Chapter 18
Afew hours after everyone else goes to bed, my stomach starts growling like a pissed-off crocodile.
Apparently my heart was so full off the success of today’s adventure that I forgot to eat half my dinner.
Weighing the potential threat of being yelled at for entering the galley without supervision, my hunger wins out, and I decide to make a run for it.
I duck my head outside my cabin to make sure no one else is awake and head for the galley.
Luckily, it’s pitch-black upstairs, and no one’s there to stop me.
I use the counter to guide myself towards the fridge, pull the door open, and select a perfectly ripe banana from the well-stocked shelves.
But when I pull it closed, I’m looking dead into the eyes of Caleb.
I yelp.
“Shh!” he cautions me. “Are you trying to wake the ship?”
“You scared the crap out of me!”
“Midnight snack?” he asks, no doubt revving up for another reprimanding. I look down to the watch he wears on his left wrist.
“It’s 9:15.”
“Fiji midnight,” he tells me. “It’s what the locals call it since most tourists are too jet lagged to stay up past 9.”
I dart my eyes upward, suddenly conscious that staring at his watch might easily be confused for staring at something else. Oh god, don’t think about his something else…
“You shouldn’t be up here. Patricia doesn’t like guests in the crew area.”
There he is: Mr. Rule Follower. As usual, his forehead is creased with concentration, like he’s trying to decide whether to radio Patricia or come at me with a kitchen knife.
“Caleb, if you’re going to get me in trouble, just get it over with.”
He reaches for the counter behind him and, for a second, I think he actually might actually be going for the kill. But what he pulls out isn’t a knife. It’s my sketchbook.
I gasp.
“Where did you find that?”
“You left it on the bridge last night. After…”
After I chewed you out for nearly having my pants off in the elevator? I grab the book from him, and for an instant our fingers touch. Caleb pulls back quicker than if he’d been burned.
Or maybe splashed with holy water.
“I saw the drawing you did of dinner with the crew,” he says after a few awkward seconds. His tone is so blank I’m not sure if he’s about to compliment me or reprimand me for creating evidence of my little forbidden dinner.
“I wasn’t trying to snoop,” he covers when he sees my shocked expression. “I only opened it to see whose it was.”
I open the book, flipping to the page in question.
And suddenly, I know why he’s bringing it up.
The crew’s all there—Gia with her beautiful long hair, Jim’s face-wide smile and ridiculous mustache, Allie whispering something to Russ.
And behind them, hovering in the doorway like an angry schoolmaster, is the aspiring antichrist himself: shoulders tight, frown lines overly prominent, and face marked by the scowl of impending criticism. The face I couldn’t even finish.
Oh shit.
He asks, “Is that how you see me?”
I could lie to him—do that people-pleasing routine where I throw myself under the bus to make the other person feel better—but Caleb was an asshole that night, and my half-finished sketch conveys it.
I crane my neck to look up into Caleb’s milky blue eyes and realize just how close he is to me.
Something freezes my vocal cords in place—something I want desperately not to acknowledge.
I can feel my body wanting him: wanting to push forward, to grind my hips into his.
Wanting to reach across the four-inch gap between us and put my hands in his curly golden hair.
But I haven’t forgotten my promise to myself.
I inch backwards until my butt bumps into the countertop, and like a magnet, he moves with me.
My breath halts in my chest and I grip the edge of the counter. The banana I forgot I was holding splits in my hand, the fruit oozing through my fingers. He’s so close I can see the lines of his Adams apple contract as he swallows.
“I can’t say I don’t deserve it,” he says, taking a step back and relieving the tension that’s knotting my abdomen. I really need to get out of here before I do something stupid. “But I thought maybe I could change your mind.”
“Change my mind how?” I ask, remembering what happened the last time I confronted him.
“Depends,” he says. “How sneaky are you feeling?”
Without turning any lights on, I follow Caleb out of the galley.
I’d like to say I’m not sure what it is that convinces me to go, but I’m well aware.
Caleb is a lit candle, and I’m the brainless moth that knows she shouldn’t get close, but can’t help but drift towards the flame.
Besides, I’ve been avoiding anything even resembling sex for a good chunk of my adult life.
I can handle myself around a man who is terrified of dogs and probably irons his underwear.
We’re all the way to the back deck when I notice a crucial detail I’d missed—Caleb is wearing swim trunks.
For a second, I think he might be taking me to the hot tub upstairs, but when we reach the swim step, I see something bobbing in the water.
One of the double kayaks is strapped up and ready to go.
“What is this?”
Caleb puts a finger to his mouth, using the other hand to gesture towards the salon.
“Are you trying to get caught?” he whispers.
“Maybe I should,” I tease him. “How would Arthur and Patricia feel about their Captain abandoning the ship in the dead of night?”
“I’m not abandoning the ship,” he says forcefully.
“No?” I gesture to the waiting kayak. For some reason, paddling off into the dark sea alone sounds less appealing than the late-night jacuzzi dip I assumed we were headed for. “Just giving it a midnight polish?”
I have no intention of getting Caleb into trouble. As satisfying as it would be, I’ve ruined enough careers for the foreseeable future. But I am enjoying watching him squirm.
Caleb bristles, his mischievous grin devolving into a frustrated pout.
“Do you want to come, or not?”
For a second, I think I’ve misheard him.
“Who are you, and what have you done with the honorable captain Caleb?” I ask. Sneaking off into the night is definitely not in character for the man who can probably recite the Vela Bianca conduct manual in his sleep.
“Don’t worry—Jim’s handling the ship. I just… I wanted to apologize. For being such a—“
“Total dick?” I finish for him. He doesn’t protest. “Is this a shark bait situation where you want someone slower than you to be the one to go first? Because in case you don’t remember from last time, I will use you as a human shield. And I can be pretttyyyy clingy.”
“No sharks this time. Captain’s honor.”
I pause. On one hand, absconding into the open ocean in the middle of the night with my sworn enemy seems inadvisable—especially one whose made one too many references to throwing me overboard.
On the other hand, the idea of going back to my room to watch the single episode of Friends I have downloaded on my phone sounds like a pretty boring way to pass the time.
“Can I change?” I ask, looking down at my pajama shorts.
Caleb shakes his head.
“Not unless you want to wake up Arthur and Patricia. But if you’re not up for this—“
I reach over and grab the paddle before he can finish the sentence. Caleb can loathe me to his heart’s content, but I won’t have him thinking I’m a chicken.
“Fine. But I’m going in front.”
Two minutes later, we’re paddling out into the darkness with nothing but the stars to light the way. Correction: he’s paddling. Despite my protestations, he wouldn’t let me keep the paddle.
“Don’t suppose you’re going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask as soon as we’re far enough from the Vela Bianca not to be heard.
“Nope.” Caleb says firmly. Even though I can’t see him, I can practically hear the smirk in his voice. “You’re just going to have to be patient.”
“Not my strong suit,” I grumble back.
“Yeah. So I’ve noticed.”
I look back at him, ready to fire off a sassy remark, when I see he’s almost smiling. It seems… suspicious.
“Do you at least know where we’re going?”
“Sounds like a question you should have asked before we left the ship.”
My heart begins to beat a little faster. No one knows we’re out here. He could be taking me to kill me and none of the Warrens would ever know. Maybe Patricia bribed him to cut away the dead weight on her happy little family before she lands. Is he going to strangle me and dump my body in the sea?
Relax, Stella, I tell myself. Captain Caleb is too much of a goodie two-shoes to pull off something like that. If anything, he’d push me off the stern when no one was looking.
Comforting.
“A friend of mine works on Mamanuca Island,” he tells me, finally. “She showed me this place the first time I came, and now every time I’m in Fiji, I try to come back.”
Friend. Probably one of the many women on Caleb’s roster. A girl in every port.
“It must be incredible, exploring a new world every month,” I change the subject. “Always starting a new adventure.”
“It is,” he says. “But it’s hard being so far away from family. Even if mine’s a bit of a mess. Sometimes it gets… lonely.”
You have no idea what loneliness is, a voice rings in my head, and I scrunch my brow in surprise (more money in the pocket for Patricia’s Botox supplier).
I’ve never really considered myself to be lonely.
All my adult life, I’ve worn my independence like a badge—no help, no handouts.
There isn’t a thing I can’t accomplish by myself.
But hearing Caleb say it, I can’t help but think of all the ways I’m alone.
All the invites I turned down to baseball games and trivia night to focus on my dissertation.
All the Saturdays spent solo on my couch watching How I Met Your Mother reruns with a bowl of noodles from Pho-Q.
Even when I was with Patrick, we were both so tired by the weekend we often didn’t even see each other.