Chapter 18 He’s Not Wearing His Coat
The meeting room is basically a replica of the meeting room on my father’s ship. I run my hand down the table looking at Sivan who is currently trying to stuff his large body inside the small coat closet behind the table.
He closes the door on himself. “I can fit, but it will be hard for me to react if he tries something. I’m kind of squished in here. Plus, I can’t see anything. What if we leave the door open a bit?” He opens the closet a smidge. “Can you see me in here?”
This whole thing is so ridiculous. I move to the other side of the room and look directly at the closet. “No, I can’t, but I can smell you. Then again, I love the way you smell, so it may just be me.”
“Come in here and smell me, then. I think I can do you standing up in here.”
“What?! Do me standing up?” I look over my shoulder as if someone could have heard him.
“Yeah, I can do it. You’re not heavy. Bring your ass in here.”
“I think you’re forgetting about our tattoos. How can you lift me like that? Yours were bleeding a little bit. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
The closet door opens, and Sivan has a huge pout on his face. “I really wanted to do that,” he says. “We have to have sex our first night on our new ship.”
“We still can. Just not standing up in a closet. But if you promise to behave when Matteo is here, I promise to be a good boy and do whatever you want…as long as it doesn’t mess with the tattoo covering.”
“I’ll take that deal.” He walks out of the closet and points toward the wall. “I like the swords hanging here. It’s kind of an invitation for our crew to have a free for all if they forget their own weapons and get pissed off during a meeting.”
“Kind of is. But I guess if we were boarded and everyone was in here with no weapons, that would also come in handy.”
Sivan and I look at the clock on the wall, it’s almost time for me to meet Matteo.
“Almost nine o’clock,” Sivan says. “Come here, let me hold you for a minute before you have to go up there.”
I tuck myself inside his arms, and for a moment, I wonder why I’m doing this. Why should I leave him for even a second?
Our eyes meet, and Sivan tucks my hair behind my ear and kisses me.
His hands are holding my face, while his tongue gently rubs against mine.
Our heads turn side to side through the kiss as it intensifies into something far more urgent than it started out as.
With a low growl, Sivan pulls back from the kiss.
I’m panting from the intensity of it, while he tucks his face against the side of my neck.
“I don’t like that there is a bit of time between you meeting him on the deck and the two of you coming down here.
Don’t walk in front of him. Walk beside him and get him down here as quickly as possible.
If you’re not down here in ten minutes, I’m coming up there.
And, Vincent, if he tries to take you off the ship; say no. ”
I give the front of his pants a pat. “I’ll be back as quick as I can, then once this is over, we can pick up where we just left off.”
He kisses me on my forehead. “I love you. Please don’t die in the nine minutes that we’re apart.”
I give him a kiss on the cheek and look into his gorgeous blue eyes. “Sivan, I—”
A knock on the door makes us separate. “Get in the closet, Sivan.”
He quickly shuffles into the closet, leaving the door open just a crack.
Shit. I wasn’t prepared for him to come down here yet. I didn’t get to give myself a pep talk.
“Come in,” I say, straightening my shirt. As the door opens, I realize my sword is on the opposite side of the table. I put it down when we walked in earlier. I’m sure I won’t need it, though.
It’s Rooster. “Matteo is on the deck. He said you’re supposed to be meeting him. After what happened yesterday, I wanted to confirm that with you, before allowing him access to the ship.” He’s looking around the room, concernedly. “Where is Sivan? Why are you alone?”
Sivan sticks a hand outside of the closet and waves. “In here.”
“Alright. I didn’t think you would leave him alone with him. Let’s go, Vincent. I’ll walk with you up there. You need to be careful,” Rooster warns me.
When I step on deck, I see Matteo standing near the bow of the ship.
He’s dressed in casual clothes. I guess that doesn’t mean anything on its own, except that he doesn’t consider our meeting to be a formal one.
I swallow hard before I greet him. My hands are shaking, and the chill in the air somehow makes my tattoos hurt.
Matteo is looking at me, but his eyes are vacant. There’s no emotion there. Not like before.
I force a smile. “Hey, thanks for coming to meet me.”
“You asked to meet me, why wouldn’t I come?”
A few crew members on deck are listening in on our conversation. I need to get him to go below deck with me.
“It’s nice out,” Matteo says. “Maybe we should go for a walk and talk about whatever it is that you need to talk about. You can show me around the ship after.”
“Nah. I’m kind of tired from getting my tattoos. I’d rather just talk in the meeting room where we can be comfortable.” It’s a weak excuse at best, but it’s all I could think of.
“Ohhh, tattoos make people tired. I had no idea.” He scoffs. “If you’re hoping to try and convince me that I should join you and Sivan, you’re wasting your time.”
“I just want to talk.”
I stand beside him, and we start walking toward the lower deck stairs. He looks at me, seemingly waiting for me to go down first. “I see…” he says.
I have no idea what he means, but I’m sure between my nervous expression and the way my forehead is sweating, he’s noticed something is off. I’ve never been a good liar.
He steps downstairs first, and I follow behind. Once we reach the lower deck, I walk beside him. It’s completely silent, and neither of us are saying anything. He looks unarmed, since he’s dressed casually, but he usually has at least two daggers on him.
“This is nice down here,” he says. “You two must be really happy with the way it turned out.”
I don’t know if he means the ship or if he’s talking about how things turned out between us. “The ships are nice. I’m happy to finally have one.”
“I didn’t mean the ships. Wow. How will you survive without me to explain everything to you?” he asks through a laugh laced with malice.
We walk inside the meeting room, and he’s looking around while I close the door behind us. I’m so afraid that Sivan is going to do something to draw his attention. “Wait, why would I have to survive without you? Are you going somewhere?”
He furrows his brow looking at me, ignoring my question. “Is that your sword?” he asks, pointing toward the end of the table.
Oh shit, my sword. Sivan must be so mad that I left it there. “Yeah, my dad gave it to me. It’s my present for my promotion. You like it?”
He walks toward the sword and picks it up, removing it from its scabbard. “Ooh a black blade. That’s nice. It’s light, too.” He makes a few slicing motions in the air with it.
It’s making me uneasy. Sivan must be ready to fly out of the closet.
He’s admiring the blade and looking around the room.
“Why did you leave it down here when you came up to get me? Aren’t you afraid of someone attacking you?
Your first mate should have warned you never to meet anyone unarmed.
You learned that in captaincy lessons.” He raises his eyebrows at me.
“Where is he? Already running away from his responsibilities, probably.”
“Why do you hate him? You’ve always had an issue with us screwing around, but now I just don’t—I don’t get it. What did Sivan do to make you hate him so much?”
“Is this why you wanted to meet? You wanted to try and play peacekeeper between me and Sivan?” He slides the sword back into its scabbard and places it on the table.
“Why wouldn’t I want to meet with you? We hang out every day.”
“Ha! I think you mean that we used to hang out every day. Everything changed when you two slept together. You just—became different. Everything was about him. Every conversation, every single day, was all about him. Meanwhile I…I was struggling with my own sort of identity crisis, you could say. But you were too busy to notice. Too busy crying and acting like a child over someone who didn’t even want you. ”
“How can you say that? He told me he asked you to let him know when I was feeling better, and he told me you purposely wouldn’t let him see me. When we were in my room the other day, you said you didn’t remember any of that. Was that true? Did you really forget?”
“Hmm…I did not forget. I went to great lengths to be sure he couldn’t get in touch with you. I had to pull Harlow into this whole mess which I was not happy about.”
I’m trying to process everything he just said to me. Why would he do all of that?
“You still haven’t realized anything yet, have you?” he asks me.
“It depends on what you’re asking me. I do know some things, but what I really want to know is why?
Why is the idea of us together so terrible for you?
You and I are brothers. Brothers take care of each other.
Brothers don’t watch each other cry and purposely make them suffer more. Why the fuck did you do that?”
“Oh, Vincent. The stuff you say is really quite funny. I am not your brother. It’s so stupid that I allowed myself to believe that lie for so many years.”
“What do you mean? Who cares that my parents adopted you? You’re still my brother. No one has ever made you feel any different.”
“I feel different because I am different. I’m not like you, or your father, and I was never meant to be.”
I run my hand down my face. I hate that he’s hurting, but I am so confused. “What do you mean? You’re family.”
“I am not. I’m an outsider, and I always will be. I needed your help, and you didn’t care. You only cared about him. You didn’t even notice that I was struggling. What kind of a brother does that?”