Chapter 13
13
When my alarm goes off I have a second to focus on the pain in my head before I remember what happened last night.
Or rather, just a few hours ago.
Berry kissed me.
And, right now, she’s asleep two feet away from me.
I roll out of my bunk and practically crawl out of the cabin, grabbing a hoodie off the floor.
I pull it on as I wait for a coffee and only then do I realise the hoodie I’ve picked up isn’t mine; it’s Berry’s.
It smells of her cherry perfume.
I should take it off, but I don’t.
I don’t want to.
Berry kissed me and I liked it.
What am I supposed to do about that?
My phone buzzes with a WhatsApp message from Maddie and I message back to ask her if she’s free for me to call.
I need to talk to someone.
She says yes, so I head up on to the deck.
It’s not yet light; the sky’s a deep royal blue with the egg-yolk orange sun a semi-circle on the horizon.
‘What’s up?’ Maddie says when she answers.
‘Are you sure you’re okay to talk?
Where are you?’
‘It’s fine.
I’m driving. You’re on speaker.
’
I pull my feet up under me on the seat.
‘You’re on your own?
’
‘I am. That sounds ominous. Has something happened?’
I blow out a breath and stare at the line of gold starting to appear on the water as the sun climbs higher.
‘We all went to a club last night after the charter ended.’
‘Right . . .’
‘And we’d been dancing – me and Berry.
We share a cabin. We were dancing and then we went outside because it was too hot and crowded and I was a bit drunk and –’
I think about her hands on my shoulders.
And what went through my head.
‘She kissed me.’
‘Oh shit,’ Maddie says.
‘Yeah.’ I rest my head on the back of the seat and look up at the lightening sky.
‘Where was Adam?’
‘He was there too. In the club. Not outside with us.’
‘And what did you do? Did you kiss her back?’
‘No. I stopped her.’
‘Okay. Well . . . that’s good, right?
Was she okay about it?
’
‘Yeah, she was. Of course. She’s great.
’
‘But . . .’
‘I don’t know.
’ I stand up and cross to the railing.
‘Things are a bit weird with Adam. He’s not doing that well at the job – the captain asked me to have a word with him and I did, but .
. . I don’t know. He’s been really drunk a couple of times, and he seems quite stressed.
’
‘Is everything okay at home, do you know?’ she asks.
‘I haven’t heard anything.
But I haven’t really talked to him much.
It’s so full on; we don’t get to spend much time alone.
’
‘No sexy sneaking around?’
‘Nope. We’re so busy all the time and so knackered and he’s determined that no one knows about us, even though I really don’t think anyone would care.
Even Berry said last night that “Don’t screw the crew” is more of a guideline.
’
‘When did she say that? When she was trying to get into your pants?’
I laugh, but at the same time a pulse flickers between my legs.
‘She wasn’t trying to get into my pants!
’
‘Says you. Sounds like you’re a bit sexually frustrated and missing Adam and overreacting to a flirty kiss.
God, I just thought – you’re sharing a cabin; you can’t even wank!
’
I snort. ‘I really hope you’re still in the car.
’
‘Nope. Walking into the building now. The security guard’s never gonna look at me the same again.
’
‘Jesus. But no. Exactly that. There’s the shower, but not for long.
’
‘Also, it’s nice to have someone be into you,’ Maddie says.
‘You and Adam have been together so long. I don’t think a bit of a crush or a bit of flirting’s going to kill anyone.
’
‘Right.’ I nod. ‘You’re right.
’
‘I, for example, have the raging horn for the guy who runs the barber shop that’s just opened underneath our flat.
He barely speaks English.
When I go in or out, he smiles and says “Okay?” and I say “Okay?” like we’re in a John Green novel and then I think about riding him in one of his barber’s chairs.
’
‘I can’t decide if I’m sorry or happy I called you,’ I tell her.
‘Always happy! But I’m at work now so it’s misery time.
Get back to your glamorous superyacht and think of me draining bunions or whatever horrible shit I have to do today.
’
‘I’m definitely not going to think about that,’ I tell her.
‘But thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.
And stop worrying so much.
’
‘I think I just swallowed a mosquito,’ Berry says in our cabin after we’ve worked all day and had dinner with everyone in the mess.
‘Bastards better not start biting me inside.’
I snort.
‘Yeah, I don’t think that’s a thing.
’
‘You don’t know what they’re capable of!
They will kill us all!
’
She twists her torso, trying to scratch the middle of her back.
‘Don’t scratch!’ I tell her.
‘You’ll only make it worse.
’
‘Well, I know that. But it feels so good.’
I shake my head.
‘Put some ice on it.’
She wriggles, rubbing herself against the cupboard door like Baloo in The Jungle Book scratching himself on a tree trunk.
I try not to look at how her hips are rolling, the way her eyes are scrunched shut and her mouth open at the illicit satisfaction of scratching.
‘I’m going to shower,’ she says.
‘Then I can scratch legally.’
‘Again,’ I say, ‘I don’t think it works like that.
’
She stops scratching and looks almost nervous for a second.
‘I made you a playlist,’ she says.
‘I’ve sent you the link on WhatsApp.
It’d be so much better on an actual cassette, but I guess those days are gone.
’
‘Wow.’ I blink. ‘Thank you.’
‘I was doing it anyway, but could it maybe also be an apology for last night?’
She leans back against the door again and smiles at me, her nose wrinkling.
‘Oh god,’ I say. ‘You don’t need to apologise.
It was just –’
She shakes her head.
‘I do. It was stupid. We share a cabin and I made it way awkward.’
‘You didn’t.
’ I smile. ‘This is a bit awkward now though.’
She laughs.
‘Oh god. I keep levelling up. Right. I’m going to shower.
Let’s never speak of this again, okay?
’
‘Okay.’
She closes the bathroom door behind her and I hit play on the playlist on my phone.
It opens with a song by Kenny Loggins called ‘This Is It.’
The bathroom door opens and Berry leans out.
‘You can’t listen to it now!
’
‘Why not?’
‘The vibes aren’t right.
’
‘We are literally on a yacht.’
‘But we need to be in the sun with a cocktail. The vibe’s the whole thing.
That’s what makes it yacht rock!
’
‘Fine! God.’
I pause the track and Berry closes the bathroom door again.
I hear the water start as I scroll through the rest of the playlist. ‘What a Fool Believes’ by the Doobie Brothers, ‘Rosanna’ by Toto, the Hall I’ve hardly told anyone.
‘Charlie,’ I say, eventually.
‘At uni.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It wasn’t even a fling really.
’ I picture Charlie sitting across from me in the coffee shop we always went to between lectures.
‘It was more of a crush.’
‘Oh, crushes are the best,’ Berry says.
‘When you can’t stop thinking about them and you’re always hoping to run into them?
’
She clicks off her lamp so the cabin’s only lit by my fairy lights.
‘The excitement and the nerves,’ Berry says.
‘Fantasising about all the cool shit you’ll do together if you ever tell them – or if they work it out themselves.
’ She sighs. ‘Makes life worth living.’ The mattress shifts as she gets comfortable.
I reach out and turn off my lights too.
‘Did you ever tell him?’ she asks, her voice soft in the darkness.
‘No,’ I lie.
Berry falls asleep fast – I can tell by the change in her breathing, but I lie awake for a while.
Thinking about Charlie.
We were in the same lectures and seminars and often just seemed to be in the Students’ Union at the same time.
Before long we were walking back to town together and meeting up at weekends.
I knew she was gay; she’d told me early on.
She had a casual thing going with another girl and of course I was with Adam.
But then I started to notice that I was thinking about her more and more.
Making up little scenarios to help me fall asleep.
Charlie waiting for me after a lecture and saying she couldn’t stop thinking about me.
The two of us alone late in the library, her hand brushing mine as she reached past me for a book, turning to find her standing so close that I hardly had to move at all before I was kissing her.
I mentioned it to Adam, sort of half joking, partly because I always told him everything and partly because I knew it would turn him on.
And it did. But thinking about being with Charlie, telling Adam what I wanted to do with Charlie, turned me on much more than I’d imagined.
And it scared me.
And then, at Christmas, everyone from our course went out in town.
First to dinner and then to a club.
I danced with Charlie and all I could think about was touching her, kissing her.
One strap of the top she was wearing kept falling down and I wanted to put my mouth on the curve of her shoulder, run my tongue up the side of her neck.
I left early. Adam was at home waiting for me, but this time I didn’t tell him anything.
Back at uni, after Christmas, Charlie and I met for coffee like we always did and she asked if I had feelings for her.
Just straight out asked me.
Her boldness was one of the things I liked about her, but it scared the shit out of me.
I told her yes, maybe, I had been having some feelings.
But I didn’t think I was gay.
I didn’t know. I worried that maybe I was bored, making it up.
Maybe Charlie would kiss me and I would realise I was wrong, that I wasn’t actually into her at all.
Charlie told me she was into me too, had been for a while, but she wasn’t interested in anything as long as I was still with Adam.
And I wasn’t going to end things with Adam.
I wasn’t going to cheat on him either.
And then I did. Or at least, I tried to.
The next time we went out as a group, I got absolutely shit-faced and, at the end of the night, in the street, the two of us waiting for Ubers, I tried to kiss her.
And she pushed me away.
The next morning, I woke up with a raging headache, a rolling stomach, and a text from Charlie that said, I’m not here for you to experiment with.
We still saw each other at uni, of course, but we didn’t sit together in the canteen any more.
We didn’t walk home together.
We didn’t meet for coffee.
I missed her. And I felt horrible.
I’d ruined our friendship.
And I’d been a dick to both Charlie and Adam.
I wasn’t going to risk doing anything like that ever again.