In the Same Boat

Chapter 22

SAMMIE

This hangover wasn’t meant for me.

If you ever wonder whether karma is real or not, believe me, it is. I had this in mind for my poor, innocent mum.

There’s a very specific kind of regret reserved for waking up hungover in daylight beside someone you know you absolutely should not have slept with.

It’s not catastrophic, it’s oddly calm – it’s more like a concern, if anything.

And it hit me before I even opened my eyes. I thought my head was throbbing, but it was my brain, tapping me awake, asking me: Did you really think this through, hun?

I pry open my eyes and stare at the ceiling of Nico’s cabin for a moment.

Nico is still beside me – so that’s a good start – asleep on his front, one arm curled beneath the pillow, breathing slowly and steadily like everything in the world is exactly as it should be.

Maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t.

My stomach twists into knots at the thought.

I pull the duvet a little higher against myself and close my eyes briefly, wondering if I can fall back asleep, deal with this later.

I just can’t believe it happened. Any of it.

Going to the club, sitting in the VIP section – I still need to ask him how he pulled that off – but the rest of it was a blur.

The drinking, the games, going to the toilets – but from the moment that door closed, honestly, I remember everything in almost excruciating detail.

The kind where all you can think about is how you get to do it all again.

Either we’re both really, really good at pretending, or something real happened.

Something I can’t quite get my head around.

I glance sideways at him again before I can stop myself. Ugh, he’s so hot. How was I able to kid myself that he wasn’t for so long?

Last night flashes through my mind suddenly in sharp, horny fragments. The way his lips tasted, the feeling of his hands on my hips, the weight of his body on mine…

My eyes snap open again. Oh, I’m definitely awake. And I definitely need water.

I carefully slip out of the bed without waking Nico and grab one of his T-shirts from the floor. It’s not even 9 a.m. yet, I doubt anyone is even up, but the only thing that could make this worse would be flashing someone – well, someone else.

The yacht is quiet when I step out into the corridor. The early morning sunlight spills through the windows across the main cabin while the marina outside still feels half asleep.

I head towards the kitchen area in search of water, my head aching at every turn, furious at me for how much I drank last night.

‘Good morning,’ Hank says, causing me to jump out of my skin.

Wow, I didn’t think my headache could get worse, but that did the trick.

He’s standing barefoot by the coffee machine wearing shorts and one of those aggressively cheerful polo shirts of his.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he says, realising he’s startled me.

‘That’s okay,’ I tell him. I puff air from my cheeks. ‘Good morning.’

‘Feeling a bit worse for wear?’ he asks with a knowing grin.

I nod – as much as my headache will allow.

‘Your mum and I couldn’t find you. We ended up leaving, going to get a late dinner somewhere. Where did you guys end up?’

I feel my cheeks flush bright red. When we were pretending, I wanted them to think we were at it, for the plan. Now it’s true I feel so, sooo awkward. No one wants their parents thinking they have sex, do they? Just like no one wants to think of their parents doing it. Ugh.

I, personally, was delivered by stork.

He’s grinning at me. Oh my gosh, please stop grinning. I feel like he’s reading my mind.

‘You’re up early,’ I point out, suddenly aware I have no idea what time he gets up generally, but everyone sleeps in after a night out, right?

‘Old habits,’ he says.

‘Ah, have you always got up early for work?’

‘No – I mean it’s an old-man thing,’ he says with a laugh.

‘So… is Mum in your cabin?’ I can’t stop myself from asking.

I grab a cold bottle of water from the fridge and hold it on my forehead. Oh, that’s good. That’s sooo good.

‘No, she’s in yours,’ he replies. ‘I assume you were in with Nico again?’

I take a long drink of water while trying to avoid eye contact. I could lie, but I’m standing here in Nico’s T-shirt, and I’m headed back there. I just nod.

‘So you and Mum had a good night last night?’

I’m wondering if our plan worked, if we caused enough chaos for them to want us out of their hair…

‘Bloody marvellous,’ he replies. ‘Even the club, as noisy as it was, we had a blast. I’ve never been in a VIP section before. Why would anyone do it any other way?’

Spoken like a true man who owns a yacht.

‘That’s great,’ I reply. ‘Everyone had a great night. Great, great…’

Yeah, okay, so the plan backfired.

‘Well,’ he says casually as he tops up his coffee from the cafetière, ‘looks like I’ll be taking your mum in permanently then.’

I blink at him.

‘How do you mean?’ I ask.

I swear he nods at my T-shirt.

‘You and Nico seem to have fallen hard, I assumed you’d be taking him off my hands – but that seems like a fair swap, for your mum.’

He sounds like he’s joking, or at least saying things in a light-hearted way, but… I dunno. There’s a knot in my stomach and I don’t think it’s from my hangover.

He’s not seriously suggesting that he takes Mum off my hands, while I give his son a new place to live. Don’t get me wrong, I want Mum to move on, and it sounds like Hank is sick of Nico living at home, but the idea of a trade… after a week…

‘Nico and I are similar, not usually the settling-down type,’ he points out.

‘But I could see us becoming new men, for you and Chrissy… Nico needs someone like you to straighten him out. He shouldn’t be living with his dad, and his job is quite silly – he needs stability and maturity, and you could give him that.

Nico’s always been allergic to anything serious, but he seems different around you. ’

I know he means well, and he’s probably complimenting me, but it’s giving me the ick.

He talks about Nico as though he’s this big man-child in need of rehabilitation, and that I might be up for the challenge of fixing him.

When he talks about his immaturity, his job selling video games (I suppose he thinks he should have more of a career – but, like I said, Hank does have a yacht, so his aspirations must be high), the fact he lives at home, and don’t think I didn’t clock what he said, about Nico not being the settling-down type – all things he makes it sound like a ‘good woman’ could put right.

Suddenly it all makes sense. Every piece of the jigsaw clicks into place and I don’t like the final image.

All of this is just Nico having fun. The games, messing with our parents, hooking up with me after previously seeming like he didn’t even like me.

It’s all a game. A bit of role play. I’m just another girl to have a laugh with in an otherwise unserious life.

The thing is, as much as I like Nico, I’m looking for a partner, not a project.

And suddenly every little thing I’ve selectively ignored about Nico starts rearranging itself in my head differently – he’s the kind of guy who has sex in the toilets of a Monte Carlo club.

I know, I was there too, and more than willing, but you know me, I’m a boring engineer, I look at hydraulic models for fun. I never do anything like this.

I feel my grip tighten on my bottle as I realise the mess I’ve got myself into.

I know, it’s only been a week. The problem isn’t that Nico slept with me for nothing more than the love of the game, of his dad trying to get me to take him in like a problem dog that needs rehoming; it’s that I let myself catch feelings without really thinking it through.

I’m usually so cautious, I never take risks – so how have I found myself here?

Suddenly last night feels horribly naive.

Like I’ve mistaken sexual chemistry for substance.

We’ve been faking at being loved-up for days, and the person who has fallen the hardest for the scam is me.

In hindsight – which really is always twenty-twenty, isn’t it?

– I don’t think we actually thought any of this through.

I think a strong sense of discomfort and a steady flow of champagne had us acting silly.

Coupled with the sun exposure – because heatstroke can make you do all sorts…

We didn’t think it through. We really fucked it up.

I force a smile that couldn’t feel more unnatural if I tried.

‘Anyway, I’m going back to bed,’ I tell him.

‘Okay,’ he replies. ‘See you for breakfast shortly? If you can stomach it.’

He laughs, but I really don’t think I can stomach any of this.

‘You okay?’ he asks, his expression softening.

‘Yeah,’ I say quickly. ‘Just very hungover.’

Which is technically true.

I escape back towards the cabins before he can ask any more questions, or drop any more facts to make me question my life choices.

Inside Nico’s cabin, the curtains glow softly with morning sunlight now.

Shit. He’s awake. Sitting up slightly against the pillows, hair still messy, blinking sleepily towards the door as I walk back in.

I feel my breath catch. I’m terrified, because I wasn’t expecting him to be awake. I thought I’d have more time with my thoughts, to figure out what to say, an exit strategy for me to get out of this situation unscathed.

‘Hi,’ he says, his voice rough from sleep.

I hover for a second, squeezing my bottle, getting my ducks in a row. Okay, I can do this. It’s damage minimisation at this point. I’m usually great at that.

‘Morning,’ I reply.

‘Could I have some of that please?’ he asks, nodding in my direction.

I realise it’s the water he wants.

‘Sure,’ I say, handing him the bottle. I notice a puzzled look on his face, as he sees how squashed the plastic is, but he doesn’t say anything.

I sit on the end of the bed, at his feet, rather than get back in. I should probably stay out of it for good now.

‘Sooo,’ I say lightly, aiming for casual, but dragging out the word far too long to be natural, ‘last night was probably a bit silly.’

Something shifts in his face instantly.

‘Silly?’ he replies – as though the word silly itself is, well, silly.

‘We were very drunk,’ I point out. ‘Very, very drunk.’

He keeps quiet, leaving me to do the talking, which makes me feel even more nervous.

I laugh softly, trying to give off an air of easy-breeziness, like I do this sort of thing all the time.

‘It’s funny, we were trying to get our parents drunk and making bad choices, but we essentially only got ourselves drunk, and made our own terrible decisions – I guess that’s karma in action, right?’

Still nothing. Bloody hell. Why is he making me do all the talking? Is this his strategy for getting rid of one-night stands? Stony silence until they overthink themselves into imploding in front of him?

‘I think maybe we got carried away,’ I continue. ‘And it probably shouldn’t have happened. We got caught up in the plan, which didn’t work, by the way…’

Still nothing. I pause for a second, wondering how to cap this off, and the solution to all of my problems strikes me like lightning. I love it when that happens.

‘It has, however, got me thinking of a new plan, one that will definitely work,’ I say.

I pause, giving him a chance to speak, or at least ask what it is, but he just stares at me expectantly.

‘Last night was a terrible mistake, we know that, and it won’t be happening again, so the thing that makes the most sense…

we break up. Now that’s awkward. That way we’ll have to go home. ’

‘You’ve got it all figured out, eh?’ he replies.

I nod.

‘I think this time it might actually work.’

And I kind of hate that that’s true, but it’s the only safe option.

‘Right,’ he says.

That’s it? Just… right? No argument. No disappointment. No trying to convince me otherwise. No trying to make me feel better about things.

I get that unpleasant, heavy feeling in my stomach again. Because of course he agrees – I just handed him the last parachute on a golden platter and he’s more than happy to snatch it up. Even if it leaves me without one.

Men like Nico (and I know this from what his dad said) probably do this all the time. A casual holiday fling, just sex, no consequences, all wrapped up by breakfast, because why let it spoil a good breakfast?

Ugh, I feel so clownish for going along with it, for letting myself think that this could be anything more than a silly holiday fling. A brief rocking of the boat – well, not that it was all that brief, but in the grand scheme of things, one night together doesn’t mean anything, does it?

I force a smile regardless.

‘Good,’ I say, clapping my hands together like a dork, like we just came up with the most mundane plan together, for something simple like making lunch, not dissolving our entire weird… partnership, for lack of a better word. ‘Glad we’re on the same page.’

Nico looks cool, calm, unreadable. Oh, he definitely does this all the time. He’s so impressive while I’m floundering.

‘No worries,’ he tells me.

I, of course, have many, many worries.

I nod quickly, like that settles everything perfectly.

I should head back to my cabin, gather my things, and sort myself a flight home.

I finally got my wish, my excuse to get off this holiday, because this is what I wanted… isn’t it?