Chapter 6 We’re Pirates, Vincent #5
Sivan laughs. “Why would you apologize for that? You didn’t know you’d be spending the night with me. It’s not a big deal. You can borrow whatever you want.” He smiles at me softly then points to the bathroom door. “I gotta dry my hair now, or it’s gonna look like shit tomorrow.”
“Do you want my help?” Why did I ask him that? I really am an idiot.
“Your help?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re still in your towel, so what are you offering to help me with?”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe you might want me to dry your hair for you. I was thinking about the last time we were together when you let me put your hair up. But that’s probably stupid, just forget I even asked. I’ll get dressed and wait for you in your bed.”
“You can dry my hair if you want,” he says with a smile. “Doesn’t take long. You don’t dry yours, right? Just let it air dry?”
“Oh, no hair dryer for me. My hair wouldn’t like that.
” I hop into the sweatpants and carry the wet towel into the bathroom behind him.
His towel is hanging on the hook on the wall, so I hang mine on the hook beside his.
He’s watching me intently, almost studying me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have put the towel on the hook…
Shit, why am I getting so nervous with him all of a sudden?
I grab the center of the towel and make eye contact with him.
“Does this not belong here? I saw yours there, so I assumed that’s where mine would go. ”
“You’re absolutely right.” He chuckles a bit and grabs the hair dryer from under the sink.
I don’t know what he’s laughing about, but his laugh makes me tingle in places that I never thought a laugh could.
For years, I’ve watched girls throw themselves at him, I’ve seen their eyes light up when he talked to them, and now I finally understand what they were seeing.
When he smiles at me, it’s like the entire world around me disappears.
It’s captivating in a way that I don’t fully understand.
All I know is I would go to the ends of the earth for him.
I’d give up everything I have—just to be the one that makes him smile.
“You still wanna help me?” he asks, shaking the dryer at me.
“Of course, let’s do it.” My eyes are glued to his ass in those sweatpants while I follow him out of the bathroom.
I’m practically drooling by the time he plugs the dryer in and sits in the center of his bed.
This is gonna be a problem for me. I was already thinking about sex when we were in the shower, before the shock of the damn water, but now he’s shirtless and on the bed.
But no, I have to dry his hair, that’s what I said I was gonna do, despite the feelings I’m having.
People talk about butterflies in their stomach, but what’s it called when you feel tingly in other places?
I don’t have butterflies in my stomach, I have something else—butterflies in my balls, maybe?
Pftt. He gives me butterfly balls. That’s something I’ll never say aloud. Thank God for internal thoughts.
Sivan passes me the dryer already on, and I climb onto the bed behind him, allowing him to sit between my legs.
“How is your hair so healthy?” I ask over the sound of the dryer. “It’s so soft.”
He looks over his shoulder at me. “Your hair is healthy, too. Why wouldn’t mine be?”
“Because I take care of mine. I just took a shower with you; you don’t even use any conditioner. The shampoo cleans it, but the conditioner is what nourishes it.”
The muscles in his back are on full display when he shrugs at me. “I didn’t know that. Do you think I need it?”
“Well, you should use it, but I’m not a hair expert.
Your hair is pretty healthy, so maybe you don’t need it.
” I’m finding it really hard to focus on drying his hair when his broad shoulders are right in front of me like this.
I wonder if my back looks as good as his.
I push my shoulders back and try and look behind at myself. I can’t see anything, though.
“Ouch, what are you doing? You just dropped the dryer on my head.”
Whoops. “I didn’t drop it; I was just looking at something, and it hit you. Sorry.” I run my fingers through his hair, continuing to dry it.
He lets out a little chuckle. “It’s okay, didn’t actually hurt. You know, we haven’t talked about the ceremony. It’s only a few days away. Are you nervous?” he asks me.
The ceremony—what the hell is that going to look like?
I really hope I can fix this before then.
“Nah, I’m not really nervous. I just wish we could put it on hold for a little while.
I want to be captain, but I just don’t wanna deal with the other stuff.
The tattoos, Harlow, the fact that I have to hide my feelings for you. I don’t want to do any of that.”
“Why do we have to hide the way we feel? My whole life everyone’s been trying to sell the idea of relationships to me, and now that I feel…something, I have to hide it. Why should I have to do that? Why does anyone care? Do we even know that anyone would care?”
I want to point out to him that we still haven’t defined our relationship, but I’m not sure if I should. I run my hands through his already-dry hair, then kiss his back, in between his shoulders.
“Well…as for our dads, they probably wouldn’t care. Sometimes I think they’ve had a few rounds between the two of them.”
“What?” he asks, turning to face me. “Are you serious? I never got that impression.”
I pass him the hair dryer and fall back onto his pillows. “I don’t know. They shared underwear, seems kind of strange for two friends that haven’t ever slept together to do that.”
He pulls his mouth to the side and walks into the bathroom with the hair dryer. “I was gonna let you borrow my underwear.”
“Exactly, and would you even have offered that to me before we slept together?”
“No. Definitely not,” he says, walking back toward the bed.
Sivan lies beside me on his back, and instinctively I scoot closer to him.
The last time we spent the night in the same bed, I can’t remember how we fell asleep, or what our positioning was.
I don’t know if we held each other, but I need to be closer to him.
He must feel the same, because he’s lifting his arm up, so I can tuck against him.
I’ve never laid on anyone else like this, but with my head on his thick, hard chest, and his strong arm wrapped around me… I feel—safe.
“Have you always thought they slept together? Or did you just start thinking that after we did it?” he asks me.
“I don’t know…something about them has always seemed like they did. But after we did it, I started to really wonder if they could have, too. Either way, I don’t think our dads would be mad if we wanted to be together.”
Sivan rubs the back of my head. “So, if our dads wouldn’t be mad, then who are we worrying about finding out?”
I hate this question, because I’ve thought about it every day since we slept together.
I came to terms with my feelings for Sivan pretty quickly after that.
The thing that bothered me was worrying about how other people would react to it.
Thinking that there are people that would actually judge us just for being together, kept me up at night.
But our dads are responsible for changing history, they’re known for turning piracy on its head, why should Sivan and I be any different?
“Well, I think that tradesman, other pirates, and people who expect us to marry women would care.”
“Fuck them. Who cares?”
“Hmm… I feel like we’re supposed to care. I guess there’s always a chance that no one cares about us, and everything stays the same. I could be wrong about our dads, though. Matteo sure as hell thinks my dad would have a problem with it.”
Sivan is silent, but I feel a bit of a change in his breathing, it’s subtle, but it feels like he’s almost holding in a breath. I lift my head from his chest. “What is it?”
“I don’t want to talk bad about him because he’s like a brother to you.”
“Certainly doesn’t stop him from talking bad about you.”
He narrows his eyes, looking down at me. “Matteo talks bad about me?”
“Not exactly bad, but kind of, yeah. He has this crazy theory that he’s been spewing. It’s not important.” I rub my hand on his abs, gently exploring the ridges. I shouldn’t have said that. “Don’t worry about it. Who cares what he thinks?”
“What kind of stuff does he say?”
It’ll be easier if I just show him. Plus, my phone has been going off non-stop, and although Sivan thinks it’s Harlow, it’s more likely Matteo.
Quickly, I grab my phone out of my pants and lie back down in bed beside Sivan, scooting in close again, while holding my phone up so we can both look at it.
The notifications bar shows a bunch of missed texts and even a few calls from Matteo.
But none from Harlow, which is surprising.
“You don’t have to show me your texts with him,” Sivan says.
“I kind of do, though, because it will be easier to explain this way. I don’t mind. Here, let’s go back to right around the time I left.” After a few seconds of scrolling, I stop on the first text that he sent me after I was feeling better. We had an argument right before he sent it.
He used you. Stop getting so upset.
Sivan’s eyes widen. “He’s talking about me?”
“Mmhmm.” I nod and continue scrolling.
Vincent, you’re being ridiculous.
Do you think he’s stupid? You know how smart he is.
Sivan’s body temperature has risen at least a few degrees since we started looking at these, and his jaw is clenched so tight that I’m afraid he might crack a tooth.
I can literally feel the heat coming off him.
“At least he called you smart in this one,” I say with a smile, hoping to lighten the mood. Sivan isn’t laughing, though.
“Can I see that?” he asks.
“Sure.”