Chapter 7 Nil
Nil
I don’t remember falling asleep.
One minute, Em gives me Kys, does another scan, and tells me the scan readings were “within expected deviation.” The next minute, I’m on my bunk staring at the wall like someone teleported me there. My body feels heavy. My thoughts feel floaty. Em’s new Kys must’ve knocked me out.
Now I’m cranky, starving, and trudging toward the mess hall with one goal. Food before murder.
I hear Stan before I even walk in. People are laughing. Some are trying not to be obvious about it, but they’re failing.
“…then Sterling turns to me, dead in the eye, and says, ‘If you lick that again, I’ll cut your tongue out myself.’ Which, rude, right? Because he didn’t specify which part I wasn’t allowed to lick off her—”
I step through the doors.
Stan turns, eyes catching on me instantly. His grin’s slow and obscene.
“Oh look,” he announces. “My favorite pretty fella rises from the dead.”
I knit my brows, looking at him.
He throws a hand to his audience. “Gimme a sec, boys. Daddy duty calls.”
I choke on nothing.
The guys who were watching him follow his gaze to me. A couple give me quick nods. I hear someone chuckle. Most go back to their food.
Stan peels away from his little audience. He saunters toward me.
“Where’ve you been, Ocean Eyes?” he asks. “I was a few seconds away from staging a search and rescue.”
“My bunk,” I say. “Needed a nap.”
“Didn’t want to ask me to be your cuddle buddy?”
I walk past him toward the buffet. “Not enough space for that.”
“Sure there is,” he says. “You’d just have to hold me real close.”
I pretend I didn’t hear that.
He takes a plate. “Did you dream about me at least?”
My silence is apparently an answer all by itself.
Stan smirks. “Here lemme load you up.”
He starts piling things up on the plate. I’m about to say something when he stuffs my mouth with a bread roll. I try to talk around it.
He just keeps smirking. “Don’t worry, handsome. Daddy’ll feed you.”
I groan, grabbing the bread out of my mouth and then taking a bite from it to ease my hunger pains.
He chuckles. “You’re cute when you’re cranky.”
My ears burn. “Stop.”
“Make me.”
I stab a piece of meat aggressively and put it on my plate.
“You feeling okay after the new Kys?” he asks. “I know Em said we’d be fine, but still. You dropped off like someone unplugged you.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
Stan bumps my shoulder with his. “Y’know, you sleep cute.”
I can’t help the small huff when I take another bite.
We stand at the end of the buffet table, plates loaded, eating without moving to the main tables. It feels oddly private, even though there are people everywhere.
Stan shovels a spoonful of rice into his mouth and talks around it. “So while you were taking your cute mini coma, I went to visit Darius.”
I blink heavy. Guess I’m still groggy. “You what?”
“Checked on him,” Stan says. “Idris was worried. And, well, I’m a charmer.”
My stomach tugs hot. I look down at my food. “Right.”
“Relax, Ocean Eyes,” he says, nudging me. “I’m only a good boy for you.”
I choke on some meat. Stan grins wider.
“Only for you.” His hand brushes mine, with enough heat to send a warning shot straight down my spine. “Oh, and maybe Em! She’s smokin’ hot. I’d love to fog up those glasses of hers.”
I murmur around another bite, “You flirt with everyone.”
“Not like I flirt with you.”
My hand grips around the fork. I stab another piece of meat. Harder than necessary.
Stan goes on. “Anyway, I walked into Darius’ room of doom, and the man is elbows-deep in this…machine.” He forms a vague shape with both hands. “Like a mechanical squid. Tubes everywhere. Bolts the size of my self-worth.”
“What was he doing?”
“Muttering to himself. Fixing things that weren’t broken. Or maybe he was breaking things.”
“Did he talk?”
“Oh, he did. But not when I asked him how he was feeling, or if he needed company, or a snack, or me.” Stan waves a hand. “Y’know, typical questions.”
I fight back an eye roll and the envy. “And?”
“He ignored all that,” Stan says. “Looks right at me, with his resting-funeral-director face, and asks me about Damon.”
“Hm.” I frown in thought.
Stan nods enthusiastically. “So strange when I’m obviously more captivating. But anyway, I told him Damon has a stick up his ass.”
I huff a laugh, putting down the fork before I choke again.
“My big brother’s a big planner. No lie, Damon has a twenty-five-year plan for his marriage, which is psychotic.
” Stan bites into the bread I didn’t finish.
“Darius didn’t wanna talk about anything else.
So either Darius has a crush on my brother, or he’s collecting info for murder. Honestly? It’s a coin toss.”
I shake my head, but my mouth twitches up.
Stan leans in, looking proud of himself. “I love it when you smile for me.”
“I’m not.” I force my lips down.
“You were.” He bumps my hip. “So, possible brother-murder aside… Are you jealous I went to see Dreary Adel without you?”
“No.”
“Translation: yes.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Then why’s your jaw doing that thing?”
“My jaw isn’t doing anything.”
“Oh, it’s doing everything.” Stan’s smile is as teasing as his tone. “God, you’re fun today. Remixed Kys did a number on you.”
Heat crawls up my neck like it did earlier, when I breathed in the smoky sweetness from his bed and came all over my hand.
I shove another bite of food into my mouth to shut myself up.
Stan laughs. “Yeah. I like you too, Ocean Eyes.”
We finish eating at the buffet table, standing shoulder to shoulder like we’re guarding the food from the rest of the ship. Stan keeps talking with his mouth full, and I keep pretending I’m not watching the way his lips move when he does it.
By the time we’re done, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and jerks his chin toward the exit.
“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s head home. I scored us a frozen coffee.”
He leads the way, sipping the drink he swipes from staff.
“Thanks, Tanner!” Stan says, bumping their fist.
I haven’t even spoken to half the people that’s part of the experiment, let alone get to know the workers on the ship. How does Stan do it?
While we walk, it’s pretty quiet. He sips his drink and offers some to me too. It’s sweet, chilled, a little spiced with cinnamon or something. He smells just as sweet. It sorta bugs me ‘cause it’s how I imagine he tastes.
We reach the door with the number four. He puts his palm on the reader. The door slides open.
I climb to my bunk to put some space between us, but Stan steps right into that space a second later. He rests his forearms on my mattress and looks up at me, chin tipped up, his expression bright enough to light up our room.
My legs are spread out. He stands between them, his eyes aimed at my face. “So,” he says, sipping coffee, “I have some gossip.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.” He takes a swig of the frozen coffee, then lifts the straw to my mouth. “First off, Jon was hallucinating the floor melting. Tried to climb the wall.”
My brows lift as I sip from the straw. Something’s tight in my chest. I don’t know why. Could be Kys. Could be how close he is. Could be Jon’s name from Stan’s mouth. My hand drifts up, brushing my left ear.
“And,” he continues, “hallucination hour didn’t stop with Jon. You missed Marco’s meltdown.”
“Who’s Marco?”
“Tall. Buzzcut. Looks like he was conceived in a steroids factory.”
I chuckle. My fingers slip from my ear and fall back to my side.
“He took his dose and said his tongue felt fuzzy. So I told him to stop licking anything that isn’t freshly washed dick.”
I choke on a sip, coughing until he thumps my back. “Why’d you say that?”
“Because hygiene.” He looks confused that I had to ask. “And because you weren’t there to stop me. You left me alone for one afternoon and now, I’m giving sexual health advice to hallucinating gym bros.”
My lips tilt before I can stop them. I hate that he sees it. So I distract him by asking, “Anything else happen?”
Stan starts counting on his fingers. “One, Tomas challenged the HVAC to a fistfight. Two, Sergio tried to calm him down—”
Another name. Another second spent touching my earring. “Sergio…?”
“Short guy. Prides himself with being the first recruit. Big eyes he claims is more than 20/20. Looks like a morally conflicted meerkat.”
A short laugh comes out of me.
“See?” Stan says. “You get my humor. Soulmates confirmed.”
I roll my eyes. But my pulse jumps.
“So Sergio offers Tomas a pastry to calm him down. Which, shockingly, did not calm him down. Then they both started screaming at each other.”
“Are they okay now?”
“Everyone’s okay. No one jumped overboard.” Stan lifts the frozen coffee my way. “Last sip. Want it?”
“Nah, you can have it.”
He smirks. “Was hoping you’d say that.”
With his eyes on mine, he wraps his lips around the straw and sucks slowly.
The sight does something to me it shouldn’t. My mouth goes dry. My body remembers how I came in his bed earlier. That’s the last thing I wanna remember right now.
When he pulls back, he drags his tongue across the corner of his mouth. The cup lowers a little. He keeps looking at me.
“If you change your mind,” he says, “you can taste it anyway.”
“How…?”
He taps his lower lip with his thumb. “Right here. You can kiss my lips for it.”
Heat climbs up my face so fast I feel light. My hands flex against the mattress.
I don’t say anything. It’s too warm in the room. Or maybe it’s him.
A breathless chuckle slips out of him. “You’re a lot of fun, Ocean Eyes.”
He steps back, easy and smooth. My eyes follow every move he makes.
“If you ever want to take the offer, we can always blame Kys for it.”
Then he heads to the powder room, closing the door behind him.
I take a shaky breath in and fall back on my bunk. Staring at the ceiling, I can’t control the feverish heat hitting my face.
I’ll blame this entire mess on Kys. Because if my heart’s beating hard ‘cause of Stan, I’m fucking screwed.
My fist flies, forcing my hammering chest to calm the hell down.
This is literal trouble. If I get this jealous when he pays attention to other people—and we’re only friends—I don’t want to know what I’ll be like if I ever become more than that to him.
Shit, I remind myself. This time, it has to be Kys talking.