Chapter 4 #2
I smile. ‘Well, I’m sorry to see you go.
We didn’t even get to know each other. ’
‘Right?!’
She lets go of her case long enough to reach out and hug me.
‘But you never know. We might still see each other again. Yachting’s a smaller world than you’d think.
Have a great time!’
And then she leaves.
I can’t believe we’ve lost a crew member and we haven’t even left the port yet.
‘So what happens now Kelsey’s gone? ’
Adam asks me later that afternoon.
We’re both on break, flaked out side by side on one of the big sofas on deck.
Louise told us to make the most of any downtime because once the guests arrive it’s going to be full on.
I should probably be napping in my cabin, but I’m worried about oversleeping and also that once I relax my already overworked muscles will seize up and I won’t be able to get up again.
‘Louise said Captain Liz is calling around trying to find someone else.’
‘I feel like she should have done that before firing Kelsey,’ Adam says, dropping his voice and raising one eyebrow.
‘I feel like you shouldn’t be questioning the captain’s decisions on our second day,’ I tell him, smiling.
‘Isn’t that mutiny?’
‘Yeah, okay.’ He rolls his neck from side to side and I have to resist reaching over to press my thumbs into the muscles I can see straining there.
‘I’m just thinking .
. . what if they can’t find anyone? ’
‘Louise doesn’t seem to think that’ll be a problem.
I guess we just wait.
We’ve still got a couple of days .
. .’
Every time I think about guests arriving, my stomach cramps with nerves, so I’m trying not to think about it.
‘You were pretty squiffy last night,’ I say, sliding my foot across the cushions between us to gently kick the side of his leg.
‘Did you feel rough this morning?’
‘Not too bad.’ He stretches again.
‘Been worse.’
‘Showing off in front of your new mates.’
He grins at me, squinting against the sun, then says ‘lads, lads, lads’ completely deadpan.
I’ve seen him drunk so many times over the years.
From throwing up out of an upstairs window at a friend’s house party to having to lurch away from the dining table at Sunday lunch at his gran’s.
And he never fails to remind me that an Uber driver once had to pull over just before heading into the Mersey tunnel because I’d mixed my drinks.
And there was a Sunday when neither of us could get out of bed at all, until eventually we got a pizza delivery that Adam paid his younger brother, Ollie, a fiver to collect at the door and bring to us in the bedroom.
It’s something I’ve always loved about us – we’ve seen each other at our best and also at our worst.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Adam says now, ducking his head and looking at me from under his fringe.
‘I was nervous, I think.’
I nod.
‘Me too.’
‘It’s a lot, right?
And I don’t know what I’m doing. ’
If we were at home, in my bedroom or his, I’d roll over, shuffle up alongside him, put my head on his chest, hook one leg over his thigh, maybe even slide my hand under his T-shirt against the warm skin of his stomach.
But I can’t do any of that here.
I can only say, ‘I think we probably have to learn by doing. Pick it up as we go along.’
I hold up my little finger to show him.
‘I’ve got my first yachting injury. ’
He squints at the tiny purple bruise running along my fingernail.
‘Shark attack?’
‘Slow-closing drawer closed slowly on my finger.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Really bloody hurts actually.’
He purses his lips for a second as if he’s going to kiss it better, which is what he’d do at home, but instead he stares at me for a few seconds before saying, ‘You’re getting freckles. ’
I wrinkle my nose.
‘Am I?’
‘Nose and cheeks and your top lip.’
He looks at my mouth.
The first time we kissed was at a house party where he told me I had something on my face.
‘Just under your lip,’ he’d said, pointing.
I told him it was a big freckle.
‘No,’ he argued. ‘It’s a bit of chocolate, I think.
There.’
I wiped it with my thumb, even though I knew.
‘You didn’t get it,’ he said.
‘No, because it’s a freckle. ’
‘It’s not!’ He was so insistent.
‘It’s just there.’
‘I know where it is,’ I’d told him, ‘and it’s a freckle. ’
It was when he asked, ‘Can I get it?’ that I realised he’d been staring at my mouth the whole time.
‘You can try,’ I told him.
He held my jaw in his hand.
Rubbed his thumb under my lip.
Said, ‘Bloody hell, it is a freckle!’
And then when I laughed, he kissed me.
I almost lean in to kiss him now but catch myself just in time.
Secret. We have to be secret.
The sun is setting over the ocean as we all have ‘family dinner’ together on deck later – apart from the captain, who once again has plans to watch Nordic noir on FaceTime with her wife.
I’m seated next to Ben.
It’s almost hard to talk to him because he’s so handsome, but he’s also friendly and warm and before long I can almost forget the ridiculousness of his face.
He tells me he got into yachting after his husband left him.
‘We had a business together and it was really successful,’ he says.
‘He told me he wanted to sell it and retire – he was much older than me. The plan was that we would sell it and then travel the world together. We sold the business. He met someone else and he’s travelling the world with him. ’
‘Bloody hell,’ I say.
‘I’m so sorry.’
Ben smiles, sadly.
‘It was pretty rough. And for a while there I had no idea what I was going to do. I’d always wanted to travel and I wasn’t going to let him ruin that for me.
But I also used to worry about bumping into him and his new man somewhere, you know?
I know it’s unlikely, but it made it hard for me to arrange anything.
It was like a mental block. ’
‘I get that,’ I tell him.
‘And then a friend took me on a yacht to cheer me up.’
‘Wow!’
‘A rich friend.’ He smiles.
‘I loved the whole thing and I kept talking to the crew . . . At first it was just chatting, you know, asking questions. But by the end of the trip, I knew it was more than that. I was almost interviewing them. I’d started making notes, researching it all on my phone.
That was ten years ago.
And here we are.’
He smiles and once again I’m startled by his face.
I wonder what it’s like to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and see that.
‘And do you love it as much as you thought you would?’
He nods.
‘I really do. It’s hard work – I guess you know that already?
But it’s so rewarding.
And I get to travel and make good money and meet great people –’
‘And scrub floors and wash windows and polish steel,’ Nico interrupts.
‘Shut it, you,’ Ben says.
‘I was bigging up the glamour side.’
‘One of my mates called me a glorified janitor,’ Nico tells us.
‘I know he’s jealous, but also I was like, well, yeah, a lot of the stuff we do on board is, you know, scut work.
But look at where we get to do it?
And then on days off we can go snorkelling or whatever.
And I’m seeing the world.
On his days off, he’s probably just, like, playing FIFA and wanking. ’
‘What did your friends think of you doing this?’ Ben asks me.
‘Well, it was Adam’s idea,’ I tell them, looking over at Adam, who seems to be deep in conversation with Liam.
‘My friend Maddie was really supportive. I’ve talked to her a lot about not knowing what I wanted to do.
She’s training to be a doctor – she knew she wanted to do that from when we were little – but I just didn’t have a clue really. ’
‘Did you go to uni?’ Nico asks.
I nod. ‘I did English though, so that didn’t really help.
Unless I wanted to go into teaching, which I didn’t. ’
‘What do your parents think about it?’ Ben asks.
‘They think it’s great,’ I tell them.
‘Mostly. My mum’s pregnant – she had me really young – and she and my stepdad have got three other kids that I looked after a lot.
So I think she was a bit worried about not having me around to help, you know. ’
‘She can’t expect you to do that forever, though,’ Nico said.
‘You’ve got to have your own life. ’
I nod. ‘I know. And she knows that too. It’s just a hard transition. ’
‘Talking of a hard transition,’ Ben says, pushing his chair back.
‘I’m off to bed.’
‘Wow,’ Nico says.
‘Bit raunchy for you.’
Ben actually blushes, the tops of his cheekbones flushing pink.
‘That’s not what I meant. ’
Nico and I laugh and Ben gives Nico the finger, before heading off to bed.
I look over at Adam and he’s looking back at me.
I hope he’s thinking about finishing what he started in the restaurant the other night.
I’m showered and wearing one of Adam’s old T-shirts over my knickers when I open my door to him and he wastes no time in crowding me back into the room and running his hands over my bare skin, dropping his head to kiss the side of my neck.
‘Been wanting to do this all day.’
I turn my head to give him better access, as I press up against him, slipping my arms around his waist and pulling him closer.
We kiss, his tongue sliding against mine – he tastes of wine and melon gelato – fingers tangling in my hair, and it feels so, so hot.
It feels like when we first got together and we’d sneak into each other’s houses after school, before our parents got home from work, curling up in bed and rubbing against each other, afraid to take any of our clothes off in case we suddenly had to jump up and pretend we’d been studying.
‘You feel so good,’ Adam murmurs against my mouth, moving one of his legs between mine so I’m straddling his thigh.
I rub against him and let him manoeuvre me back into my bunk.
I duck as I lie down on the mattress, but he bangs his head against the top bunk and blurts out a ‘shit!’
I shush him, but I’m also giggling at the startled expression on his face.
‘Oh, you’re laughing? ’
He raises one eyebrow at me as he ducks all the way under and crawls into the bunk, on all fours above me.
‘I’m not,’ I whisper, even though I am.
He digs his fingers into my sides, tickling me, and I resist the urge to yelp.
‘Oh yeah, have a good laugh,’ he says, fingers moving up my ribs towards my pits.
‘Get it all out of your system.’
I’m managing to laugh quietly, through my nose, but I can feel it wanting to burst out of me and I know once I start I won’t be able to stop, so instead I grab his hands and pull them up over my head, pushing our clasped hands against the pillow.
He almost growls as he drops down on top of me, grinding his hips into mine, and suddenly I’m desperate, writhing underneath him, pulling my legs up to hook around his waist, kissing him fast and hard.
‘God,’ he whispers, letting go of my hands, so he can push his under my T-shirt to grab my breasts.
‘This is the best idea we ever had.’
I tug at his T-shirt – I want him naked, on top of me, inside me, all around me.
‘Agreed.’
‘Oh, hey.’ He lifts himself up for a second.
‘How’s your finger?’
I can’t even think what he means.
‘Shark attack,’ he adds.
‘Oh!’ I pull my hand down and look at my finger, even though I can’t see it in the darkness.
‘Still sore.’
He dips his head and kisses my fingernail before sucking the tip of my finger into his mouth.
‘Oh, absolutely not!’ I say.
And then we’re pulling each other’s clothes off.
Adam’s arm gets caught in his sleeve and he bangs his elbow against the wall, knocking my photo frame down onto the bed.
I pick it up and drop it to the floor, then pull my own T-shirt off and drop that too.
As soon as I lie back down, Adam’s mouth is on my breast and my leg shoots out, kicking the wall at the foot of the bed.
He lifts his head long enough to shush me and I mime zipping my lips and throwing away the key.
He grins at me and drops his head again, grazing my nipple with his teeth.
I hook my legs around his waist and he moans softly.
‘Quiet,’ I whisper.
I push him back and roll him off me, wriggling out of my underwear.
He’s just watching me with an almost stunned expression on his face, until I gesture at him and he pulls his underpants off too.
We both moan as I straddle him and I whisper, ‘We’re terrible at being quiet. ’
‘You could shut me up,’ he murmurs.
His eyes widen as I put my hand over his mouth and then lower myself down onto him.
I breathe in roughly through my nose.
I don’t know how I’m going to be able to stay quiet through this.
He feels amazing. We feel amazing.
I take my hand away to kiss him and he wraps his big hands around the backs of my thighs, holding me firmly against him, as I move slowly, pushing him deeper inside me.
‘Fuck,’ he whispers against my lips.
‘This is so hot.’
I drop my head to kiss his shoulder, the dip at the base of his throat, behind his ear where I know it drives him mad.
We stare at each other and he grips my hips as I ride him, holding myself up on my work-weakened arms for as long as I can before dropping down to lie fully on top of him.
He bends his knees and starts moving into me too and it feels incredible.
He slides a hand down between us and I squeak as he curls his fingers against me.
I press my face into the side of his neck as fireworks burst behind my eyes.