Chapter 5 Flamingoes, Pigeons, and Ship Trash #2
“No, no thank you,” I say.
Sivan shakes his head resolutely. “Nope. We don’t want to do that.”
We absolutely can’t get stuck at the bar with these two tonight. “Captains, we’ve been waiting for months to talk to each other. Why would we want to go out with you two?”
“Girls, Vincent. Lots of girls. Both crews are invited to Muffy’s pub. We were told there would be a whole flock of pigeons coming in tonight. Some kind of a conference.”
“Flock of pigeons?” Sivan asks.
“Yes, women, girls, birds.” My father turns to Captain Crawford. “He doesn’t know what birds are?”
“Flamingoes sounds better,” Captain Crawford offers.
“No, it definitely does not,” Sivan says. “Either way, I can’t speak for Vincent, but I’m not going. I want to stay in tonight. I feel”—he looks at me—“sick,” he says.
I have no idea if he feels sick, or if he’s using that as a way to get us out of this. It’s hard to tell because he was pretty pissed about Harlow a few seconds ago.
“You feel sick?” My concern is obvious in the rising pitch of my voice, which came out somewhere between concerned and almost hopeful. I clear my throat and deepen my voice. “I didn’t know you felt sick.” The change in my tone brings curious looks from our fathers.
“Yes, I feel sick. And this whole conversation has only made me feel worse. I’m gonna head back to our ship,” he says, taking a step in the ship’s direction.
“Wait, you just got here, Sivan. We haven’t even talked yet,” I say.
He turns back toward me. “Is there a rule that prohibits you from following me?”
That sounded pretty jerky, but still, I think that was more of an invitation than a rejection. At least that’s how it seems.
“Well, go ahead then, Sivan,” his father says. “You weren’t feeling well when we set off a few days ago, either. Remember when Jenny left the other morning? You probably just need to rest. We’ll take Vincent with us, and we’ll see you when we get back.”
I’m gonna throw up. For real. He was with Jenny before they left?
They leave at the crack of dawn, which can only mean that she spent the night with him.
I’m so confused and pissed off. What the hell am I supposed to think right now?
We aren’t together, I remind myself. He’s allowed to do whatever he wants.
I cover my mouth, feeling truly nauseous at this point.
“No, no, I don’t want to go either. I’m feeling sick, too. ”
“No,” my father says. “He doesn’t have to go because they’ve been traveling, but you have to go. There’s no getting out of it for you.”
I give Sivan a silent pleading look.
He shakes his head at me and shrugs. “Have fun with the girls. If you want to check on me, I’ll be in my room,” he says as he starts walking toward his father’s ship.
What the fuck was that? What am I supposed to even do right now? I don’t want to go drinking with our dads. “Wait, Sivan. I need you to wait,” I say.
“Oh?” he says, lifting his chin and looking over his shoulder at me.
He looks hot, like, actually hot. Not hot like I want to kiss him hot, even though I do. It’s more like he really looks like he could be sick. I jog quickly toward him. “I’ll come check on you in a bit, okay?”
He gives me a sort of pensive look and turns away. I’m standing here dumbfounded, completely fucking confused. I don’t even know which point to focus on. Everything he said a few minutes ago makes no sense if he was sleeping with Jenny just the other day.
Harlow is scampering over from the right side of the deck. She was clearly waiting to see how things played out between Sivan and me.
“Harlow!” my father says loudly.
I see Sivan shaking his head. I assume he can hear what’s happening.
“Do you want to join us?” my father asks.
“Yes, of course I do!” she says excitedly. “Wouldn’t miss it. If I have the chance to get Vincent for the night. I’ll take it.”
Well, I’m certain Sivan heard that, seeing as he’s stopped in his tracks.
I want to run to him and tell him that I won’t be spending the night with her.
I want to tell him that I’ve only thought of him since we were apart, but—he was with Jenny before they left, so does he really even care about me?
Still, he was crying…and he said he thought we were gonna be together.
Do I go after him, or should I stay? The words won’t come out, as much as I want them to.
If he turns and looks at me, I’ll do it.
I’ll go to him. I’ll tell him that I’ve thought of nothing else, and that I only want to be with him.
I give Harlow a glare of warning, knowing full well that she knows what she just did. Sivan is walking toward his ship again, he’s not looking back. Damn it. I told myself I would run after him if he turned around, but he didn’t. How can he walk away when we haven’t even finished our conversation?
I feel Harlow’s lips on my cheek and jump back.
“Harlow, back the hell up. Why did you kiss me?”
“More where that came from later,” she says loudly.
I know that she’s really trying to piss Sivan off, but he’s walked away already. It’s not possible that he would hear her.
“Let’s meet back here in just a bit,” my father says, while Harlow smiles brightly as though she’s done nothing wrong at all.
“Come on, Harlow, back up. We aren’t together,” I say.
My father and Sivan’s are looking me over carefully. “What are you so grumpy for?” Captain Crawford asks me. “Are you really not feeling well, Vincent?”
This is it. This is my chance; I can feign sickness. Which, at this point, isn’t too far off from the truth. “Yeah, I’m feeling sick. I don’t know what brought it on. I think I just need to lie down for a bit.”
“Oh! I’ll stay behind and care for you,” Harlow offers.
“No, definitely not. I don’t want that. If it’s between going out and being with you, I’ll go out.”
Harlow scoffs, then pulls out the fakest puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen. “You see, Captain Rodrigo? Look how he treats me. Any man would be happy to have me. Why is he the only one that doesn’t want me?”
“I can take care of him,” Matteo says, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Why is everyone touching me?!” I shout, jumping backwards. I feel like everyone is in my space right now, and the one person whose space I want to be in isn’t around me at all. He’s gone. It sucks, and I hate it. I want Sivan. If I stay behind with Matteo…then I can’t get to Sivan.
“You want to take care of me?” I ask, tilting my head.
“Of course, I do. It’s my job, isn’t it?”
“Ha! Since when?”
“Oh, look, Captain, he is sick,” Matteo says, with a stupid grin. He’s giving Harlow quite the stare-down. It’s the strangest look. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think there was actually something going on with the two of them.
“Fine, shit…I’ll go. I don’t want to stay here. I’m going to my quarters; I’ll be out in a bit.” I turn quickly before anyone can stop me.
Harlow shouts after me, “I’m going to wear a red dress tonight. I’ll stop by in a bit, so we can coordinate our outfits.”
Okay, that’s enough. I turn back around. “Harlow. I am not going to be with you tonight in any sense of the word. Wherever you are, I will not be. Where you aren’t, I will be. Do you understand? I can’t be any clearer,” I say with my hands on my hips.
Everyone on the deck is staring at me.
Matteo steps closer toward me. “Um, say, Vincent, what, uh…what are you saying? You said you can’t be any clearer, but that was not clear, you will be wherever she is, or isn’t, or you is, or she isn’t… What the hell did you say?” he asks.
“I suppose that was a bit of a stupid way for me to phrase that.” I cross my arms across my chest. “Hmmph—well, what I said was, I will not be with Harlow tonight. The end.”
No one tries to stop me when I walk away from the group, but as soon as I step below deck, I feel alone and confused again.
It’s the same feeling I’ve had for the past nine months.
Once I get to my room, I flop onto my bed.
I don’t want to keep these feelings inside anymore.
I need to talk to… Oh, wait, now that I know Sivan wasn’t ignoring me, I can just text him.
A loud banging on my door interrupts my thoughts, making me stand up quickly. “What the hell? Who is it?”
Matteo opens the door. “Hey, you’ve gotten everyone all flustered. Why do you push her buttons like that? You know how she feels, and you insist on treating her like shit. I li—”
“Bullshit. I didn’t push anyone’s buttons. She knows we aren’t together, and she kissed me on the cheek. Before you got there, she was purposely trying to get Sivan to react. She was trying to make him uncomfortable when he was walking away.”
As soon as I said Sivan’s name, Matteo’s demeanor stiffened.
He really doesn’t trust him, or like him, since he caught us earlier in the year.
He was pretty convinced that Sivan was trying to use me.
His reasoning for thinking that, was that Sivan was too smart to have been caught in bed with me.
So, according to Matteo, Sivan wanted that to happen, as some sort of elaborate plot to ruin me.
Obviously, I didn’t believe that. You don’t fuck your best friend to try and screw him over.
Besides, I was there, I know what we shared.
Still, that hasn’t stopped him from filling my mind with his delusions for the past nine months.
“I like her, is what I came here to say. I didn’t come here to talk about him. I saw him leave. Where was he off in such a rush to? Maybe meeting with someone?”
I can’t deal with his damn conspiracy theories right now. “Wait, you like Harlow? Since when? You’ve never once said this to me. Anyway, it’s all the same. Take her, don’t take her. I don’t care. We both know I only want Sivan.”