Chapter 2
When Tris Carmichael had sent his message to the hot guy on the app, he hadn’t actually expected a response.
He definitely hadn’t expected a date. If anything, maybe a quick hook-up, someone else’s place, a few minutes of bad decisions, and a polite ghosting the next morning. That was usually how it went.
He’d stared at Cade’s photos for far longer than was healthy.
Cade wasn’t supermodel hot, but he was movie-star hot, the kind of pretty that made Tris’s stomach feel weird and his brain short-circuit like a dial-up connection.
He had brownish-blond hair that brushed his collar, bedroom eyes so dark they were almost navy, and a jawline that could cut glass.
Tris imagined closing his eyes and letting his fingertips trace every sharp plane of that face.
Strong brows. High cheekbones. Full lips.
The rough edge of scruff against his fingers.
His hands actually twitched, like they wanted a turn before his brain could overthink it.
He couldn’t explain the pull in those photos.
At least if Cade agreed to a hook-up, he could find out what those lips tasted like.
It wasn’t that Tris didn’t think he was hot enough to pull a guy like Cade. He was. But just as Cade’s confidence bled through every picture he posted, Tris’s instability seemed to do the same. People could smell his brand of chaos before he opened his mouth.
All but Cade, apparently. Cade had replied within minutes to Tris’s random question, and now, here they were, on the worst date Cade could think of.
And Tris would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little worried that, before the end of the night, Cade would bolt and never text him again.
Which sucked, because they’d barely been together for five minutes, and Tris was already addicted to the smell of his cologne and the faintly amused smirk he’d worn since the moment he’d kept Tris from barreling into him and choking to death on a Blow Pop.
Yeah, that had been a strong first impression.
He’d think about that later. No, he’d fixate on it later. He’d relive every embarrassing moment of the night and spiral until he felt small enough to slip through the cracks of his own insecurities. But that was tomorrow’s Tris.
Right now, he was tucked under Cade’s arm, the warmth of his body bleeding through the heavy coat he wore. Tris probably should’ve worn one, too, but he’d had to borrow the blazer from his next-door neighbor. He was just grateful it didn’t smell like mothballs or cat piss.
His fingers kept finding the frayed cuff, like worrying it might somehow make him look more confident. Spoiler: it didn’t.
At the ramp leading from the dock to the ship, a man stood wearing black pants, a navy peacoat, and a hat that screamed period drama extra.
When they approached, Cade held out his phone.
The man produced a scanner that was very obviously not from the Titanic era and pointed it at the glowing screen. A digital ticket, Tris guessed.
The scanner beeped, and the guard gave Tris a slow once-over that sent his stomach plummeting. Instant anxiety. Full-body flush. Fight, flight, or fake a seizure. He looked down at his clothes, tugging the borrowed jacket tighter, only to feel Cade’s hand tighten around his waist, steady, solid.
Protective, even.
The squeeze said don’t move. The warmth said you’re fine. Tris didn’t know which part to believe. He gnawed on the side of his tongue to keep from saying something stupid. His tongue always took the hit before his brain could embarrass him.
The man gave him a chilly smile. “I’m afraid you can’t take the candy on board, sir. No unauthorized food or beverages are permitted. But don’t worry, hors d’oeuvres and champagne are circulating.”
Tris’s heart pounded, but it wasn’t from the man’s sneer or his perfectly pretentious tone. Tris was used to that. He’d deflected a million looks just like it from his own family. It rolled right off him now…mostly.
No, what panicked him was the candy. What the hell was he supposed to do without it? Did he have gum? A breath mint? A stick of cinnamon anything?
He gave a tight smile before breaking free of Cade’s hold and walking to the large trash can, making a show of tossing the lollipop away. The sound of it clinking against the metal felt louder than it should have, like a gunshot to his sanity.
Inside, though, he was screaming. He hadn’t been lying to Cade when he said bad things happened if he didn’t have something in his mouth. It wasn’t exactly an oral fixation. It was more of an if-I’m-chewing-I’m-not-saying-something-catastrophically-stupid fixation.
A keep-the-intrusive-thoughts-to-yourself fixation.
A don’t-tell-the-hot-guy-about-your-therapist’s-pet-fish-named-Socrates fixation.
The food, the candy, it was his mouth’s safety lock. And now, the safety was off.
Sure, Cade hadn’t been thrown by his ramblings about serial killers and cannibalism, but what happened when he started musing aloud about all the times he’d thought about driving into a concrete barrier or stepping in front of a bus, not because he wanted to unalive himself but because his brain liked to serve intrusive thoughts like pop-up ads?
He could practically see the “do not engage” flash across Cade’s perfect face already.
He was so deep into his panic spiral he barely registered that Cade had threaded their fingers together and was tugging him up the ramp.
The contact grounded him. Cade’s hand was warm—solid, sure—and Tris’s brain short-circuited for a beat.
He glanced at their joined hands, then up at the towering shadow of the ship.
And it was a ship, not a boat, massive and gleaming, its lights rippling across the dark water like stars trapped on the surface.
Inside, a woman in costume greeted them, draped in lace, pearls, and a hat big enough to have its own gravitational pull. She smiled politely and handed each of them a white card embossed with gold lettering.
Tris frowned at the unfamiliar name on his. “What’s this?”
“Tonight, you’re one of the original passengers of the RMS Titanic,” she said brightly, like this wasn’t a reenactment of one of the most famous maritime disasters in history.
“At the end of the night, you’ll find a list of those who survived and those who perished on April 15th, 1912. Will you be one of those who lived?”
Her voice held way too much cheer for a woman casually assigning people imaginary drownings.
Tris fought the urge to roll his eyes. Whoever wrote her script needed a career change.
He opened his mouth to say something—something that would absolutely get them kicked off—but she gestured for them to move along, and Cade’s hand was suddenly at the small of his back, steady pressure guiding him forward.
Behave, that touch seemed to say. Which was hilarious because Tris didn’t know how.
As they followed the guests down a carpeted hallway, Tris looked down at the name on his paper. “Clifford Jeffries,” he muttered, wrinkling his nose.
He glanced up, and froze. Cade was watching him with an intensity that scrambled his brain like an egg. For a second, words completely abandoned him. Only when Cade raised a brow, clearly waiting, did Tris snap out of it.
“Who’d you get?” he blurted, trying to sound normal.
Cade glanced at his own card, looking monumentally unimpressed. “David John Barton.”
Tris’s shoulders sagged. He screwed up his face like a disappointed kid denied candy. “Yours sounds cooler. Trade me?”
Cade’s thick brows arched, his smirk flickering back to life. “It’s just paper.”
“Then it doesn’t matter, right? Right?” Tris asked again, deploying his best puppy-dog eyes and pooching his lip for maximum effect.
When Cade remained unmoved, Tris stopped walking, bouncing on the balls of his feet, flailing his arms like an overstimulated Muppet, drawing more than a few stares from the other guests. “Please? Please? Please? Please?”
Cade snorted, a smile finally breaking free. “Fine. Just call me Clifford.”
Tris made a face. “Ew. God, no. Could you imagine having to scream that name in bed?”
“You already thinking about screaming my name in bed?” Cade teased, reaching for his hand again.
Tris flicked his gaze up, meeting that dark, amused stare head-on. “Since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
The shift in Cade was instant, like flipping a switch from charming to predatory.
His arm snaked around Tris’s waist, iron-tight, lifting him clean off his feet and nearly colliding with two women behind them.
Tris barely got out a startled yelp before Cade carried him into a shadowed alcove beneath a staircase and pinned him against the wall.
The impact knocked the air from his lungs. For one sharp, electric heartbeat, Tris thought maybe he’d pushed too far, that Cade would hurt him. But then Cade leaned in, the rough drag of his stubble scraping across Tris’s cheek, and everything inside him went molten.
“Be very careful what you dangle in front of me,” Cade murmured, his lips hovering just shy of contact.
Tris’s pulse thundered, blood rushing south so fast he thought he might black out. Still, he managed to tilt his head, brushing his mouth along Cade’s jaw in a reckless whisper of touch. “Or what?”
Cade’s thumb traced his lower lip, slow and deliberate. “Or I’ll spend the night fucking you in every dark corner of this ship instead of getting to know you better.”
The words were low and dangerous.
Jesus. Was this flirting? It felt heavier. More like a promise. A filthy, breath-stealing promise that left his knees weak.
Tris swallowed hard. He’d had hook-ups before—too many, probably—but never one that felt like this, like every cell in his body had been turned inside out. His skin buzzed. His brain fizzed. Breathing was an Olympic sport now.