Chapter 14 Wholeheartedly and Undeniably #4
The love these two have for each other is obvious.
It sucks that we’re around another gay couple and we have to hide our relationship.
If I could just shake the uneasy feeling they give me, I’d feel comfortable enough to talk to them about us, but there’s this voice in my head warning me to be careful.
“You’ve been married five years?” Vincent asks.
“Yep, got married when we were your age, twenty-one. Best decision we ever made,” Brody says.
Oh, okay. They know too much. I stand up from my chair and pass my card to Muffy. “Let’s go,” I say to Vincent. He stands from his chair, looking quite confused as he waits for me to get my card back. I’ll explain it to him when we get outside.
I take my card back from Muffy and give a nod to Brody and Michael who don’t look confused at all. They both seem to realize what happened.
“Nice to meet you,” Vincent says.
Brody gives him a smile. “You too.”
The sun is finally starting to set as we step outside, but it’s still really busy in the port.
“What happened? Why did we leave so fast?” Vincent asks.
“They knew way too much about us. Your dad said to be cautious, which I would have done even if he didn’t say that, but since he did warn us, we needed to leave. It was just a little strange that those two knew the things they did about us, especially since you didn’t recognize them.”
“What do you think they wanted?”
“I’m not sure. They didn’t seem like bad people, something about them just made me nervous.”
We’re walking toward the dock where our new ships should be. It’s less than an hour until we have to meet our fathers and the chief anyway, so it’s good that we left.
He nods at me in agreement. “Sivan, I’ve been thinking a lot about the first mate thing.”
“Yeah? What have you decided?”
“I want to be your first mate, and I want you to be mine.”
I stop walking and tilt my head at him, while people walk around us. “How would that work?”
“Well, a better way to say it would be to say that I want us to be co-captains. I want to combine crews.”
“What made you decide this?” I ask. I’m trying hard to control my facial expression, because as much as I want this, and as unbelievably happy as this makes me, I need to make sure he’s thought it all the way through.
He pulls me to the side out of the crowd of people, behind a building.
We’re out of the way now, so we can talk without the worry of people overhearing us.
“Sivan. I only trust you. I don’t even trust myself as much as I trust you.
I know that no matter what happens, you’ll always be with me.
There is only one thing I want in this world, and it’s you.
I used to think I wanted my own crew, and my own ship, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized, I’ve always wanted you beside me.
I want our crew; I want our ship. I don’t want anything, unless I can share it with you. ”
I’ve wanted to say the same things for a while now; those are the words I’ve been hoping to hear. My heart is beating so fast, it’s begging me to hold him close. I just want to pick him up and carry him back to the ship. “Can I kiss you?”
“You can kiss me anytime you want,” he says, grabbing my shirt in the center and pulling me toward him.
I press my lips against his and kiss him gently, holding him by the waist. Kissing Vincent is always exhilarating, but right now, it feels almost dangerous knowing that anyone could walk over and see us.
We’re off to the side, so it would be unlikely, but still, our fathers will be passing by at any moment. They’re never late for anything.
I separate from the kiss, and look side to side, trying to see if anyone is watching us, but Vincent keeps his grip on my shirt. “You’re worried about our fathers seeing us?” he asks.
“Anyone could see us. We should probably talk to them about us before someone else does. Especially if we want to join crews. I have a feeling it’s not going to go so well with your father.
Mine will likely be okay with it. What are we going to propose to them?
We have a lot of logistics we need to go over.
We also have two ships, but will we just use one? ”
“Hmm. I’d say we need both, but we just use one unless we’re doing separate patrols or jobs. I don’t know. I think that makes sense. My dad will be worried that the north won’t get enough attention if I stay with you in the south.”
“Maybe we propose to stay in the middle? Your dad will want to know that you’ve considered everything.
And what about the tattoos? We need to get those tomorrow, too.
I know you’ve been wanting to skip the captain one, but we’ll both be captains, and those are the rules.
Captains have to get the tattoos. Captain and Crew tattoos, it can’t be helped.
Unless you want to really piss him off, in which case, I’ll back you up. ”
“I have an idea. Remember how on the bench I added the plus sign, so it made sense for us?”
I nod. “Yep, I remember.”
He takes my arm in his hand and slides my coat and shirt sleeve up. “This one is supposed to say Captain. So, let’s just add My to it. You’re my captain, and I’ll be yours. If we add that, it will be a tattoo for us, My Captain.” He traces his finger drawing the words.
I take his arm and slide his sleeve up. “This one can say Our Crew, because we will build a crew together and share everything. My Captain, Our Crew. Those will be our tattoos. You like that?”
He kisses me quickly, then smiles. “Yes, that’s what I want. Can we get them now? Or do we have to wait until tomorrow?”
“You really are cute, but we definitely have to wait. Our fathers will have to agree to all of this. Not really the tattoos, because we can just do what we want, but the rest of it, they’ll have to agree to.
We should propose a fifty-fifty split for the crew.
They were both planning on giving us fifty crew members each, so what if we tell them we just want twenty-five from each? ”
“Fifty crew members is good for one ship, but what about when we need to use both ships? Also, I keep thinking about Matteo, as much as I don’t want to. He basically said he didn’t want to be my first mate if we were going to be together, what if there are other crew members that feel the same?”
I shake my head at him. “Not that many people care who someone else is sleeping with. The crew will be concerned about what they’ll get from our arrangement.
They’ll want to know that they will be fed, paid, and that they’ll be treated fairly.
I don’t think anyone is going to care about us being together.
But if it will make you feel better, we can ask our fathers if they think we need to disclose it to the crew first.”
“Alright. I like this plan,” he says bouncing on his toes. “Let’s go tell our dads that we’re gay and we want to combine crews.”
I chuckle a bit. “Maybe we tell them about the co-captaincy thing first, then we tell them about us. One shock at a time. But if you feel like blurting it out, I won’t stop you.
I would say that we shouldn’t do anything in front of the chief that might embarrass our dads.
We want the inner police to know that we’re not going to cause problems.”
He’s pouting at me. “That means we still can’t hold hands outside until we tell them.”
“Just a few hours, hopefully. But I’ll hold your hand while we sleep tonight to make up for it.”
“Deal,” he says.
We start walking toward the docks, and the ships are finally in view.
They’re both amazing. Mine has blue sails, while Vincent’s, of course, has red.
There’s a part of me that wishes we would have been born in a time when cannons still existed on ships.
Ship battles now mostly consist of boarding and burning or trying to just ram the other in a weak spot, forcing the other ship to sink.
I’ve not seen anyone try that yet, and honestly it sounds pretty stupid.
My father’s ship has been boarded a few times by rogue pirates who run on smaller, faster boats, but none have been successful at doing any real damage.
I have no idea what kind of a ship Captain Slicer has, but when I was a kid, I used to imagine that it had spikes coming off it.
All this shit about him respecting the treaty sounds really stupid.
The stories we’ve been told don’t paint him as someone willing to negotiate, and regardless of whether I like Harlow or not, his men still took her off the ship…
even though part of me doesn’t think she looked like she was putting up that much of a fight.
Vincent tugs on my coat. “Those are our ships! I’m so excited, come on, walk faster!” We’re speeding toward the dock, like two kids running below deck on Christmas morning. “I can’t wait to see what’s inside! Do you think they stocked them already? With food and liquor?” he asks.
“I don’t know, probably!”
“Come on, baby, you’re walking so slow,” he teases me, pulling my hand.
He couldn’t be smiling any bigger. He’s so happy right now, and in this moment, looking at those dimples and the amber sunrays reflecting in his gorgeous brown eyes, I know two things: the first is that I will follow him anywhere, and do anything to make him smile, and the second is that I am wholeheartedly, undeniably in love with my best friend.