.”
He rubbed a little harder. I started lifting my hips up and down, a motion that couldn’t be discernible whatsoever, but a motion that built up an immense pressure in my balls. I wanted to grab my drink but was scared I would end up trembling and dropping the damn thing.
“Did you both transcend into another dimension?” The question and voice threw me out of the spell. I jerked up in my seat, planting my foot underneath me again. Nick sat up as well, leaving my boner aching under the table.
“Hey, Jada,” we both said in weird unison. Who knew getting edged by a foot job would telepathically link us?
“Sorry, am I interrupting?”
Both Nick and I shook our heads. “No, no,” we echoed each other again.
“Riiiight.” Jada threw me a smile like she was throwing a dagger, pointed and deadly if it wasn’t caught right.
I smiled back, hoping it didn’t look like I was caught with my hands down my pants.
Which just so happened to be exactly where I wanted them right now.
Jada grabbed a seat next to me, her sweater jingling up a storm as she sat. The tiny silver bells that were glued down her chest spelled out “Ho, Ho, Ho.” She started to look around, most likely for her boyfriend. I reached under the table and quickly pulled my sock back on, slipping my shoe on right after. Nick seemed as cool as an igloo-chilled cucumber, not giving away any hints that he had been jerking me off with his foot only seconds earlier.
Jada waved someone down from the crowd. Ace came through, Rex standing tall right behind him. Ace’s sweater jingled when he sat, although much less than Jada’s had. I couldn’t hold back the laugh from how ridiculous his sweater was.
“What? Still gives you the giggles?” He wiggled his chest, the lone ball jingling against him.
The sweater truly won top prize in the ugly competition. It was made of a thick, scratchy-looking material with threads coming out every which way. It was a deep red in color, almost resembling a scabbed-up wound. There were small frills around the sleeves and neck, adding a subtle ugly touch that enhanced the look even more.
But the chef’s kiss of it all was the embroidering on Ace’s chest. It was of a cat wearing a Santa hat, but the cat happened to be walking away so that the center of Ace’s chest was taken up by a furry butthole. The tail slinked upward, and the legs crisscrossed, making it appear as if the cat, with its oversized Santa hat, was disappearing into Ace’s body, leaving us with a view of his ass and the dangling silver ball that hung from it, as if his business in the litter box hadn’t been completely finished.
Ace gave his chest a wiggle again, the table cracking up. Rex’s sweater was more subdued in its ugliness. It was an off-blue color, with oversized snowflakes stitched across the chest and arms, silver glitter sprinkled haphazardly across it.
“I just love how your sweaters match,” Ace said, pointing between Nick and me. Because of course he would catch on to the similarities and call them out.
Jada looked at us, nodding as if she’d just solved a tough sudoku. “You’re right. That’s so funny.”
Our sweaters matched because Nick hadn’t
brought one and I had packed two when Mason and I were still together and forgot to take them out. My sweater, a blue-and-red creation, was terribly stitched with a smiling Santa that also might have been crying. He was lifting a beer mug to the side of the sweater, which made sense when I stood next to Nick, who had an elf on his, also stitched in the same terrible fashion, also holding a mug to the side of his sweater.
Before I could think up of a reason why our sweaters matched, I spotted someone in the crowd. He wasn’t dancing or drinking, but he was looking our way intently.
It was him again. The man with the bald head and maroon tinsel sweater. That’s when I saw he had his phone out and pointed toward us. I noticed something on his hand; a tattoo? A birthmark? It was hard to tell under the lights. Then I saw the barest hint of a flash go off.
It was enough for me to want a few words with the man.
“Guys, I’ll be right back. Give me a few minutes.”
I could feel Nick watch me as I stood and left the table. I started toward the man, who looked up from his phone screen and locked eyes with me. There was a brief moment of fear crossing his face before it went neutral again, the blues and whites of the igloo wall shining off his head. He turned and began to make his way through the crowd, toward the large exit sign above the open double doors. I sped up, accidentally shoving someone and offering a quick apology, not wanting to lose the guy.
He turned. I followed him, the exit sign shining like the North Star. But instead of going through it, the man made another turn, digging deeper into the sweater-adorned crowd, everyone laughing and chatting and dancing, none the wiser to the mini pursuit going on in their midst.
I went on tiptoes, looking over the crowd, spotting the bald head. I went through the dance floor, cutting past the bar, my power walk bordering on a full-out run.
He threw a glance over his shoulder, his big eyes catching mine again. It made me sure that I had the right guy.
We continued walking away from the exits, deeper into the crowd. Was he trying to lose me? It was admittedly getting difficult figuring out which sweater was his. People were bumping into me, some asking to dance.