2
The Ship
Four days later, Charlie still wasn’t sure how he went from Finn and Remy at his door to Charlie taking Remy’s spot on Finn’s birthday cruise. A trip that included Finn, Xavier, Finn’s best friend Ev, and Xavier’s business partner Gabe who was also Ev’s boyfriend. He didn’t think it would be possible to add his name to the passengers list this late, but when the guy with the credit card was a billionaire, minor inconveniences like that were easily worked out. At least, according to Xavier.
Finn had explained that the cruise was a compromise. Xavier had offered to charter, or even purchase, a private yacht for the trip, but Finn (or more likely, Ev) thought that was boring. They wanted to experience the largest ship in the world, owned and operated by the renowned RNJ Cruiseline. Ev was especially invested in testing all the water slides, the zip line, the surf simulator, and, randomly, the piano bar. Finn, who hadn’t been out of the country since he was a small child, seemed more excited about the four ports on their itinerary, the evening shows, and the massive balcony attached to the over-the-top presidential suite Xavier had booked for them. Called the Rainbow Suite, it was three times the size of Charlie’s apartment back home. It included a main floor as well as an upstairs loft, three bedrooms, a living area, bar, outdoor dining, a private hot tub, and Jomar, the personal butler who would attend to all of their needs.
Charlie was overwhelmed, and also grateful to be an add-on in an existing room, since he felt awkward enough as the pity invite who wasn’t paying his way. Not that he thought Finn and Ev were paying for anything, but at least their boyfriends were getting something out of the deal. Charlie was just a very grateful fifth wheel taking up an extra bed in an admittedly insane space. He had no idea there could even be two-story rooms on cruise ships. The living room had a freaking baby grand-piano that Ev had lit up over, then questioned the tuning of in the humid, tropical air.
Everything was great. Really. Still, what Charlie longed for was alone-time with his noise-canceling headphones and the 0k enemies-to-lovers AU fanfic he’d downloaded to his eReader. After the madness of the last forty-eight hours, he was desperately in need of some escapism. He’d had to pack. That involved a box-store run when he realized he no longer owned swim trunks and didn’t have anything suitable for the dining room. Ev, with his fauxhawk, tattoos, and facial piercings, insisted his interview suit was “too fucking corporate“
for a cruise ship.
Once Charlie was ready to go, he’d had to call his mother and explain that he was about to be unreachable for six days. And no, he wasn’t going to live in a hollowed-out tree in the woods the way he used to threaten when he was in middle school. He was fine. He would explain everything when he got back.
The adrenaline of boarding the ship, finding their suite, not unpacking—because Jomar would do that for them—and exploring their new home-away-from-home carried him through dinner the first night. He begged off the ice show Finn wanted to see and retreated to his room to crash. The well-stocked minibar was his favorite thing so far. After pouring himself a drink, he dragged open the heavy balcony door and stepped into the warm ocean air. The sun was already below the horizon, the last rays of the blue hour visible but fading fast.
Charlie stretched out on a padded lounger, aware that if he wasn’t careful, he would end up sleeping on the balcony. But the ocean breeze, ruffling his hair and tugging at his clothes, felt like it was taking his stress out to sea with it. He settled in and unlocked his book to navigate to the story he’d downloaded the night before.
Maybe this was exactly what he needed. He couldn’t remember when he last read for fun. During grad school, anything that wasn’t required reading got “marked for later“
or added to the threateningly large Tbr pile next to his bed. Any remaining space in his brain had been hijacked by aqua-blue eyes, Cupid’s bow lips, and an unhinged texting style that would have driven Charlie off the deep end if it wasn’t so endearing.
From the moment they met, Tanner been impossible to ignore.
By any measure, their first night should have been a one-and-done. Charlie had been nervous about hooking up to begin with—it wasn’t something he did often—but Tanner was hot like burning. When their eyes met, Charlie’s rational side had gone completely offline. Then, the minute Tanner got a hand on him, Charlie had panicked, his cock and balls trying to crawl back inside his body.
He’d done his best to hide it. Being too nervous to stay hard didn’t mean he wasn’t getting what he could from the sculpted Adonis in the bathroom stall with him. Going to his knees to suck Tanner off had been easy, and had hopefully happened before the other man noticed his predicament. Tanner’s cock was just as gorgeous as he was, and Charlie was gagging to get his mouth on it.
Except that wasn’t how things worked out.
As soon as Tanner realized that Charlie—despite his protests—wasn’t completely into it, he’d stopped them. No one was getting coerced into something they didn’t one hundred percent want on Tanner’s watch. Charlie appreciated the dedication to consent, while also cursing the missed opportunity.
Charlie was under no illusions that the drop-dead gorgeous man with mesmerizing eyes and killer cheekbones, who’d done his best to suck Charlie’s uncooperative cock in the bar’s bathroom, would actually text him for a “next time.”
The whole experience had been a mortifying cautionary tale. Charlie would have left it at that, but fewer than twenty-four hours later he was back at the bar when Marco, the Lookout’s bouncer, flagged him over. He had found a wallet the previous night that he was pretty sure belonged to Tanner. A lost wallet wasn’t rare, but this one had a concerning amount of cash in it.
Charlie sent an awkward, rambling text—which made him cringe when he read it back—to let Tanner know they had his wallet at the bar, and had been justifiably left on read. Duty done, Charlie assumed that was the last he’d hear from his failed hook-up…until twelve hours later when he got a bland, “Great. Thanks.“
And a few hours after that, “I owe you one.”
It turned out that Manhattan “Tanner“
York—according to his driver’s license—was kind of an asshole.
A month later he’d nearly forgotten the whole encounter—at least that’s what he told himself—when Tanner texted him a photo of a towel animal sitting on what looked like a cruise ship bed. It took him a minute to realize it wore familiar sunglasses.
That night at the bar, after having them with him since happy hour, Tanner had stolen Charlie’s sunglasses. He claimed he mistook them for his. After some banter that Charlie enjoyed more than he should have, the sunglasses arrived in Split Rock. In the box with them was a rubber duck wearing its own pair of shades. Charlie had laughed until he couldn’t breathe, then texted Tanner a “WTF?”
Their conversation never really stopped after that. And a few months in, they started finding excuses to be in the same place at the same time. Tanner happened to be in Vancouver the week Charlie was on spring break and looking for something to do. While there, Charlie wouldn’t shut up about how nice the Blue Ridge Mountains were in the summer, so clearly Tanner needed to see what all the hype was about. It turned out they both had the Grand Canyon on their bucket lists, so it only made sense to go together and make a road trip out of it.
By the start of fall, Charlie was pretty sure he was falling in love. It was a little terrifying, a lot exhilarating, and nothing he’d ever expected.
That was why, when Charlie got an offer for his dream job, which just so happened to be in LA where Tanner lived, he jumped at the opportunity. Tanner, who knew he wasn’t a flowers guy, sent him two-dozen red helium balloons, but because he was still Tanner, he had them delivered to the restaurant where Charlie worked.
Charlie decided it was as good a time as any to put in his two-week notice.
Everything was falling into place. They texted daily as Tanner helped Charlie figure out what he would need when he arrived in the city. Sometimes, they even defeated their Gen Z tendencies and spoke on the actual phone.
The plan for Charlie’s arrival in LA was that Tanner would come over, help him move in, they’d grab something to eat, and get reacquainted—probably not in that order. It had been months after all, and once Charlie got his act together, they were very compatible in bed. Charlie had been more excited about seeing Tanner again than he was about the dream job or the new apartment.
Except moving day rolled around, and Tanner never showed. Charlie texted and called repeatedly to no avail. Then spent hours panicking internally before finally reaching out to Tanner’s brother on social media—and hadn’t that been awkward, considering Hudson had no idea who Charlie was. Eventually, he assured Charlie that Tanner was fine, just busy, and would probably get back to him soon.
That took a week. Charlie didn’t know whether to shake Tanner until his teeth rattled or hug him until his bones hurt.
In the end, he’d done a little of both. Tanner had apologized profusely and, once he explained what happened—how a meeting with a potential talent agent turned into all-day affair—Charlie believed him when he said it wouldn’t happen again.
Things were better after that. They just weren’t what Charlie expected. Tanner was different than when they lived thousands of miles and several time zones apart. Their texting slowed to a trickle, he was always running late, and he rescheduled almost as many dates as he made it to. He blamed his fickle work schedule and the fact that he was at the whim of people who were much more important than he was.
Charlie got it. He did. He worked with industry people sometimes, and he understood how quickly someone’s day could go to shit. The bigger problem was that Tanner was terrible about keeping Charlie in the loop, and Charlie was tired of feeling like an obligation instead of a boyfriend. He imagined it would only be worse if they lived together, or—as he’d once fantasized—got married.
The last straw landed on a Tuesday in March. Tanner had finally asked Charlie to be his date at an industry party. Actors, directors, producers, and other important names would be in attendance. Tanner even promised to introduce Charlie to one of his favorite actors, the stunningly beautiful and talented Isabella Brantford. Except, when they arrived, Charlie might as well have been invisible. When he did get an introduction, it was as Tanner’s “friend.“
Someone not even important enough to name.
Within an hour, Tanner’s agent pulled him away, and Charlie found himself left to his own devices, woefully out of place among the powerful and beautiful Hollywood elite. He drank and snacked for a while, chatting with people who looked as awkward as he felt, but the party really wasn’t his scene. He was bored, tired, and his shoes were pinching his feet. Finally, he decided he was done. It was time to go.
He tracked Tanner down in a private room, drinking champagne in a cozy corner with none other than Isabella Brandford and her entourage.
Charlie took a step toward them but found his path blocked by a discreetly dressed bodyguard.
“Apologies, sir. This area is VIPs only.”
Charlie tried to explain that Tanner was his friend even as a firm but professional hand grasped his elbow and steered him from the room. He twisted back, trying to catch Tanner’s eye, but Tanner was too engrossed in his new companions to notice when the guy who was supposed to be his boyfriend got kicked out.
The image burned into his memory as something like humiliation mixed with disappointment twisted in Charlie’s gut.
Once outside, he texted Tanner several times but got no response. Eventually, he found his coat and went home. Alone.
They’d planned for him to spend the night at Tanner’s, then have a lazy morning in bed. It was the last thing he wanted to do now, but an additional forty minutes in the cab to reach his own apartment was more than his wallet could take. Once he got to Tanner’s, he went through his nightly routine, curled up on the side of the bed he liked to pretend was his, and tried to sleep.
He ended up staring at his phone instead, willing it to buzz, wondering how long it would take for Tanner to notice he was gone.
Hours. The answer was hours. Sometime after three in the morning, a text finally brought his screen to life.
Tanner
Where you at
Charlie
Home.
The typing bubble appeared and disappeared for a long time. Finally, the phone buzzed again.
Tanner
What the fuk, man? You let me here? How am I suposed to go home
Charlie noted the typos and wondered just how drunk Tanner was.
Charlie
I didn’t steal your driver. I called a cab.
Tanner
You dint tell me u were leaving whta hapned?
Charlie
It’s late, Tanner. Lets talk about it in the morning.
Charlie turned his phone to silent and set it face down on the nightstand. He eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep, hating the way his chest ached with loneliness even though the bed still smelled like them.