7. In Sea Major #2
Swallowing, I run my thumb over the familiar grooves of the key to my flat, and then to the Edinburgh Castle key chain Louise got for me after the last time I saw her.
I can remember the moment she snuck up behind me in Old Town, grinning from ear to ear as she slipped the little key chain into my hand.
I smile down at it, the swirling storm in my stomach going calm for a moment as I smooth my finger over the acrylic.
What I wouldn’t give to be back there, to be anywhere but here.
Not everywhere in the world has been welcoming, and I’ve had to change the way I behave publicly while traveling, but there have been plenty of safe havens for queer people, too, and I picture some of them—Amsterdam, Malta, and Iceland—the lives I could lead there if I ever make it back.
A creak on the boards of the ship makes me jump, and I wrap my hands around my keys, my head snapping up to find Captain Night at the base of the stairs. He takes a step toward me, and I know with certainty there is nowhere to flee.
I scramble to stand, my hands gripping the railing behind me for balance as the keys dig into my palm. I bite down on my cheek, trying to think of a solution, but I’m out of options.
“Goodbye, old friend,” I say under my breath.
Grimacing, I open my hand, and the keys slip from my fingers, dropping into the water with a soft splash.
My heart breaks a little even though it’s such a small thing to lose, but I have so few things of my own here.
It was like a tiny piece of the armor welded around my heart after Julian ruined me. And now it’s been ripped free.
“Joining this crew is not as you’d expected, I take it?” His voice is low and gravelly, and the reverberation from his words makes the hair on the back of my neck and along my arms stand on end.
Julian never did that to me. Julian wasn’t mysterious. He wasn’t strong and calculating. He was messy and boyish. But then, he was a liar.
Captain Night hasn’t lied to me. If anything, he’s been quite frank about everything. But that doesn’t change who we are or where we are.
I swallow and wipe my shaking hands down my pants, spinning to lean against the rails as I try to quell the rising tempest in my chest.
He’s just a man, Laszlo. Just an ordinary, fucking hot, but mostly terrifying man that you should fear.
“No,” I say, running a hand through my hair. “I thought being a pirate would be fun and easy.”
I spread my fingers on the railing. This morning, they started out soft and unmarred, but already there is a blister on my palm from holding the knife when I peeled potatoes, and several small nicks and scratches crisscross my sunburnt skin from being put to work.
What will they look like tomorrow, or a week or month from now?
How much will I change aboard this ship?
How long will I be trapped aboard She Deceitful?
“We don’t choose the pirate life because it’s easy, Laszlo.
” I hear the soft pad of his boots, muted on the deck as he comes toward me, as if he knows every spot that creaks.
“We choose it because in the very moment when we make that decision, it is the only way out. We see no other choice, no other future but this.” Captain Night stops beside me, and his scent overwhelms me once more, that hint of tobacco and sugar, an oddly intoxicating mix that has me leaning closer.
“The only way out of what?” I ask quietly. “Why would anyone choose this life? For glory?”
“Glory is a common misconception,” he says.
“We do it for many reasons, but among them, because it is the only work available. Whether we’ve been caught stealing, or we’re illegitimate, or we have been thrown from society for one reason or another, this is our only chance at a life, at any life.
Some of the crew were slaves, others fled the destruction of their homes.
And for many, it is the only source of income.
” He raises a brow. “Some do it to get away from a life that was not theirs.”
He speaks as though he knows, as though he was running from something, and I find myself leaning forward, enraptured by his words, aching to know more. “And you?” I ask. I don’t know why, but I want to know what led him down this path, what pulled him to a life at sea.
Maybe for my book. Perhaps it’s what’s missing from my story, the captain’s motivation, why he’s here in the first place.
Captain Night clears his throat, hooking a thumb into his leather belt as he stares off into the distance.
The moonlight shines across his face, making the golden hues of his skin duller, but the gray and white through his hair and stubble glimmer.
I have the strange urge to run my fingers through his hair, to toy with his wiry stubble, to catch the silver strands dipped in moonlight.
I think, against all odds, I am obsessed with this man. I clasp my hands together, angling toward him, waiting.
Languishing.
“Before I was a captain, I was a crew member. And before I joined a crew, I was a carpenter.”
“And before that?” I ask.
“A son.” My lips part in surprise, and he smiles in response. “Oh, yes, I fled when I was a child.”
“Where from?” He raises a brow. “Sorry, I was just curious.”
He hesitates a moment, his gaze distant as his fingers find the hilt of his dagger in his belt and tap a rhythm into the leather.
“I was born in Birmingham. Never knew my father, and my mother was remarried to a lord when I was hardly a year old. He moved us to the colonies when I was still but four.” He closes his eyes.
“I remember the journey. Months on a ship, the sound of water sloshing against the deck, lapping at the hull. The cold, salty breeze on my face. There’s nothing like it.
I never could forget those parts of the journey. ”
I tilt my head. “You’re from the colonies?”
“I am.” He pauses, opens his eyes. “I was. I don’t remember England, but I grew to know Boston.
It was similar to being on the ship, you know.
Cold winters; warm, brilliant summers.” He leans forward on his elbows with an exhale.
His hair sweeps out around him as he peers over the side of the ship, draping down his shoulders and back like silk.
“But my mother’s husband wanted me to work for him, to be a lord’s son.
All I wanted was the sea. So I found a shipyard that would take me on as a shipbuilder.
Later, after amassing enough expertise, I joined a crew, mending masts, fixing hulls, and keeping the ship in shape as we sailed.
I worked my way up that crew until, one day, I could buy a ship of my own. ”
Everything about Captain Night is unpredictable.
Everything except his love of the sea, this ship, and his crew.
He has a strange, twisted sense of humor with a dark glint in his eyes that I can’t seem to shake.
And the more I interact with him, the more I want to know.
Need to know. I shouldn’t ask, but I can’t stop myself.
“Is Silas Night your real name?” I ask. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want—”
“No, I’ll tell you.” He shakes his head, sadness flitting over his features.
“It was Robert.” He squints up at the sky, to the stars and the moon, lips parting, features more boyish than before.
“But Robert died when the sun set on his old life, and it was razed to the ground. The new me, this me was born in the night.”
Oh god, he’s even poetic.
“Thank you for telling me, Captain.” I tilt my head. “And for what it’s worth, I think Silas Night suits you better.”
He stares at me for a beat, expression inscrutable as the shadows spread across his features. The light bouncing off the water dances across his skin, and with him this close, I find the water suddenly less terrifying. As if realizing he’s been staring, he turns to leave.
“Don’t forget to clean up the spilled ink in my cabin,” he calls as he strides across the deck.
I watch him go, mesmerized. “I wouldn’t dare.”