Chapter 13 Bohdan
Bohdan
To no one’s surprise, the tour ended in the helm of the ship so we could see the control room.
But to Talon’s surprise, the wheel of the ship was for show, not to steer.
He insisted on taking photos with it anyway. He posted one of the three of us online, him stretched out along the floor in the front, pointing up at it, Jay crouching down and ruffling his hair, and me leaning against the control board, foot kicked up, and looking at Talon, generally displeased.
The caption—“the only line to ever exist” made it out of the group chat—seemed to be an annoying hit with the sports fans of the internet.
People still talk about us, and they still love us all these years later.
There hasn’t been a line like us since, and the competitive part of me hopes there never will be. That there’s this one, glowing thing on the sunset of my career.
I had to mute my phone because the constant vibrating from the onslaught of notifications and texts as the cell service went in and out was starting to grate on me, including another text from Shay, asking if I’d given any thought to the offer.
I told her before we boarded that I wasn’t buying the Wi-Fi package and to expect to hear from me only sparingly.
But her tenacity was one of the reasons having her in my corner as my agent had gotten me all sorts of deals other rookies and players could only dream of.
But now she was asking me if I’d given any more thought to doing this thing that felt like going on live television, digging my own hands through my chest, and peeling back my rib cage for the world to get a look at all my failures up close.
The answer was probably no before I stepped on this ship, and it’s leaning even more that way since I laid eyes on Sloan and had a face-to-face reminder of what my inability to be candid about my own mental health cost me.
But it’s not like the notifications were keeping me from riveting conversation.
Sloan hid back under her sun hat, linked arms with Tia, and didn’t say a word until we reached activity number two on the itinerary: drinks and sunbathing on the entertainment deck.
“Oh. No. Sorry.” Sloan gives a tiny shake of her head. “We can’t sit here.”
“And why not?” Talon asks, swinging his legs over the edge of a lounge chair he spotted from across the deck of the ship and sprinted towards, practically shoving more than one child with floaties strapped around their waist out of the way, somehow avoiding spilling any of his drink.
“Sun exposure.”
Talon pushes his glasses down his nose, lip pulling back. “You’re half Italian, Sloan. Isn’t your dad from Sicily?”
Her grandfather. But I don’t correct him.
She waves a hand in the air. “Skin cancer is a threat to us all.”
But her eyes flick to me, and they land on the wave of hair I tugged down over my forehead to hide the scar.
She doesn’t want me to be out in the sun.
“I’m not moving. Do you know how many photos of this ship I looked at to scope out the best possible seats? I’ve been living in Sweden since I was twenty-two. I need the sun.” Talon points to his chest.
Tia lifts her sunglasses to roll her eyes at his already dark skin before she drops down on her chair, stretching out.
Sloan says nothing, but a furrow pulls across her brow. I watch her bite down on the inside of her cheek, eyes swinging between the chairs and the sun umbrellas pushed to the side.
She’s not wrong.
Sun this bright would usually hurt me. Maybe not right away. But later tonight or tomorrow morning.
I’m not sure I really care when she stands there like that. More beautiful than anything and worth every second of pain it’s going to cause.
Hair shining impossibly bright, spilling over her shoulders, that B inked on her skin, sitting right beside the strap of her linen tank top. Lines of her legs tensing and shifting when she taps her foot in time with her finger against her bicep, denim shorts brushing against her thighs.
Her eyes find me again, she swallows, and then she’s bending over, arms wrapped around the cement base of one of the sun umbrellas, trying to drag it across the deck into the centre of our chairs.
“Jesus Christ, someone help her,” Talon mutters, brow lifting behind his drink.
I start forward, but Sloan’s eyes flick up to me, tracing over the scar half hidden under my hair, before she tugs harder on the cement base of the umbrella.
“Someone else then.” Talon holds his hands up, frozen daiquiri sloshing over the sides of his glass.
Jay cringes. “I’ve got it.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, and I don’t watch him drag the umbrella into the centre of the chairs, but I sit in the one that’s going to get the most shade.
Sloan exhales, soft, just a tiny flare of her nostrils and slump of her shoulders.
Her eyes sweep over me, tracking every inch of my body that might get exposed to the sun, but when she sees it’s just my legs and my left arm when I shift, she glances towards the scar again before sitting in the chair furthest away from mine, puts her headphones in, and doesn’t look at me for the rest of the afternoon.