Caribbean Crush

Chapter One CASEY

Chapter One

CASEY

I squeeze my eyes shut as I white-knuckle the metal railing with both hands. Oh dear god. I’ve really done it now. I’ve flown too close to the sun. It serves me right for being such a liar, liar, pants on fire.

I feel a slight rocking underfoot that shouldn’t be there. It’s in direct contrast to everything I read online.

It’s just like being on land!

You won’t notice a thing!

These new ships are practically floating cities!

The sway is so gentle I could almost miss it, but not now, not with my eyes closed and my other senses dulled. It’s a perpetual reminder of where I’ve found myself: adrift.

My erratic heart is going crazy in my chest. My knees bend as I grip tighter to the rail.

I never thought I’d be standing on the balcony of a suite on board a luxury cruise liner about to set sail around the Caribbean.

I can’t force my eyes to peel open. The sun bears down on me, adding fire to the stifling moist heat. How do people live like this? Fort Lauderdale might as well be the devil’s butt crack for how sweltering it is down here. The seagulls caw overhead. The briny sea breeze whirls and lifts my hair so it dances around my shoulders. The boat’s horn rumbles a low, long blare—a triumphant send-off that has me nearly doubling over.

Is it too late to jump and swim ashore? Surely, I could make it. I’m not that far up.

I peek my eyes open to check, and the heady height almost makes me lose my breakfast. I am that far up.

It’s going to be okay. Don’t panic. Ignore the impending doom creeping in from all sides. The impostor syndrome chirping in the back of your mind isn’t real. You belong here!

And I do.

I do belong here. I’m an intrepid reporter. A legitimate journalist with a press badge and real credentials. I didn’t steal any of it! A sprightly blonde attendant willingly handed me a press packet when she showed me to my suite an hour ago. It had my name on it and everything. Printed in black and white.

I, Casey Hughes, have a job to do.

I work at Bon Voyage , a travel magazine that boasts more than five million readers and another few million online subscribers. I’ve worked there for six years, ever since I graduated from college with a degree in journalism. I have a very fancy, very chichi title. Here it is. Gird your loins. I’m a ... drum roll ... fact-checker. I know what you’re thinking— That can’t possibly be a real job . Well, it is. On my email signature, it reads, Casey Hughes, fact-checker .

But that’s not my end goal.

This isn’t the career I’ve always longed for. I didn’t stand up at my kindergarten graduation—after the boy who picked astronaut and the girl who couldn’t choose between veterinarian and Barbie—and tell the crowd that I longed to be a glorified grunt worker.

I’ve always wanted to work in travel journalism. My initial longing to see far-off places stems not from inspiring college lectures but from TV shows like The Price Is Right and Wheel of Fortune . In the afternoons, after school, my grandmother and I would sit on the couch together, watching Bob Barker and Pat Sajak woo contestants and audiences alike with the promise of luxurious vacation prizes. Jamaica, South Africa, England—it didn’t matter.

“Oh, Italy!” my grandmother would exclaim. “I’ve always wanted to go there!” Then she’d turn to me with an imploring look in her eyes. “Promise me, when you’re older, you’ll go off somewhere exotic and tell me all about it! I want to know everything .”

And I would nod and agree and promise to do just that. Her desire to see the world became my desire.

Unfortunately, I haven’t quite worked out how to make that happen yet. I have no money to travel, and I haven’t worked my way up to my dream job yet. As a fact-checker, I get tasked with lowly assignments a monkey could do and get paid shit all to do it. My paycheck can be counted in pennies.

Now what is a fact-checker doing aboard a luxurious cruise ship?

Oh, simple.

I’ve committed a crime, and it’s only a matter of time before I’m found out.

It’s why I’m panicking. Why I’m squeezing my eyes shut again as I try those slow, drawn-out breathing exercises pregnant women do while trying to endure a painful contraction in the delivery room. Heee heee hoooo.

My crime is mild, though the person (er ... man ) involved likely won’t see it that way.

Well ... maybe he will. It’s hard to know—

“Blimey. Everything okay over there?”

My eyes fly open, and my head whips around as I search for the voice.

I look up to the balcony above mine, but there’s no one leaning over trying to talk to me. Then I check the balcony below mine to find it’s empty too. I look to the left ... and just when I start to worry the voice was in my head—that on top of everything else, I’m now hallucinating posh British accents—I turn to the right and see her. My neighbor, one balcony over.

She smiles like she’s a little wary of me. That’s fair. I can’t imagine what I look like right now. There’s no telling what this humidity has done to my already unruly hair.

It doesn’t seem to have affected her the same way, though. Her glossy blonde strands look to be at her beck and call. She’s likely just come from a salon, where they’ve added a little curl to her blowout, making it shiny and neat.

“You look a little peaked.” She tilts her head, studying me. “Are you seasick?”

“Uh, yeah ...,” I mutter, deciding that’s the best route forward. It’d be too complicated to get her up to speed on everything else. We’d be out here all morning. I’d get a sunburn.

“I have some Dramamine. Hold on.”

She disappears into her suite before I can tell her there’s no need. It won’t cure my real ailment.

I lean over and call out to her (“Uh ... lady?”)—trying to get her attention, to no avail—then I jump out of my skin when there’s a knock on my suite’s door.

“It’s me!” she says on the other side.

“What . . . ?”

Do I just—

Let her in?

I look around as if someone’s going to give me the answer.

In normal life, I would never let a veritable stranger into my home, but cruise ships don’t abide by standard rules. This ship doesn’t function like an apartment building so much as a jail or, better yet, an insane asylum. I’ve heard cruise mates bond fast, that relationships form overnight. Everything takes on a heightened importance. Maybe because we’ll all be a little dehydrated (from the heat) and a little drunk (from the free booze).

The woman knocks again, and I’m forced to abandon the balcony. I rush to the door, with the intention of accepting whatever she’s offering and then quickly shooing her away so I can continue my downward spiral. The Lamaze breathing did seem to be helping slightly ...

Instead, once I open the door, she waltzes past me like I’ve invited her in. A waft of her floral perfume tickles my nose as she slips across the foyer. She peruses the place, getting the lay of the land, dipping her head around the corner into the bedroom. I’m left speechless, staring back and forth between her and the open door leading back out into the ship’s hallway.

I know I’m emitting heavy doses of kindly-get-the-hell-out vibes, but she’s unbothered. She sets the small box of medicine beside the espresso machine on the long buffet and continues her perusal of my suite, with a whistle of appreciation.

“So then we’ve all got fancy digs. I was wondering about that. I think every suite on this floor is as big as an entire London flat. What do we need with a sitting room all to ourselves? And that balcony could host a whole bloody football team!” She whirls around to face me again. “Have you taken a look at your vanity in the little changing room outside the loo? All La Mer products .” Her green eyes widen with excitement. “Full-sized ones too. Not those dinky travel samples. I’ve already nicked mine and stowed them. With any luck, the cleaners will take pity on me and gift me replacements.”

I look to my bedroom door. The sleek paneling, the crystal knob.

“I had no idea,” I tell her. “I haven’t made it that far yet.”

I sound dumbstruck, or maybe just dumb. I’m still playing catch-up.

When I arrived at the dock this morning, I was a half hour late, and it took me another twenty minutes in the blazing heat to find where exactly I was supposed to board the ship.

“This entrance is for staff only.”

“Provisions unload here, dear; you need to head back that way.”

“Oh, sorry, you’ve gone too far.”

I was already sweating and anxious when I found the short line of invited press waiting to be checked in. Of course it annoyed me further that everyone else seemed to look as though they belonged. No nervous newbies in the bunch, just a bunch of old classmates and friends. Yay! Men clapped each other on the shoulders. Women smiled with ease. At the top of the gangway—just as a bead of sweat rolled down my chest beneath my bra—I was greeted by a dozen uniformed staff all in a line. A cheery blonde woman promptly stepped forward to greet me by name.

She introduced herself as Ingrid, and she explained she would serve as my butler for the duration of our ten-day cruise.

“Now, Ms. Hughes, if you’ll follow me, I’ll lead the way to your suite.” Ingrid’s accent was clipped and formal with a hint of what I suspected to be Scandinavian roots. “Jacques here will take care of your luggage.”

Already, a strong hand was lifting my duffel bag and suitcases away from me. Panic spiked my blood. “Oh! My laptop’s in there!”

Ingrid smiled in understanding. “Jacques will be along shortly. Have no fear.”

It’s a rich-person thing to lose sight of your valuable belongings. I can’t easily afford to replace my laptop, so, therefore, I don’t make a habit of parting with it very often. Still, it felt silly to argue with her in front of everyone, so I swallowed down my resignation and handed off my bags to the capable-looking Jacques before allowing Ingrid to lead me on board.

On the way to my suite, I barely had time to register the overwhelming opulence of the ship. Ingrid was walking too fast. I’d take note of a painting— Could that really be a Picasso? —or a gargantuan crystal chandelier that seemed to be levitating midair, and then we’d curve around another corner or wind up another flight of stairs, making our way to deck seven. We talked on the way—well, she talked. She let me know how excited she was about her new position on board Aurelia and that she was a mom of two teenage boys, and when I seemed shocked by that, she whispered her age. I couldn’t believe it. She looked so young!

This immediately put me in her good graces. “I avoid the sun at all costs,” she explained with a wink.

Outside room 602, she scanned a thin silver key card and pushed open the door to allow me to walk in before her.

My jaw dropped, and I blacked out a little as she droned on about the suite’s accommodations: “innovative curved windows surround the living areas, giving the effect of indoor-outdoor living”; “one of the largest balconies on board”; “separate bedroom and bathroom”; “walk-in shower and whirlpool bath”; “writing desk”; “complimentary laundry, pressing, and wet cleaning.”

And what about dry cleaning? I almost asked, just to poke fun at the absurdity.

I just stood there, unmoving, trying to find the breath that had suddenly vacated my lungs.

She wasn’t even done yet. She was explaining the Wi-Fi access to me when I cut her off.

“Are you sure you have it right?” I asked her with a funny little laugh. “This room is probably for dignitaries or ... or presidents. Have you mixed me up with a celebrity or something?”

People sometimes think I look like a mixture of Emma Watson and Emilia Clarke. It’s the catlike curve of my blue eyes and my pronounced cheekbones. They want to belong on a more notable face. Maybe Ingrid was confused.

I expected her to smack herself on the forehead and apologize for the blunder before shoving me belowdecks, to a cramped cabin stuffed between the boiler room and the communal toilet. I’d get a squeaky cot and a scratchy blanket.

Instead, she grinned. “These are your accommodations for the duration of your stay on board Aurelia , Ms. Hughes. Jacques will be up shortly with your bags. If you should need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me. There’s a button beside the phone in the living room as well as one on the nightstand in your bedroom. Think of it as a butler’s bell. Just press it, and I’ll be here in the blink of an eye.”

She walked over to the long console table in the foyer and started to neatly arrange items from inside the folder she brought along with her. “Here is your key card along with your press packet. Inside, you’ll find a badge and detailed itinerary, map of the ship, and most importantly, your emergency protocols. You can access the muster drill on your suite’s television. It needs to be viewed within the next hour, prior to our departure.”

She turned then, smiling at me. “I know you’re probably anxious to take a look around. A guided tour of the boat will take place this afternoon. We’ll meet on deck nine in the observation lounge. Mr. Woodmont will be there along with the captain.”

She noticed my startled reaction at the mention of Mr. Woodmont, and she beamed with pride. “ Yes . It will be so exciting. I’m sure you’re all eager to get a moment with him. I know I shouldn’t be gossiping, but he truly is as handsome as everyone claims him to be.”

I swallowed down that bit of news and stayed completely silent. I didn’t want to encourage the topic of Mr. Woodmont for one more second.

“I’ll leave you to it. I know you must be anxious to freshen up.”

What gave me away? The stink lines coming off me? The dried sweat on my face?

She shut the door behind her, and that’s when the doom and gloom set in, the reality of where I was and what I’d done to get here.

The British stranger in my suite points back to the Dramamine, forcing me back to my uncomfortable present.

“I thought about just tossing it over to you, but my aim is shite, and I didn’t want to lose all my pills. Here. Take two. Or three. I doubt you can overdose on something like this. It’s probably just B 12 and beeswax or something. Do you know?”

The chemical makeup of Dramamine?

No, I’m afraid not.

I swallow down a pill and then pass her back the box with a thanks, scrutinizing her now that she’s made herself at home in my suite.

“Who—who are you?” I ask with a curious lilt.

The girl laughs and tosses her shiny tresses over her shoulder. “Sienna Thompson. British lifestyle blogger.” She eyes me skeptically. “You really don’t know?”

I cringe with guilt. “Should I?”

She laughs. “Oh my god, how stuck up did I just sound? ‘ You really don’t know ,’” she mimics herself. “I’m so embarrassed! It’s just that ... yeah, I’ve got quite a large social media following. A bit like the it girl of London. I’m so used to getting recognized everywhere I go.” She rolls her eyes. “See? There I go again, sounding like a right idiot. How stuck up can one person be? I’m working on it, I swear.”

I can’t help but smile. She might be a tiny bit full of herself, but it’s clear she’s not a total snob. “I feel bad. I’m sure you are really popular. I’m just not on social media all that much. Kind of late to the game.”

Sienna’s pretty green eyes narrow with suspicion. “What are you doing on board, then? I thought this was a brand trip for media and influencers. A huge push to get the word out on social media.”

“Well, I’m a journalist.”

My voice wavers a little as I say it, and I feel like a phony. Am I allowed to call myself a journalist if I’ve never actually been published and don’t actually get paid to write?

Don’t ask my title. Dear god, please don’t make me cop to being a fact-checker. I only just regained the ability to breathe without an ache in my stomach.

Her sleek eyebrows waggle. “A journalist? Fancy that. I bet you’ve got a lot of brains, then. Not that you need them with a face like that. Shame you aren’t on social media. You’d build quite the following in no time. You’re practically wasting away behind the screen.”

I bristle at her derogatory assessment of my chosen field.

“Working as a travel journalist has always been my dream.”

It’s only after I finish saying this that I realize she was trying to pay me a compliment of sorts.

She smiles, unperturbed by my harsh tone. “Well, good for you, then! You’re doing it. What did you say your name was? Maybe I’ve caught one of your articles online somewhere.”

I don’t have the heart to tell her she definitely has not.

She’d need to have private access to my laptop to find all the articles I’ve written over the years. The ones that have never—likely will never—see the light of day.

“Casey Hughes.”

She nods. “American?”

“From White Plains, near New York City.”

“Very cool. Right near the Statue of Liberty?”

That’s like asking if her flat abuts Buckingham Palace, but I just nod. “Sure, yeah.”

She tilts her head, giving me a quick once-over. “Well, listen, I think we’ve lucked out here. These ten days will be loads more fun if I have someone to pal around with. What do you say?”

A friend.

I would absolutely love to have someone by my side for this trip, but I feel like I won’t live up to Sienna’s expectations. She’s dressed in this fancy coordinating silk set. The cami is sexy yet demure—meant to look a little like lingerie—and the shorts take inspiration from men’s tailored trousers. It’s the kind of thing I’d pass in Zara and wonder who the hell could pull it off. Sienna, that’s who.

I’m sure her entire wardrobe has been carefully curated. Her appearance as a whole, really. You would never say her beauty is effortless, but all the effort she’s put in is definitely paying off. She’s so gorgeous I bet men fawn all over her.

I don’t want her to feel stuck with me just because I’m the first person she’s chatted with on the boat. “I’m sure there’ll be other social media influencers here. People you might know. Girls a little more glamorous—”

She won’t even let me finish. “ More glamorous ? Do you not own a mirror? You’re as glamorous as they come, Casey Hughes.” Her green eyes belatedly glance over my outfit replete with wrinkles and ambiguous travel stains. ( Ketchup or blood? Who knows! ) “Well, not exactly right this minute, per se. You aren’t planning on wearing that for the afternoon’s festivities, are you?”

“No, of course not.”

I say it like it’s laughable, but I actually had planned to wear this sundress all day. Now that’s obviously not an option. Good thing I packed heavy. I didn’t want to be without choices on this trip.

As if it’s settled, she says, “Good. Well, why don’t you unpack and get ready, and I’ll do the same.”

I find I’m all out of excuses, and more than that, I want to accept her kindness. I’ll need it. “Okay, sure. Yes . That sounds great.”

I even tack on a genuine smile. Already, I feel my worry starting to dissipate now that I’ll have someone by my side as confident and carefree as Sienna.

“We can meet out in the hallway at a quarter to one and walk to the meet and greet together. I don’t want to be late! I cannot wait to meet Phillip Woodmont.”

There he is again.

Phillip Woodmont.

The man of the hour.

The person who’s going to take me to task for my crime.

My old friend ... of sorts .