Chapter Fourteen #2
“Yes,” James said. “But you also said that it was filth.”
“Yes, I know. And I’m certain that it is filth. That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it, though.”
Every ounce of James’s unease evaporated at once. He shook his head and bellowed a laugh. Cassian nodded into the room.
“I asked the man at the Purser’s Office if I could make use of this room for the next hour or so. Not that I will be the one writing, but I’m the only one of us whose passenger status permits it.”
James rolled his eyes in a playful manner. “Isn’t it meant to close now?”
“Nothing a little money couldn’t fix.” Cassian smirked and started into the room, his hands hooked behind his back. “Come along, James. I paid for someone to write something in here, and it isn’t going to be me.”
James followed, shutting the door behind him. Cassian wrinkled his nose.
“It’s not exactly cozy, is it?” he said. “I feel as though we’re being—”
“Accosted by one of the electric companies?” James jested.
Cassian chuckled softly. “Yes, precisely.”
Rolling his bottom lip between his teeth, James looked around.
“Do you really want me to sit here and write?” he asked.
“Of course. I even brought you a pen.”
Cassian took a fountain pen from his breast pocket and handed it to James.
“I suppose you’ll want this back later as well?” James asked.
Cassian merely winked. Laughing, James walked over to one of the chairs and sat. Once he was settled, he began to flip through the notebook for a blank page. He couldn’t help but smile at the handful of used pages containing Cassian’s notes. He kind of wanted to read them.
“What were you using this for?” James asked, still flipping. “Business?”
“Mostly, though there’s probably a hastily scrawled itinerary in there for my leisure time in France as well.
” Cassian walked over to James’s table and rapped his fingertips twice on the surface.
“Now, I assume that you’d prefer to have some time to yourself to write without me looking over your shoulder. How do you like your brandy?”
“Are you asking me if I like it neat, which is clearly the correct way to enjoy the beverage, or if I like to ruin it with some ice?” James asked. Cassian lifted his eyebrows in response. Smirking, James said, “Ice, please.”
Cassian flicked his eyes to the ceiling and let out a loud sigh. James chuckled.
“Alright, neat,” he said. “If that’ll please you more. I’m not picky.”
“It will please me more,” Cassian confirmed before turning to leave. “I’ll be back shortly. I hope to see some progress when I return.”
James continued to smile to himself as he leafed through the notebook. Finally, he found a mostly blank page. On it, there was only one thing written.
Can the pirate be named Frederick?
Chuckling to himself, James screwed up his face in confusion and shook his head. Frederick? What a strange thing. James would have to ask Cassian about it when he came back.
Heat still clinging to his cheeks, James started the story.
Over the next fifteen or so minutes, he wrote as fast as he could while still keeping his handwriting legible.
Normally, he would have hated to rewrite something that he had written but lost, preferring instead to have scrapped the entire story for something fresh and new, but he found that he wasn’t feeling so bothered to be rewriting the first scene now since it was for Cassian.
Besides that, his second and third scenes had only consisted of the barely readable chicken scratch that he’d scribbled in his notebook the previous evening on the promenade.
He’d have had to rewrite those regardless.
Soon enough, Cassian returned with two snifters.
He took a seat next to James at the table, handing James his brandy the moment he was settled.
Moving his wrist in small circles, James swirled the brown liquid around a few times and then smelled it.
Cassian crooked an eyebrow, smiling a bemused smile.
Finally, James took a sip. It was bitter, but subtly sweet, too.
“Oh, look, you waited on me this time,” James said playfully.
Cassian scrunched up his nose. “Bite your tongue. I only brought you the brandy because I was fetching some for myself. I nearly missed catching someone to serve me in the Smoking Room, too.”
“Everything is closing for the night,” James said as Cassian tossed some of his brandy back.
Cassian lowered his snifter and frowned into it.
“Perhaps I should have ordered more than this, then,” he said.
James moved his snifter closer to Cassian.
“You can have mine, if you want.”
Cassian smiled warmly. “I’ll be fine, James. But I like that you offered.”
“I’d never not offer,” James said, smiling back. “For you, at least.”
Immediately, Cassian’s cheeks began to flush. James’s stomach fluttered from the sight. Cassian looked so . . . so beautiful like that, with his cheeks pink. Vulnerable, even.
“Yes, well, that better only be for me,” he said.
James let out a half-laugh. Vulnerable, maybe, but Cassian was never not himself.
“Of course,” James said sweetly.
Cassian’s cheeks became even rosier, their shade practically matching the carpet, and he threw back the rest of his brandy in one fast motion.
Afterward, he set his snifter next to James’s, leaving his hand lingering there, close enough to hold.
If only such a thing was possible. Instead, James brushed their fingers together, and his own face began to warm, his skin starting to tingle, too.
He only left it there for a couple of wonderful, risky seconds before pulling it back.
“I need you to tell me something,” James said, picking his snifter up again.
After enjoying one more swig of brandy, he moved the notebook closer to Cassian and then pointed to the line that Cassian had written.
“Why Frederick?” he asked.
“Ah, well, because it’s my confirmation name. In a way.”
“You’re Catholic?”
“God, no,” Cassian said with a laugh. “Which is why Frederick isn’t really my confirmation name.”
He took a pause, clearly intending to bait James into requesting more information. And, of course, James obliged.
“Explain, please,” he said.
“Alright, well, when I was seven or eight, we had a hall boy named Joseph working for us. He was Catholic. And, one spring, he was confirmed. He bragged to me about it in passing, which now I realize was pretty brazen of him considering the fact that he worked for my father and was therefore essentially my subordinate, but while he was bragging, he mentioned that he had chosen a new name for himself. Something boring like Peter. He explained that he wouldn’t really use it, but still, it was his.
And I loved the idea of that. Choosing your own name.
I thought for certain that I’d be able to have the same experience.
And so, I spent weeks thinking about it, which is a long time when you’re seven or whatever I was, and finally I settled on the name Frederick.
I have no idea whether it’s even a saint’s name.
Anyway, I marched up to my father and proudly said to him that I’d like for my confirmation name to be Frederick.
Unsurprisingly, he laughed at me and then patiently explained that we are not Catholic and that when I was eventually Joseph’s age, I’d be confirmed with my birth name.
Or maybe he said baptismal name. Either way, I would never be Frederick.
” Cassian chuckled. “Except when I engaged in various pretend scenarios with my friends and cousins over the years. And then I was always Frederick.”
Fondness struck James in the chest, and he laid a hand over his heart as he laughed a little, too.
“Oh, Cassian, that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” James leaned forward to rest his head atop his fist. “So, when you were playing pirates or fugitives or cowboys, your name was—”
“Frederick, yes,” Cassian said, laughing some more.
Giggling, James continued to look into Cassian’s eyes. Dammit, he really was completely, hopelessly in love with this insufferable, conceited man. Cassian’s eyebrows pinched.
“So, can the pirate be Frederick, or not?” he asked.
“I can’t name a pirate Frederick, Cassian.”
“Yes, you can,” Cassian argued. “Of course you can.”
Humming, James pursed his lips. “Maybe I can name the sailor Frederick instead?”
“No,” Cassian said, somewhat forcefully. “If you name the sailor Frederick, then I will be forced to throw this notebook out into the sea too.”
“It’s your notebook!”
Both of them laughed.
“Look, I can’t let the sailor be Frederick. It’s too . . .” He curled his lip. “No.”
“Fine, fine,” James said with a sigh. “Frederick the Pirate it is.” He picked up the pen and circled the name. “You know that this makes this story even more rubbish than it was before, right?”
“Nonsense. Frederick is a fine name for a pirate. Perfect, even,” Cassian said. “Because I thought of it.”
James snorted. He knew that Cassian was mostly only jesting.
Mostly.
“Oh, right, I forgot,” James said. “Cassian’s ideas can’t ever be less than perfect.”
“No, they can’t be.” Cassian paused, and his tongue skirted out of his mouth for the briefest instant, passing over his lips and wetting them. “And on that note, I have another idea for tonight as well.”
James raised both of his eyebrows, waiting for Cassian to elaborate. But Cassian only sat there, smiling in the same adorable manner (though perhaps it looked a trifle more wicked now).
“Alright, what is it?” James said, and Cassian arched an eyebrow, leveling a look. James let out a long breath. “Please.”
Cassian leaned in close.
“I’d like for you to come to my stateroom,” he whispered.
James’s eyes went wide, and his heart practically stopped. Oh, Jesus, of course he wanted Cassian to bring him into his bed. He wanted Cassian to kiss him, to hold him, to take him. But to hear Cassian speak about it so bluntly, seemingly without consideration for his fiancée . . .
“Cassian, we can’t,” James whispered. “Flirting and friendship is one thing, but you’re—”
“I’m not,” Cassian replied. “Ethel and I . . . we’re not engaged anymore.”
“What?!” James spluttered. “Why? What happened?”
His hands flew to cover his mouth. Cassian started to say something, but for some reason, the words didn’t reach James’s ears. Instead, James kept on talking, letting his hands fall from his face.
“It’s because of me. It’s because I ruined things, isn’t it?
Did hearing my story make you feel like you had to .
. . to break off your engagement? Cassian, I-I never meant to hurt you.
Or Ethel. Believe me, I . . .” James raked a hand through his hair.
“Oh, I’m a horrible person. Because I did want to hurt Ethel.
Not hurt her, exactly—I hate even the mere thought of making someone sad—but in a way, I wanted to hurt her.
Because I wanted . . .” He locked eyes with Cassian. “You.”
Cassian only continued to watch him with what seemed like a pitying look.
“Are you finished, James?”
“I, uhm, I think so.”
“Good, because I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to be finished with your emotional outburst so that I could tell you that while, yes, you are part of the reason I ended my engagement, there’s more to it than that.” Cassian lowered his voice even more. “Ethel’s heart belongs to someone else.”
James reeled back a smidge, a sudden heaviness in his chest. Sympathy robbed him of the oxygen in his lungs, and for a few seconds, he struggled to know how to breathe and what to say.
“I’m sorry, Cassian,” he finally managed. “How horrible.”
“It’s not horrible,” Cassian said simply. “Because my heart belongs to someone else, too.”
It took James a couple of seconds to let himself internalize those words and then another one or two more to let himself know them and to believe them, too. Once he did, his eyes began to well with tears.
Cassian scooted closer.
“It belongs to you, James,” he said. “And I wish that I had realized it sooner.”
Overwhelmed with love and like in equal proportions, James struggled not to cry.
“Cassian . . .”
“Come with me to my room,” Cassian purred. “I’ve been forced to spend close to twenty-four hours without your exceptional service, and I find myself craving some of it.”
James let out a little sound, something close to a whimper, and his cheeks warmed a bit from having made it, though he was thankful that Cassian’s comment had seemingly banished his urge to cry. Now the only thing that James could manage to feel was fast-rising arousal.
Cassian made a husky noise of his own, one that James could barely even hear, though it still caused his stomach to swoop, stirring something inside him.
“Should I . . .” James’s eyes flitted to the paper and then back up to Cassian’s face. “I’m not finished with the scene yet.”
“You can write more in the morning,” Cassian said. “I found someone to cover the first couple of hours of your shift.”
“Holy heaven,” James spluttered. “Thank you, Cassian.”
Cassian’s smile broadened. “Shall we head to my room now, then?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Cassian asked, his voice a wonderful mixture of playful and chastising.
James’s breath caught. Oh, fuck, how he loved this.
“Yes, please,” he said.
Cassian threw him a wink and stood.
“Good man.”
James snapped the notebook shut and followed.