6
Casey
I didn’t know if I would ever recover from seeing Milo in rainbow watercolor board shorts, flip-flops, my dorky “I closed my book to be here“
sunhat, and nothing else. It was a wonder I didn’t trip over my tongue the whole time we were at the beach. He was adorable in the floppy hat, effortlessly sexy, and completely oblivious to how distracting he was when he stretched his lithe body. Unfortunately, our shared beach day was just that—the day.
My plans to woo him over a fancy dinner fell on their face when he mentioned his bestie made plans for them that evening. I’d never been more tempted to invite myself somewhere in my life. Luckily, it hadn’t been a brush off and we met up again the following day—our last day at sea before returning to port.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?“
Milo asked for the third time as we snagged a vacant table on the lido deck in the cafeteria. Luckily, we hadn’t gotten too much sun the day before, though both our noses were a little pinker, but we were both all for cooler air and shade.
“Of course not.“
I set my backpack on an adjacent seat and got comfortable.
“I made a few basic sketches yesterday, and I want to flesh them out while they’re still fresh. Cheryl gave me an earful when she saw I was packing my pencils. But everything was so beautiful and I—”
I placed my hand over Milo’s, both to reassure him and to make sure he didn’t accidentally stab someone with the pencil he was brandishing as he talked. “Hey, you don’t have to explain anything. I think a lowkey day is perfect.”
“Okay, yeah. You’re right. Not every day of vacation needs to be filled with activities, and everything has been so incredible, I think I’ll go nuts if I can’t capture some of it.”
His hand flexed beneath mine and I had to force myself to let him go, just like I had to yesterday when I realized I’d been holding his hand all the way to the adults-only beach. I wasn’t even sure when I’d grabbed it. Hudson hadn’t been a fan of holding hands in public, so it wasn’t like it was something I did all the time. It just felt right to hold Milo’s hand.
While he finished laying out his art supplies, I took out my notebook and laptop. I was pulling up a fresh document when I noticed Milo was watching me instead of sketching. My nerves appeared out of nowhere and bled into insecurity. “What’s up?“
I asked tentatively.
“Oh! Nothing. I’m sorry. I, uh, thought you said you were going to read. If this is too boring, you don’t have to stay. Or I could go. Either way, please don’t feel obligated to spend time with me.”
“I don’t think this is boring at all. I know I said I planned to read, and I brought my book in case,“
I pulled out the paperback I’d made a dent in last night. “But I guess I was also feeling inspired after yesterday?”
He glanced from his sketchbook to my notebook. “Why didn’t you mention you were an artist? What are you working on?”
“Oh, I’m not an artist. I… um, write. Or, well, I try to,“
I fumbled.
“You’re a writer? That’s so cool! What do you write?“
Milo asked enthusiastically. “Also, writing is one hundred percent art.”
I blinked, at a loss for the last time someone had been this excited about my writing who wasn’t me. Granted, next to no one knew I wanted to be a writer, but still. “I was planning to start a new story, kind of like a Little Mermaid retelling, but without the tragic ending and more focused on Flounder. And while writing might be art, I don’t think I qualify as a ‘writer’,“
I admitted.
Milo frowned. “Why wouldn’t you qualify?”
“Pretty sure you need to finish a book before you can call yourself a writer,“
I replied glumly. Hudson had made that very clear. With a dozen half-finished projects, my writing was a time-suck hobby at best.
“Hey, look at me.“
I reluctantly met his gaze, surprised to find him smiling. “Did you put words on a page?”
“Yeah…”
“Are they original? Like, are they your words out of your head?” he added.
“Of course.”
“Then I hate to break it to you, Casey, but you’re a writer.“
He shook his head in mock dismay. “You have no choice now but to accept it. Tell me all about this story percolating in your creative brain?”
“You… you really want to hear about it?”
“Why wouldn’t I? Merpeople? Who wouldn’t want to hear about that?“
He leaned over the table, apparently having forgotten about his sketchpad.
Despite my misgivings and the fact that literally no one had ever expressed an interest in what my wild brain cooked up, I told him. And I didn’t stop at my new idea. He wanted to know about all of them. He even helped me figure out how to make my frog prince story more interesting.
We talked until lunch about my stories, our favorite authors and artists. I even told him about the art piece by a local artist years ago that had inspired my favorite story (even though it wasn’t finished yet). Sadly, it was an anonymous artist, and my laptop refused to connect to the Wi-Fi, so I couldn’t even share the piece with him (which I’d totally blown my budget on that month). After lunch, we settled into an easy companionship, and to the backdrop of waves and pencil scratches, I wrote more consecutive words than I had in years.