Rock the Boat

Chapter 1

‘I don’t think I can do this,’ I tell Adam, stopping dead on the path, the Mallorcan sun beating down on the back of my neck, my hair ruffled by the breeze.

I press one hand against my stomach and try to breathe in for four, breathe out for four. It doesn’t help.

‘Of course you can.’ Adam hitches his backpack higher onto his shoulders. ‘It’s just nerves. You’ll be fine once we get there.’

There is a yacht somewhere in this long line of yachts that range in size from ‘Harry Styles in Italy with his latest model girlfriend’ to ‘Jeff Bezos post-divorce’ and stretch the length of the marina.

‘Can you tell which one it is?’ I ask Adam, squinting because the morning sun is too bright, even through the sunglasses I bought at the airport because I somehow forgot my own.

Adam shakes his head. ‘Not yet.’

I start walking again. Probably best to just put one foot in front of the other and not overthink it. It’s okay to be nervous. My wheelie case judders over the cobbles, my hand fizzing with the vibrations, my forearm aching.

I’ve read that nerves and excitement are basically the same emotion. I can choose to be excited instead of, well, terrified. Maybe I should’ve brought a backpack too, but I haven’t a clue how Adam fitted everything into his. Knowing him, he probably only packed underwear and a toothbrush.

‘I didn’t expect it to be this hot,’ I say, even though everyone kept telling us it was going to be hot.

‘I know. There’s sweat running down my crack.’

‘Do you ever think we’ve lost the magic?’ I ask, deadpan.

Adam laughs, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners in the way I’ve always loved. ‘Never.’

He glances around to make sure no one’s watching, then crowds me up against the trunk of a palm tree, his hands sliding down to my waist. ‘In case we don’t get a chance to do this for a while . . .’

His voice is low and makes my belly flutter, the same as it did when we first got together. I tip my face up as he dips his head down to kiss me and despite the heat and my nerves, I relax. Not completely – I’m still clinging to the handle of my case – but enough.

‘It’ll be sexy,’Adam says, pressing me against the tree. ‘Sneaking around.’

We did a ten-day course to qualify for these jobs and one of the instructor’s catchphrases was ‘Don’t screw the crew.

’ I’m pretty sure it’s intended for new colleagues rather than actual couples who’ve been together since secondary school, but Adam insisted we shouldn’t tell anyone we’re together, that it would be better for us to pretend to be just friends.

He doesn’t want anything to jeopardise this job. And, of course, neither do I. ‘I know,’ I tell him. He smells like orange and herbs, the Old Spice deodorant he’s used for as long as I’ve known him. ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’

‘Oh yeah? What have you been thinking?’

I slide my free hand around the back of his neck and brush my thumb over the stubble on his jaw. ‘About crawling into your bunk . . .’

‘Yeah?’ He rests his forehead against mine. ‘We’d have to be quiet.’

I smile. Oh, I’ve thought about that. It’d be like when we first started seeing each other; when we’d skip school and go back to his and get each other off in his bed with his ‘All You Need Is Klopp’ Liverpool posters staring down at us.

‘You’ll have to put your hand over my mouth . . .’

Adam groans and pulls back, his hands still either side of me, caging me against the tree. ‘We need to stop or we’ll be arrested before we even find the yacht.’

‘Just wanted to give you something to think about.’

?

We eventually spot the yacht – Serendipity – at the far end of the marina. It looks the same as it did online: long and sleek and gleaming white with a wooden deck separating two rear staircases. On the very top the silver radar domes spin slowly. The sun bouncing off them is dazzling.

‘Someone’s beaten us here,’ Adam says, pointing to a guy at the bottom of the stairs, crouching to pull off his shoes. Brown skin, a closely cropped beard, a short bleached afro. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who.

‘Barefoot on deck,’ I say.

One of the first things we were told on the course is that you don’t wear shoes on board, so you don’t damage the teak floors.

‘You know it,’ Adam says. ‘Welcome to our new life.’

My stomach lurches with excitement-is-the-same-as-nerves. Our first proper professional jobs. In a whole different country. Together. Even if we have to pretend not to be. It’ll be worth it.

I want to kiss Adam, but it’s too late. I settle for a quick squeeze of his arm instead.

‘Hey!’ The guy on board waves, his biceps bulging against the short sleeves of his black T-shirt. ‘Are you new?’

Between joining him on the yacht and climbing the stairs to the main deck, we learn that his name’s Nico, he’s the lead deckhand (and so Adam’s immediate boss), he’s from south London, he’s been crewing for a couple of years now – mostly in the Caribbean – and he hasn’t worked in the Med before.

‘Did you two come together? No pun intended.’

I roll my eyes, grateful for my sunglasses.

‘Yeah,’ Adam tells him. ‘Not like that though. Just friends.’

‘We were at uni together,’ I tell Nico. ‘And secondary school before that.’

‘And you’re not banging? What’s that about?’ He laughs. ‘I’m only messing. I’m capable of being friends with women. I’m a modern man. I sleep in the wet patch.’

While Adam and Nico do the standard introductory bro-chat bullshit, I wander around the deck, having a look at everything.

There’s a long table with six chairs on one side and, on the other, a padded bench built into the curve of the yacht.

At the back of the deck, towards the double doors that I think probably lead into the main salon, there’s a well-stocked bar with brightly coloured bottles of spirits – orange, blue, lilac – and silver cocktail shakers lined up alongside an ice bucket. After a few minutes, one of the double doors slides open and a woman steps out to join us. She’s short and slight, barefoot like the rest of us, but wearing fitted navy pants and a polo shirt with the ship’s logo, her hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, sunglasses hiding her eyes.

‘Nico,’ she says with no apparent enthusiasm.

‘No. Way,’ Nico deadpans. And then he laughs loud and long, skirting the dining table to approach the woman, stopping a metre or so away. ‘Permission to hug?’ He salutes.

I suspect she’s also rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses, but she lets Nico hug her, saying, ‘Knock it off!’ as he picks her up off her feet.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he says, setting her back down and rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

‘I know,’ she says, sardonically. ‘Of all the yacht crews in all the world.’

Nico cackles again, before turning back to me and Adam. ‘This is Louise. She’s the . . . What are you? Second stew?’

‘Chief stew,’ Louise says.

‘Wow!’ Nico throws his hands up. ‘You’ve gone up in the world! Kudos!’

‘Thanks.’

Moving past him, she makes her way over to Adam and me, holding out her hand for me to shake. It’s cool and dry and I feel instantly self-conscious about my own hot clamminess.

‘You’re the two greenies on this crew,’ Louise tells us.

‘Everyone else has varying amounts of experience, not necessarily on this boat or in the Med. They’ll point you in the right direction, but probably not more than once.

Any problems – Hope, you see me. Adam, you’ll be reporting to Nico here, or Ben, the bosun.

You’ll meet him later, along with the captain.

I thought Adam could bunk with you, Nico. ’ ‘Sure thing.’ Nico picks up his bag and hooks it over his shoulder. ‘Follow me.’

Adam throws me a quick smile before following Nico inside. Watching the door close behind him, leaving me alone on a strange boat in a strange place with a strange person, I think I might actually puke.

It must show on my face because Louise says, ‘Don’t worry. Once everyone arrives, you won’t have time to be nervous.’

‘When will everyone get here?’ I ask.

‘The rest of the crew, today,’ she tells me. ‘And we have our first guests on Friday.’

So we’ve got three days to learn, well, everything. This is fine.

?

We don’t have to wait long before the next arrival – a tall, willowy girl with light brown hair in two braids wrapped around her head.

Louise introduces us and Kelsey hugs everyone, her face open, smile huge and blue eyes wide.

‘You two are in together,’ Louise tells Kelsey and me. ‘Why don’t you come and get settled?’

Kelsey and I follow Louise through the salon, which is all glossy wood-panelled walls, twinkling chandeliers and filled with expensive-looking furniture, and then down a curved set of stairs that’s both steep and narrow.

I have to hoist my case up into my arms and I wish again that I’d just brought a backpack. I hadn’t expected much from the cabins but once the two of us are inside, there’s barely room to even turn round.

‘Isn’t it crazy?’ Kelsey smiles. Her teeth are very straight and very white. ‘At home my wardrobe’s bigger than this. Top or bottom bunk?’

‘Oh, I don’t mind.’ It doesn’t actually feel real. This glorified cupboard is where I’m going to be living for the next few months. ‘You choose.’

‘Since it’s your first time, you should probably take the bottom. Sometimes when it’s windy, we can get thrown right out of these bunks.’

‘Seriously? My mum was worried about that, but I said people can’t be falling out of their beds all the time!’

She takes out a lip balm and applies it with her index finger. ‘It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. I was on a boat once and the storm was so violent we all had to sleep in the guest rooms because it was too dangerous to sleep in the bunks.’

There’s not enough space for me to do anything but stand back and watch as Kelsey makes quick work of unpacking her bag into the various drawers and cupboards half hidden around the cabin, and then she climbs up onto her bunk and lies down.

‘I’m just gonna nap for, like, fifteen. Wake me if anything exciting happens, yeah?’

?

‘Where’s Kelsey?’ Louise asks me when I get back up on deck.

Everyone is gathered around the table. Nico is sitting at what is effectively the head of the table, even though it’s an oval, and there’s a guy in a baseball cap at the opposite end and someone else with his back to me.

Adam is on a bench seat, his arms spread out across the back.

He beams at me and I almost head straight over to sit next to him, but I realise I shouldn’t – as far as everyone else on board is concerned, we’re not a couple, we’re just friends – and wave instead, pulling my sunglasses back down from the top of my head. ‘She said she was going to have a nap,’ I tell Louise. And then immediately worry that maybe I shouldn’t have told her that.

Louise rolls her eyes. ‘Captain’s coming down for a chat, so could you go and wake her?’

I nod, pushing my chair back and bumping the table with my hip as I get up. The boys cheer as the bottles and glasses rattle and I scarper down the stairs to our cabin.

Kelsey’s not actually asleep. She’s sitting up against a pile of pillows and scrolling on her phone.

‘Can you come up?’ I ask her. ‘Captain’s coming for a chat apparently.’

‘Sure.’ She pushes her duvet back and swings her long legs off the side of the bed.

She’s only wearing a tiny vest and knickers, and I’m reminded that I’m going to have to get used to the lack of privacy.

I’ve always been the type to get changed under my clothes, but it seems Kelsey is much more relaxed. She pulls on a pair of shorts, drops her phone into a pocket and says, ‘Ready!’

?

Captain Liz has short dirty blond hair and if I had to guess, I would say she’s in her fifties. She’s wearing a red polo shirt with beige shorts and deck shoes. She’s got a bunch of what look like friendship bracelets and festival wristbands up one arm and a tattoo of a seashell on her ankle.

‘I won’t do the icebreaker thing,’ she tells us.

‘You’ll all get to know each other soon enough anyway.

And probably better than you ever expected to.

Some of you have experience; some of you are new.

I expect you all to work together kindly and efficiently and help each other out without being asked.

I know it’s a cliché to say that we work hard and we play hard, but it’s a cliché because it’s true.

You will work harder than you ever have in your life, guaranteed, but when we don’t have guests, you get to enjoy this beautiful place. ’ She gestures at the marina and I follow her gaze across the water to the palm trees and golden buildings beyond.

‘And I recommend that you do enjoy it. But not too much.’ Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles.

‘So! Enjoy the next couple of days because once the guests arrive it will be full on. If you have any questions or problems, Louise is your first port of call but I try to be approachable. As long as I’ve had coffee.

I’ll hand you over to Ben for the safety walk-through. ’The bosun in charge of the deck crew, Ben, is Scottish, and possibly the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.

Like a younger, softer Henry Cavill. Timothée Chalamet if he looked less like a Victorian ghost. Thick, dark hair swept back off his forehead, perfectly shaped eyebrows, deep brown eyes, and just enough five o’clock shadow to make him unpretty.The other deckhand is Liam, who is also hot, but just normal hot, not film-star hot like Ben.

He’s got a tattoo sleeve all down one arm and smaller tats dotted on the inside of his other arm.

His hair is cropped and a small scar bisects one eyebrow.

At least I hope it’s a scar and he hasn’t had that shaved in. Ben shows us the life jackets and rafts, fire extinguishers, fire-safety doors and water-tight doors. We learned some of this on the course, but all yachts are different. It’s a reminder that we’re actually going to be out at sea, which obviously I knew but it still freaks me out a bit.

‘Obviously there’s no drinking when we’re working,’ Ben says, once we get back to the aft deck. ‘There’s plenty of opportunities for that when we’re off duty.’

‘Tonight doesn’t count though, right?’ Nico says. ‘Tonight we can get shit-faced.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Ben says, but he’s laughing, revealing – inevitably – perfectly straight, white teeth.

‘The first night’s always a big one,’ Nico tells Adam and me. ‘No matter what Ben says. You in?’

Adam is smiling behind his sunglasses and looking totally comfortable already. ‘I’m in.’

‘Hope?’ Nico asks. ‘You in?’

This whole thing is meant to be about new experiences, new adventures, new friends.

‘I’m in,’ I say.