Chapter 24
24
I wake up curled around Berry, one arm numb from being trapped under her body, the other floppy and aching from deckhand work.
Her phone is blurting the old-style ringtone she says is the most likely to wake her up and the mattress shifts as she stretches her legs down the bed and rolls over to face me.
‘Morning. How are you feeling?’
‘Weak as a kitten,’ I tell her.
She kisses me quickly before rolling off the bed and stepping straight into the bathroom.
I stretch and turn my own alarm off before checking my messages.
Riley has sent me a series of Reels from a woman who found eight baby skunks abandoned under her house.
Maddie’s sent me a message asking if she can run away and join me.
‘If I see one more in-growing toenail . . .’
Mum’s sent me a photo of Riley, Alfie and Mick on a ride at the fairground, all three of them crammed into one car.
Mick is looking startled, his body turned towards the little ones, his hand braced on the safety rail; Riley’s head is thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth open with laughter; Alfie is looking straight ahead, his face serious but arms thrown up in the air.
I message her back, telling her about my first day as a deckhand – rinsing, washing, rinsing, drying – obviously I don’t mention the mind-and-body-shattering orgasm it ended with.
Berry comes out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, skin still gleaming with water droplets and I stretch out one almost useless arm.
‘Come here.’
She laughs.
‘We definitely don’t have time. ’
Groaning, I clamber out of bed.
A hot shower. Coffee.
Berry is bending over, taking her crew uniform out of a drawer.
I run my finger over her lavender tattoo and she rolls her shoulders back, straightening up and turning round.
I’m already leaning in.
I kiss her quickly and she tastes like toothpaste.
‘This is called a Sunset Serenade,’ Liam tells Bec and Morgan as the sun is setting that evening.
We’re on the main deck, which is decorated with a gold fringe curtain and glitter balls, and Adam has set up the karaoke machine.
‘It’s bourbon, peach liqueur and lavender bitters, garnished with lavender. ’
They each take a glass and rave about how delicious it is.
‘And you gave it the perfect name!’ Bec gestures at the orange, peach and lavender sky.
‘Not my first rodeo!’ Liam says, throwing a quick glance my way.
While I was washing and drying the sun deck earlier, Liam was watching YouTube videos on how to create a cocktail.
‘This is bliss,’ Bec says, holding her drink out and taking a photo.
‘We’re so lucky, babe. ’
‘We are,’ Morgan says.
‘I am.’
She puts her drink down on the table.
Stands. And drops down to one knee on the deck.
‘Oh my god,’ Bec says, staring down at her.
My breath catches and I grin at Liam who beams back at me.
‘You are the love of my life,’ Morgan says, looking up at Bec.
‘I can’t believe I get to do life with you.
I know we said we didn’t need to get married – and we don’t – but I just want to marry you.
I want to be your wife and call you my wife and also have a huge, fuck-off party for all our friends.
What do you say?’
Bec laughs through her tears and touches Morgan’s face.
‘Yes. Of course. Of course!’
Morgan stands up and Bec jumps into her arms and I turn and run down the stairs, hoping to find Berry, who I know will be gutted to have missed it.
At least if I get her now we can run back up together and join the celebration.
But instead I run smack into Adam.
‘Oh, hey.’ I take a step back.
‘I’m sorry. Are you okay? ’
He doesn’t look okay.
He looks terrible.
‘Yeah, I’m .
. . Hope, I need to talk to you. ’
‘I know,’ I tell him.
‘I want to talk to you too. Tomorrow? Or, I don’t know, later tonight maybe?
I don’t know how late this is going to go. ’
‘I’ve fucked everything up,’ he says, his voice low.
I shake my head. ‘You haven’t.
It’ll be okay. We can talk later.
I’ll find you after service. ’
Adam nods. ‘Okay. Thanks.’
I feel awful leaving him like this, but I remember why I ran downstairs in the first place.
‘Morgan just proposed. I need to get champagne.’
He nods.
‘That’s cool. I can go if you want? ’
‘That would be great, thanks.’
He heads off to the galley and I find Berry doing the turn-down in Bec and Morgan’s room.
‘We should do something for them in here,’ Berry says, once I’ve told her.
‘How are you at towel animals?’
I snort.
‘I don’t think I’m up to a “congratulations on your engagement” swan. ’
‘Rose petals?’ Berry says.
‘Too obvious?’
‘Maybe more champagne? More chocolates?’
We always leave a chocolate on the bedside along with a bottle of water.
‘Ice bucket and champagne,’ Berry says.
‘To begin with. And then I’ll see if we have petals? ’
While Berry investigates, I go back up to the deck and find Morgan and Bec giddily FaceTiming friends from the daybed.
I put some music on quietly and switch on all the fairy lights, now that the sun’s even lower.
‘This is all perfect,’ Bec tells us, once they’re off the phone.
‘You’ll have some champagne with us, right? ’
They get me to invite everyone else and Berry, Ben and the captain all come up.
Carlo is cooking and I don’t know where Adam is.
We toast them with the champagne we can’t actually drink, posing for photos that they post online.
They insist we stay for the karaoke, and Captain Liz says just for one song and then she has to go.
She sings ‘Ironic’ by Alanis Morissette and even though she speak-sings most of it, she belts out the chorus and it’s amazing.
‘Wow,’ Morgan says. ‘Who’s gonna follow that? ’
‘You are, baby,’ Bec tells her.
Morgan rolls her eyes and puts on ‘Jolene’.
She mostly can’t sing it for laughing, but she gets through it and hands the mic directly to Bec.
Bec sings ‘Single Ladies’ with attempts at the dance moves while Morgan films her and cries with laughter.
Bec says she’s going to give the mic to Liam, but sings ‘My Life Would Suck Without You’ to Morgan instead.
Liam is uncharacteristically reticent about singing anything, but since Bec won’t let it drop, he eventually sing-shouts ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ badly, before scurrying back behind the bar to mix up some more cocktails.
Bec and Morgan sing ‘Islands in the Stream’ and then Carlo comes running up to sing Dua Lipa’s ‘New Rules’, which is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life.
He can really sing, but also totally commits, performing the whole thing with a straight face and dance moves.
Ben does an appalling version of ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ by the Proclaimers and then Berry sings ‘No Scrubs’.
She’s got a good voice, but acts like she doesn’t, covering her face all the way through.
The version that plays is the one with the rap and Berry shakes her head, claiming she doesn’t know it, and Morgan grabs the mic from her and does the whole thing so brilliantly she gets a spontaneous round of applause.
‘Oh!’ Berry shouts, holding up a cocktail.
‘We need to find some yacht rock for Hope to sing.’
I shake my head.
‘I don’t want to sing. ’
‘Oh my god,’ Bec says.
‘You have to! Everyone else has, right?’
‘Some of us more than once,’ Morgan adds.
‘What can you do?’ Berry asks me.
‘Nothing!’ I tell her.
‘I just like listening to all of you, I don’t need to sing. ’
‘Sorry,’ Bec says.
‘This is our engagement party and I must insist.’
‘I don’t know any yacht rock,’ I tell Berry.
‘You wouldn’t let me listen to the playlist! ’
‘You made her a playlist?’ Bec says.
‘That’s adorable!’
‘Doesn’t have to be yacht rock then,’ Berry tells me.
‘I’ll do that. You do whatever you want.
Pick something!’
I scroll through the screens, trying to find something I know and think I have a chance of being able to sing.
My mum always does Neneh Cherry’s ‘Buffalo Stance’.
There doesn’t even have to be karaoke.
Sometimes she just puts it on and stands in the middle of the pub to do the whole thing.
I scroll through a bunch of Taylor Swift songs and Morgan yells that we have to do ‘Love Story’.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t sing that. ’
‘We’ll help you,’ she tells me, and I don’t even get a chance to agree before it’s playing and Berry’s given me the microphone.
I’ve lost my place by the end of the first verse and cringe at how terrible I am and it doesn’t matter because first Morgan joins in, almost yelling the chorus, and then Bec takes the mic from her for the bridge.
By the time we get to the key change and the line about the proposal and Morgan sings ‘Marry me’ directly to Bec, we’re all laughing through tears.
As soon as everyone’s in bed, as soon as we’ve tidied everything away, as soon as the boat is locked up and the lights are out and the door of our cabin closes behind us, Berry kisses me like she’s been thinking about it all day.
Like it’s all she’s been wanting to do.
She kisses me slowly, softly, and I can hear myself making little sounds, which she seems to like because she turns her head to deepen the kiss, her fingers on my neck.
I part my lips, run my tongue along her bottom lip until she’s sighing into my mouth.
She grabs the hem of my T-shirt and lifts it up, pulling back from the kiss to yank it over my head.
I lean forward, chasing her lips, as she drops my T-shirt to the floor.
‘Come here.’
She crawls into my bunk, pulling me after her and I lie on my back, Berry on her side next to me.
She traces circles on my stomach with her fingers as she kisses my neck, my shoulder, down my arm, leaning up over me to lick along my collarbone and the dip at the base of my throat.
I roll onto my side to face her and hook my leg over hers, pulling her closer.
We both moan as our bodies press together and then Berry whispers, ‘We have to be quiet,’ directly into my ear.
‘These walls are so thin.’
I roll her onto her back and straddle her, leaning down to kiss her throat, her chest, tasting salt on her skin.
‘Let me . . .’ she says, wriggling under me to pull her vest top up and over her head.
I hook one finger into her bra strap and slowly slide it down her arm and she shivers.
‘Yeah?’
I look down at her.
Her pupils are wide, cheeks flushed, as she nods.
I move down until my feet are pressed against the wall at the foot of the bed and kiss her chest, between her breasts, the skin soft under my lips.
I lick over her bra and she pulls her legs up, wrapping them around my waist. It’s too much and I have to take a second to just breathe, resting my forehead against her ribs.
‘Want me to take it off?’ she whispers.
I shake my head, lick along her ribs, run my tongue under the edge of her bra.
I feel like I’m going to explode into tiny pieces, bits of me embedded in the glossy wood of the cabin.
I push myself up on one elbow, running my other hand up Berry’s side until I’m cupping her breast, my thumb brushing her nipple.
Her eyes are squeezed shut and she’s breathing fast, her chest fluttering under my hand.
I lean down and run my tongue across her other breast, over the lace of her bra, and she whimpers.
I smile as I shush her and lick along the upper edge, the lace scratchy under my tongue.
She arches her back, pushing her chest up towards me and I gently push her back down.
She squeaks as I pinch her left nipple and lick the right one through the bra.
‘Come on!’ she mumbles.
I laugh. ‘Impatient.’
She squeezes me with her thighs and I run my hand down her side, her leg, feeling the muscles flexing.
She tangles a hand in the back of my hair, not pushing my head down, but holding it still.
I take a second and then suck her nipple through the bra and she moans, arching up towards me again.
‘Thin walls!’ I whisper.
‘Everyone’s in bed.’
‘I don’t give a shit. ’
Giggling, I slide the other bra strap down her arm.
She goes still as I push the bra down to her waist, shifting over her so our hips are lined up.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ I say, looking down at her.
She opens her eyes, still breathing fast. ‘How are you so good at this?’
I laugh.
‘I’ve thought about it a lot. ’
‘Yeah? Me too.’
The thought that Berry’s been thinking about me too, the way I’ve been thinking about her, makes me shiver.
I kiss down her ribs, bite her hip bones, slide her underwear off.
She pushes herself up on her elbows to watch me lick along her inner thighs and then she drops back down against the pillows, her arm over her face, as I dip my head between her legs.