Chapter 9 Throwing the Trash Out #4
“Harlow!” I shout while buttoning my shirt. “Ahem…Harlow,” I say, softening my tone. “I need you to leave. We’re not done talking and I have to finish this discussion with Sivan. I can’t let you in here.”
“No. No, I’m not leaving. Open the door or I’ll show everyone what I’ve got on this phone,” she says.
“Do it.” Sivan challenges. “Do it, Harlow, just go ahead. Don’t just stand out there and threaten him.”
“What the hell are you saying to her? Don’t tell her to do that.”
“She won’t fucking do it, because then she’s got nothing on you. Right now, she has you by the balls, she’s not gonna tell anyone.”
“Harlow, please don’t tell anyone, okay? I already agreed to do whatever you said. Just give me some time, here.”
Her mouth is presumably pressed near the door frame as she whispers loudly, “No, I will not be sent away like some ship trash. I am your fiancée, Vincent. Open the door.”
“Oh, screw you,” Sivan says. “You’re only his fiancée because you’ve blackmailed him! You’re not his fiancée by choice. Besides, I thought you were going to tell his father?”
“Ugh!” Harlow’s foot stomps loudly outside the door. “I hate you, Sivan. You’re ruining everything! There are so many girls that like you. Can’t you just go away?”
“Never,” he says with his mouth right beside the door. The monkey is just sitting at Sivan’s feet looking up at him. Honestly, I’m almost afraid to look at it. I don’t feel like getting slapped again.
“Your fathers have been storming around all afternoon; they’ve only not bothered you because you said you were feeling sick, Vincent.
They sent me here to check on you, and here you are ignoring me for Sivan.
Open the door, or I will tell your father about you two, and don’t listen to Sivan, because I’ll do it.
I have more than enough on this phone that you wouldn’t want anyone to see. Trust me.”
I have to let her in. I’m just going to try and reason with her.
I don’t know what else to do. I’m really going to make a shitty captain, because right now, all I can do is think of Sivan.
If I was ruined, I would be okay with that, because between the two of us, there is only one who deserves to be a captain, and it’s not me.
I’m walking toward the door when Sivan stops me. He places a hand on my chest. “You’re gonna open it?”
“I don’t have a choice. If she goes out there whining and gets her mother involved, I’ll be in more trouble than I care to deal with at this point.”
Sivan pulls me in close, while the monkey runs past us into my bathroom and pushes the door shut. I need to get that monkey out of here, but I guess it’s good that it ran into the bathroom. One problem at a time.
Sivan kisses my forehead and squeezes me tightly. “No matter what happens, I won’t let her have you. I’ll never stop fighting for us.”
“Who are you going to fight with? I don’t want you to fight with anyone.”
“Shhh. I just needed you to know. I don’t know what’s going to happen if she tells everyone, but even if every pirate in the world stands against us, I will stand by your side.”
He’s being so sweet to me. I never saw him act this way, not with any girl…
not with anyone. He hasn’t even picked a first mate yet, because he really doesn’t trust or let people in…
What can I do to keep him here with me? How can I protect what we have?
These feelings that we have for one another—how do I keep them safe?
“Sivan, I want you to stay with me,” I say meekly, looking into his deep blue eyes.
Our lips touch softly, and he taps his tongue against mine, then pulls back slowly. “I will stay until you tell me to leave,” he says and kisses my head.
“Oh wow,” Harlow says outside the door. “This is priceless. I already told you both that I could see you, and now what? You’re just ignoring that I’m outside here? You don’t even care?”
“No, neither of us care,” Sivan says. “Because here’s the thing, I’m in here and you’re out there, and his eyes haven’t wavered once.”
“I want to talk to her,” I whisper.
Sivan inhales and nods at me. “Alright, then let’s let her in.”
Leaving the warmth of his embrace, I walk toward the door. “Sivan, go ahead and sit down, you don’t need to stand, just try and relax.”
I open the door for Harlow, and she shoves her phone into her pocket, stepping inside my room. “Thank you. Let’s have a little talk, my dear fiancé,” she says, and pinches my cheek. I pull my face back and step to the side, closing the door.
“Don’t touch him,” Sivan warns. He’s refusing to sit down, but at least he’s standing on the other side of the room.
Harlow holds her palms out toward him and takes a few steps back from me.
“Harlow, listen, I don’t think I can do this,” I say. “You’re still recording me? How am I ever supposed to trust you?”
“Trust me? Trust me? What the hell do you need to worry about trusting me for? You’re the one that can’t be trusted. In here having se—doing that with him. We were supposed to have an understanding; I didn’t mean that you could just do whatever you wanted.”
“I don’t understand what the hell is happening,” Sivan interjects.
“Where is the camera? Just tell us where it is, Harlow. He shouldn’t even be having this conversation with you.
You know how he feels and yet you manipulated him into this.
And now you’re here demanding that he respects you?
What amount of respect have you shown him?
You think that watching someone without their permission is an okay thing to do? ”
“I don’t need to be lectured by you,” she snaps. “Especially when I’m trying to help you two.”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Sivan says. “You’re not trying to help us. You’re trying to help yourself. Otherwise, why would you demand that he marries you? Helping us would be deleting whatever you have recorded and moving on with your life. You don’t care about him. You care about yourself.”
“Vincent, is that how you feel?” she asks me.
“Well, yeah, I mean I told you I didn’t want to do this with you.
I don’t even know why you want to marry me, other than status.
I have never given you anything—aside from sex, which you always initiated.
But emotionally, I have never misled you.
You had no reason to be recording me. I don’t understand. ”
“You always were a little slow,” she says.
“I had every right to do that. Everyone on the ship expected that we would be married when you turned twenty-one. They assumed that because that’s what our parents planned for.
Don’t you think that’s what your mom would have wanted?
Do you think she’d really want you to be with him? What about your father?”
“She is such a manipulator,” Sivan mutters. “Vincent, I’m happy to leave if you need me to, because I can’t just sit here and be quiet while she does this to you.”
“No, don’t leave,” I say.
“You should go,” Harlow says. “This has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and my fiancé.”
Sivan rolls his eyes at her and pulls his phone out. He looks like he’s texting someone. I want to ask what he’s doing, but as long as he’s sitting down, which he is now, it’s better that I just leave him alone.
“Enough of this,” I say. “What the hell am I supposed to do here? I don’t have the right words for how frustrated I am with you right now, Harlow.
I don’t think this arrangement is going to work out.
You’re already getting in the way of the two of us, and we’re not even married yet. I think we need to call this off.”
“You selfish son of a bitch. I have been on this ship with you our whole lives. My mother has served your father for twenty-one years, and I have tried to do the same for you. Of course, I didn’t care that you slept around with other girls, because you weren’t mine, as much as I wanted you to be, but now we’re engaged—what will everyone think of me knowing that you chose to be with a man. What does that say about me?”
I run my hand down my face. “I have no idea how this affects you at all. If you mean because we would call the engagement off, then I’d say that’s your fault. You can’t twist this around on me, when I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Vincent, I would be the laughingstock of the entire ship, and your father may not even make you a captain when he finds out about you two. It would be a travesty. I’m standing in front of you saying that I’m willing to become your wife, just to save you both from the embarrassment of everything.
Please…don’t you have any feelings for me after all this time? ”
I look to Sivan who is avoiding eye contact with me.
“Harlow, I’m sorry, I just don’t care for you in that way.
The truth is that there’s always been a wall in between the two of us, and I never fully understood it until recently.
What you have to accept is that this world that you’ve created is just built on this illusion of us eventually being together.
I never once led you to believe that would happen. I know that you realize that.”
“But can’t you just pretend? I mean, what about Captain and Crew? Being with Sivan is not what’s best for the crew. I know you realize that.”
I can’t believe she just tried to throw that in my face. “No outdated motto is going to determine who I marry or how I live my life.”
Harlow shakes her head at me. “I tried. I tried to do this the nice way. So, what, you think I’m going to just give up? Leave forever? No. I won’t accept this. I refuse,” she says, crossing her arms and staring me down.
“You refuse what?” Sivan asks.
Ignoring Sivan’s question, she steps closer to me. “I am not giving up. I have worked too long for this. You agreed to marry me, and I will tell everyone about what happened if you don’t go forward with the marriage. Plain and simple.”
“Back to this again,” Sivan says, dropping his head forward. “Vincent, do you trust me?”
“Of course,” I say.
He stands up from the couch and walks toward the door. “Harlow, go tell everyone on the ship. Tell them that you caught us fucking. Show them the video, tell his father, go to the pub—do whatever you want. Go right ahead.”
My mouth drops open, and I quickly cover it, while Sivan opens the door.
“Goodbye, Harlow, let us know how it goes,” he says gesturing to the open door.
Harlow crosses her arms in defiance and cocks her head to the side. “I’m not leaving!”
Sivan is not about to back down either. “Oh, you are leaving because the way I see it, is you have three choices: One, you leave and go do something that doesn’t involve us.
Two, you go tell the entire crew what you found out, and how you discovered our relationship, you’ll also have to tell them the engagement is off at that time.
Three, refuse to leave, and I will tell the captain myself that you have been recording Vincent for years. So, what’s it gonna be?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” she says, walking out the door.
“Well, that was quite dramatic…even for Harlow’s standards. She didn’t even shut the door,” I say, laughing.
Sivan pulls me close and kisses me, his tongue is moving softly inside my mouth, while he holds the back of my head. I really love being kissed by him. The way our mouths move together, never separating, is one of my favorite things.
As I reach for his waist, he pulls back from the kiss, eyes wide. “Oh shit, Vincent, the monkey! It’s in your bathroom!”
Quickly, we walk inside my bathroom and find the monkey sitting on the counter.
I’m looking around to see what it might have gotten into, but everything seems fine in here.
Nothing is out of place, and the monkey is just sitting there looking at the two of us.
The monkey makes its way across the counter and jumps onto my chest. “I swear if this monkey slaps me again…”
Whack, the monkey slaps me across my face again, and this time it laughs, it freaking laughs, and jumps down, quickly bolting out of the bathroom and my open bedroom door.
I’m rubbing my cheek, completely stunned that I was slapped three times by a monkey today. But the slap brings back the realization that Harlow could be on her way to tell our fathers about us. I have no idea what she’s going to do.
“Well, that takes care of the monkey,” I say. “Now what? What should we do? We really need a plan for how to deal with this.”
Sivan walks out of the bathroom and closes my bedroom door. “We’re lucky no one walked by when I kissed you a few minutes ago. But you asked what we should do, and I have a few ideas,” he says, pulling me in by my waist.
I tuck my face into the side of his neck. “What kind of ideas?”
“Let’s leave the ship for a while and forget about everything. Come on. I want us to spend the day out. Our fathers aren’t bothering us, and we only have a few days of freedom before all the craziness starts.”
“Mmmm…I don’t know.”
His fingers trace my back while he holds me tight, kissing the top of my head. “Come on, just for a little while. Only a few hours. We need to talk about us, and we can’t do that here.”
I want to talk about us, but I’m kind of afraid, as stupid as that sounds. Still, he’s right. We can’t talk here, not with everything going on. “Okay, but we need to go quick before our fathers call for us.”