Chapter 1 #3
"No, I haven't. Bryn got one a couple years ago. She was impossible to live with until it cleared up."
"Bryn with a UTI?" she cackles again, spluttering. "I shudder to think. She's impossible on her best day."
"Thank you!” I shout. "Sorry, that was loud. But yes. I love my sister to pieces, I really do, but she's a lot."
"Killy, I'm not going to use your shirt. I'll just…make the best of it."
I whip my shirt off, find her hand with mine, and shove it into her grip. "Just use the shirt, Story."
"And then what? You put it back on?"
"Um, no." I consider. "Maybe cover the bucket with it to keep the smell in to some degree. They don't exactly empty the thing very frequently."
"Yeah," she intones, voice drier than bleached bones. "I can tell." A huff. "Fine. And…thank you."
Her hand vanishes with my shirt, and a few seconds later she works upright unsteadily, wobbling as she braces her hand on me and a shoulder against the wall as she bends to pull up her bottoms. I hear the soft thunk as she drapes the shirt over the top of the bucket, and mercifully, the stench of old piss fades a bit.
Of course, that's when the ship lurches, tips forward and topples me into Story and the both of us into the corner, pushing us into the metal as we carve down the face of what must be an absolutely colossal wave.
Story's face smashes against mine and we're crushed against each other into the corner.
Her hands scrabble at my shoulders, trying to push me away so I can find my balance and not crush her. And then for a moment we're level again, and I stumble backward, arms windmilling…
And then I'm hurled backward as the ship's prow is hurled skyward by the next wave, and I feel Story slam into me, knocking me further off-balance and sending me to the floor hard enough to knock the air out of me.
I slide backward along the floor as gravity pushes at me, and I hear Story gasp and grunt with the effort of keeping her feet…
but we hit the crest, level off for the briefest of moments, and then surge and topple forward as we dive down the other side.
I hear Story shriek breathlessly as she's tossed forward, and the breath I just got back is slammed out of me as Story crashes down on top of me.
Another wave smacks the ship from our left, knocking it into a sideways pitch that sends us rolling.
I instinctively wrap my arms around Story as we roll, trying to protect her skull from being crushed between the bulk of my body and the unforgiving bare metal floor beneath us.
We roll and roll as we dip diagonally downward, rolling and sliding across the floor of the container—mercifully, the jackasses who took us at least had the decency to strap the piss bucket down because it's not sliding all over the place.
Story's body is soft and firm and warm in my arms, a tiny but powerful package. There's nothing I can do but hold her as we’re bucked and tossed across the floor as wave after wave hurls the giant ship this way and that like a toy in a tub.
My head cracks against the floor and white spots dance across the darkness, but I keep hold of Story, bracing my arms so they take the brunt of our rolling rather than her small form.
I don't know how long we're tossed like that, helpless to do anything but be rolled about like a pinball; the pitching, yawing, rolling, and bucking is so violent that at times we’re tossed clear off the floor and are airborne for a breath before crashing down again.
Eventually, the storm abates and the tossing subsides to some degree.
By this point, after what has to be an hour or two at minimum, if not longer, I'm a mass of aches and bruises like I went eight rounds full-contact with Uncle Duke.
We're up against a wall, and the rain is still falling in a deafening deluge, but the worst violence seems to have passed. I'm on my back and Story is fully on top of me. I wish I could enjoy this moment more, but it’s not voluntary on her part, so I shove those stupid squishy feelings aside.
“You okay?" I murmur. "You hurt?"
Her head twists against my chest. "No, Killy. But you took most of the beating. How are you?"
"Sore, but I’ll live." I pat her head, her shoulders, her back. "Sure you're okay?"
My hand finds warm flesh, soft and silky and smooth, and my heart leaps in my chest and my stomach lurches. What am I touching? Her back?
"Killy?" Her voice is faint and soft.
No, not her back.
Definitely not her back.
I'm no virgin, okay? But also I'm not Cal.
My best friend has mad game; I can't tell you how many times I've found myself at loose ends for an hour or three on St. John or St. Thomas or wherever while he hooks up with a tourist. I've had my share of liaisons, is my point.
Not as many as Cal, with his golden surfer looks and easy charm and brash confidence, granted.
My point…my point here is that I realize—belatedly, at the soft questioning hint in her tone—that what I'm grabbing with both hands like I have every right to is Story's bare ass.
Bare because the waves knocked us flying before she could right them.
And…fuck. It's every bit as glorious to have in my hands as I'd fantasized it would be.
Shut up—I already admitted to having a crush, okay?
You try spending every summer for years watching her blossom into stunning beauty, watching her grow confident in her body when you’re a horny but shy kid with a major crush you know is unrequited.
You try watching that girl prance around the island in a bikini.
You try watching this very ass, barely clad in a bit of fabric, sway with every step, jigging as she jogs to catch a Frisbee or dives into the waves.
You try to endure all that and not have a few wet dreams about her once in a while.
"I'm sorry, again," I bite out, yanking my hands away. I flatten them against the cold metal floor to either side of my hips.
"This is awkward, but I need help. My pants are all tangled and I…" she rests her forehead on my sternum. "I just need help. Please."
She wriggles on me, and it's fucking torture. I feel her breasts against my chest, her hips against mine. Fuck.
I can’t take much more of this—having her on top of me, pants around her ankles, wriggling like a fish out of water as she tries to sort out her clothing…knowing her bare ass is right there…it's torture.
"Just stop moving for a second," I say, sounding more short-tempered than I'd intended. "Just let me stand up."
I get one arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders, and I stand up with her. Set her on her feet, back to the wall.
Her hands grip my shoulders as I kneel down and hunt at her ankles.
I quickly discover the issue—one foot came out of the leg and pulled it inside out with the cuff in a tucked-in, knotted-up clump that you really need both hands to loosen.
I sort the scrub bottoms out, and then grab her ankle. "Foot up."
I guide her foot into the leg and tug the pants up, tie them in a simple bunny-ears knot.
"Thank you, Killian." Her tone is wry.
"What?" I ask, confused as to the tone.
"Nothing. I’m saying thank you."
"There was a tone."
"I do know how to put on my own pants. I just couldn't in that position." She's amused rather than irritated or offended. "But I am truly and genuinely grateful for your assistance."
“Yeah," I mumble, shuffling out of reach. "Right. Yeah. Sorry. I just—"
Her hand shoots out and smacks against my hip, and then she tugs me back closer by my belt loop. “Hey. For real, thank you. I just found it…endearing, I suppose. That you felt it necessary to do that for me."
"Endearing." I can't keep the monotone sarcasm out of my voice.
"Or…or something." There's an element to her voice now that I can't place. An emotion she's hiding.
"Story, I'm sorry about all the—the groping. It's not on purpose."
"I know. It's okay." A short, sharp pause. "There was some lingering, though."
"Lingering?"
"Just now? Your hands on my butt?"
"That was your butt?" I feign surprise.
"Oh, don’t play dumb with me, Killy."
I pull away. Why did I act dumb? That was dumb. "I…Story, I—"
She tugs me back by my belt loop again. "Just admit it."
I sigh. "Sure, yeah, okay. It was surprising. I was…just…um…"
"Yeah?" Her voice is shaky with restrained laughter. "This oughta be good. Hit me with it. You were what?"
"Confused," I press on, gamely trying to keep up the charade—I totally lingered, once I realized what I was touching. "I was…confused. As to, um…what I was…."
"As to what you were what?"
"Fine, fuck it. Yeah, Story, I lingered. I groped. I'm an asshole, and I’m sorry for taking advantage of the situation."
I yank away from her, cheeks burning and shame bubbling in my gut.
Shame and embarrassment. Knowledge that teasing me is as far as this will go.
She's several years older than me, after all, closer in age to Bryn than me, and she's actually older than Bryn by a year or two.
I've never cared about it till now, but suddenly twenty-seven to my twenty-one seems like an unbridgeable gap.
"Hey, Killy, where'd you go?"
"Well gee, Story, I left. Making my break for it. Can’t you tell?" I laugh bitterly. "Where do you think I'm gonna go?"
Her hand finds my shoulder and then I feel her and smell her and sense her behind me. "Killy, I…" a pause. "I was teasing. I've never been in a situation like this, and I'm using levity to cope."
"I groped you. It was accidental at first, yeah, but—"
"I was teasing. I'm not upset, not at all." There's that thing in her voice again, the sense—without evidence— that she’s hiding something from me, that she's feeling something she doesn't know what to do with.
Revulsion, perhaps?
I'm joking. I doubt it's revulsion. Amusement, maybe.
"Story—"
"This is a fucked-up situation, Killian."
"And I shouldn't make it worse by—"
Her hand claps over my mouth. "Someone's coming."
"Shit,” I mumble, the word muffled behind her hand; she moves it, and I whisper, “Close your eyes."
"What?"