by Tatum West
Nikki grins, tossing the jacket on the foot of the bed. He takes the coffee cup from my hand and takes a sip. “Let’s go and catch that view you promised met,” he suggests. “You can tell me what you’ve plotted for the rest of the day.”
Nikki and I plot together, but he’s not averse to following my lead since Ocracoke is my stomping ground.
After coffee on the roof, watching the world awaken, our morning starts off easy at Gaffer’s. Gaffer’s is a local eatery that’s been around since I was a kid. It’s the only place on the island that’s open year-round, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night fare. Off season, this is the only establishment on Ocracoke where one can get breakfast, unless you want to cook it yourself.
I order the country-fried steak with extra biscuits while Nikki contemplates the menu in a state of abject horror. Finally, after much pondering, he peers up at our impatient waitress and says, “I’ll have the Breakfast BLT. Hold the bacon. Hold the egg. Hold the bread.”
She gives him a stern look of disapproval before writing down his request on her trusty notepad.
“What side do you want with that?” she requests.
“Water,” Nikki says, deadpan.
When she’s gone I lean across the sticky tabletop, trying to keep my voice low. “You’re on vacation,” I say. “Calories consumed while on vacation don’t count.”
“Old wives’ tale,” Nikki responds. “Leading to old, wide asses.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Okay, regardless, we’re here to have fun. So let’s have fun.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m feeding him country fried steak and hash browns off my fork while half of Ocracoke Island looks on in wonderment. Apparently, calories consumed off someone else’s plate don’t count. I don’t care what the locals think, I need to get some real food into my baby before he blows away.
By mid-morning, we’re on the dock at the marina inspecting my boat. She’s christened Wilshire’s Bounty, because that’s what paid for her. She’s not anything special in this neighborhood, where multi-million-dollar racing yachts drop anchor on their way between the Bahamas and the North Atlantic. That said, she’s mine and I’m proud of her. She’s a forty-four-foot Aquila catamaran yacht with enough power and stability to tackle ocean cruises, and enough comfort to feel like you’re staying at a five-star hotel (with an ocean view).
I had well-heeled friends in high school and college who learned to sail because they were born into the class of people who did that as a matter of course. I had no such advantage, so I satisfy myself with a power boat. As settling goes, this isn’t bad.
“Damn dawg, this is fancy!” Nikki croons, peeking into the galley and the deck below it. “Is this teak?”
I grin, and a warmth spreads through my chest. “It is. You like it?”
Nikki nods. “Yeah, baby, I love it! It’s extremely fabulous in a chic old school kind of way. I couldn’t be more thrilled if I tried!”
“Let’s take her out,” I say, climbing the stairs toward the helm. “Not far. We’ll be back before dark.”
“Awesome!” Nikki agrees, looking around for some way to make himself useful.
“Untie us at the dock,” I instruct, “And push us off.”
James and Tyler, who’ve shadowed us all morning, dash forward on the pier with anxious expressions. “Wait!” James calls, but he’s too late; we’re already off the dock. Nikki waves at them, grinning wide.
“We’ll be back in a couple hours,” I call out from the helm, firing the engines. “Don’t worry! We’re fine!”
James’ and Troy’s dire warnings about droves of paparazzi and gaggles of teenaged islanders descending upon us haven’t panned out. We had a hassle-free breakfast at the most popular place in town this morning. Then we took a casual stroll along the main drag, window shopping. Nobody looked at us twice, except to stare at Nikki’s shoes – and he got a few compliments on those.
I point Wilshire’s Bounty toward the mouth of the harbor and power up, gaining speed in the channel as we head toward open water.
“Come on up!” I call to Nikki, who’s below watching the island fall way behind us, watching the seabirds on sandbars alongside.
He mounts the steep steps to the helm. I point him toward a comfortably upholstered bench on the rail beside me.
“There’s beer in the cooler to my left,” I say. “The bar in the galley is fully stocked. Help yourself.”
I’m not drinking. I don’t know these difficult shoals as well as the locals. I need to keep my head and pay attention.
Nikki leans back, making himself comfortable, the sun warming his skin.
“This is cool,” he says, gazing out at the wide horizon before us. “It’s special, like you said. It feels like a real vacation, a land that time forgot.”
“It is indeed that.”
The Atlantic Ocean is astounding on a clear day like this, calm seas still means rolling waves with troughs twenty feet deep. Bigger boats with deeper drafts scrape bottom, risking hull damage and hindering steering. That’s why a dual-hull like my Aquila is ideal on these treacherous shoals. I have almost no draft. I skim over the tops of the waves without even dipping.
Thirty minutes out, and the Carolina coast is just an undulating ribbon of white on the horizon. Seabirds circle overhead, hoping for food. They’re sadly disappointed.
Before we lose sight of land and I lose my landmarks, I kill the engines and drop anchor, holding us in place, skirting on the edge of the continental shelf. As far as the eye can see, there’s nothing but cobalt blue water rising and falling around us. The wind is light and steady out of the west with the sun overhead. The air is clean and fresh, infused with salt.
“Have you ever been anywhere like this?” I ask Nikki.
He smiles up at me, eyes wide, happy. “No,” he says. “The closest I ever came was in the mountains, but it doesn’t compare to this.”
The wide-open ocean is humbling. When you’re in it, surrounded by it, you taste your own insignificance.
“There’s no one here,” Nikki says. “There’s nothing to judge you. It’s freeing. It’s safe.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “That’s why I come here. It’s the only place in the world I feel completely free.”
Nikki gets up, joining me at the helm, wrapping his arms over my chest, his lips pressed against my ear.
“This is the first time I’ve felt safe since I left Abingdon,” he whispers into my neck, his tone dropped a note or two. “I feel safe with you, out here, alone on the edge of the planet. I feel like I can be me.”
The Nikki who slips his arms around my neck, nuzzling my ear, isn’t the same Nikki from Rodeo Drive shopping ventures. He isn’t the same Nikki who forays into throngs of fans. He isn’t even the same insecure boy ordering a breakfast BLT without bread. He’s more authentic than that creature; all his affectations have evaporated in the sunlight.
“Come here,” I say, urging him down to straddle my lap in the captain’s chair
I peer up into his eyes. They’re smiling, lit brightly from within.
“You don’t ever have to be anything except your truest, most authentic self for me.” I tell him, lifting my hand, tracing the sharp line of his perfectly square jaw with the backs of my fingers. “I want to know that person. The rest of it:, the clothes, the fame, all that’s just a mask. I want the man behind the mask.”
Nikki breathes deeply, gazing at me, contemplating what I’ve said. Finally, he sighs, a tiny warm smile curving his lovely, full lips.
“I think I actually believe you,” he says. “I don’t have to do anything to make you like me. I don’t have to be somebody else.”
“No, you don’t,” I try to reassure him. “But ‘like’ hardly touches what I’m starting to feel for you, Nikki Rippon. It doesn’t even come close.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NIKKI
When I’m on stage strangers shout, “I love you, Nikki!” so loudly, I can hear it from
the fiftieth row. I hear it in the airport, too, and on the street. I hear it at stage doors after appearing on television programs, where they crowd so closely together I worry they’ll trample someone vying for a chance at a selfie.
I’ve heard the words, ‘I love you’ thousands – maybe millions – of times, the words always spoken by someone who hasn’t the first clue who I really am. They look at me and listen to my songs, and they believe I’m whatever they need me to be. I get paid obscenely well to play that role, but it comes at a high price. I’ve often wondered, after all the empty, meaningless “I love you’s” I’ve heard, if I’d be able to recognize it if it was ever spoken to me sincerely.
Fox is too cautious to say those words this soon, but hearing him venture so close, I recognize the honesty in what he says, and how he says it. I feel the impact of the sentiment, and the potential it promises deep in my core. It aches. It feels so good it hurts.
I chastely touch Fox’s lips with mine, our noses bumping when we kiss. I could kiss him, and be satisfied with nothing more coming of it than that, for the rest of my years. Luckily, I don’t think I have to settle. For some odd reason, he seems as physically attracted to me as I am to him. His heat when we’re in bed is genuine.
“Can we fool around on the boat?” I ask, biting my lip suggestively. “Or is that against Coast Guard regulations?”
Fox grins, raising one eyebrow. “I don’t know. I’d have to check the regulation manual,” he says, teasing. “It’s downstairs. You want to help me look for it?”
“Of course,” I reply, sliding my hand from his knee up along his inner thigh, coming to rest at the neat package tucked between his legs, secreted away behind fabric, buttons, and zippers. “Could it be in here?” I ask him, gently circling him with my fingers.
Fox clenches his jaw, smiling wickedly. “It might be,” he says, nicking my lips with his teeth while I softly stroke his firming shaft.
We spend most of the afternoon below deck, exploring one another’s bodies unhurriedly and playfully. I marvel at his physique and the salty stubble of hair spread across his chest, rubbing my fingers through it. It tickles both of us.
“Why do you shave it?” I ask him, knowing it’s a silly question. I shave everything and have since I was thirteen.
“Because I’m vain,” he replies matter-of-factly. “Because I’d look like a bear rug if I didn’t.”
“I like getting naked on a bear rug from time to time,” I quip, then lean over and roll my tongue in circles around his nipple. I nip it with my teeth, teasing him, which has the desired effect. He’s hard again with just a little more attention from my mouth and lips. I take him deep into my throat, going slow, making him last.
Hours are filled this way: taking turns, discovering those intimate touches and personal pleasures that take practice and curiosity to reveal. Fox’s greatest vulnerability is that he likes to get topped – a little bit roughly – which I’m happy to accommodate. I can foresee a time in the not-so-distant future when Mr. Lee is going to need a firmer hand, maybe some gentle restraints. I imagine we’ll have a lot of fun figuring it all out.
Fox and I are both spent as the afternoon sun sinks lower on the horizon. He’s hungry and I’m feeling peckish myself. We put our clothes on, and return above deck, stopping by the galley to find snacks and bottled water.
“We should head back,” Fox states between bites of a crisp apple. “We don’t need to be out here after dark. I’m not that good of a sailor.”
He fires the engines and the vessel rumbles to life, spitting a mountain of churned whitewater behind us. We accelerate so fast I have to hang on to the rail to keep from sliding backwards. We head west.
The wind whips my face and hair, and the occasional wave sends up a cool, salty spray as we slice through it, headed toward the islands. Their low-lying forms grow nearer and more prominent on the horizon with every passing moment.
“I hope we can do this again,” I call out to Fox over the noise of the engines and the dull roar of wind. “I like this.”
He glances at me from his perch at the helm. “We will,” he says. “I promise.”
Despite his worries about inferior piloting skills, Fox navigates us back the way we came, dropping into a deep channel. We run alongside sandbars teeming with birds, some capped with low, gnarled, green shrubs and towering sea grasses. The first houses of Ocracoke Village appear along the coastline, standing as landmarks along the way into the tiny harbor the locals call “Silver Lake.”
Fox has kept our pace fast, but as we near the island, he slows to a crawl, sliding over the flat water. He turns once more to the east, angling the craft into the mouth of the harbor. It’s there that I see, two hundred yards ahead, a phalanx of jet skis idling at the pinch point where it’s too tight to turn around, and too short to speed past.
“What the hell?” Fox mutters.
I know ‘what the hell’ and it amazes me they tracked me down this far away from civilization. I must be more popular than even I realize.
“It’s the paparazzi,” I say, standing up, grabbing Fox’s binoculars to get a better look.
There are eight jet-skis, each one with two riders: one steering and one behind holding a camera; most of them equipped with the pap-signature long lenses.
I’ve seen plenty of scenarios like this involving other celebrities, but they’ve never come after me like this. Paps on jet-skis are hardcore pros, looking for a money shot that’ll pay their travel bills for a year. I don’t know why they’re so interested in me, but I know to be wary.
“Fox, these guys are aggressive as fuck and generally don’t give a damn about anyone’s personal safety – even their own,” I caution him. “Just let them get their pictures and I think we’ll be okay. I bet James and Troy are still at the marina waiting for us.”
Something switches on in Fox’s eyes. It’s a flicker of anger.
“Get below deck,” he says. “They’re not getting any pictures of you today.”
He reaches for his phone which has been sitting, dead silent, on the console all day. He checks it, then scowls.
“Get below,” he repeats, his tone firm. “I’m serious.”
I drop down into the galley where I’m able to see just a little, but not high enough for the paparazzi to see me. I hear Fox talking on his phone above me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
A moment later I feel the engines rev hard, accelerating fast as Fox executes a sharp turn right in the middle of the harbor’s mouth. A wall of water rises on our left, kicked up by the engines and the critical angle of the boat’s turn. It drops a saturating curtain on at least four jet-skis revving up to give chase behind us.
The rear of the craft digs deep in the water, its bow tipping up in response to Fox’s demand for speed. I peek up over the rear of the boat and see four jet-ski teams falling away behind us, roiling and unstable in our wake. In thirty seconds, we’ve left them; one by one, they give up the chase.
Fox slows his retreat from the harbor but continues heading east toward open water as the sun dips low in the west. I come above, worried, wondering what his plan is, hoping he’s got one.
“I’ll come in at ten,” Fox says into his phone. “Lights off, as quiet as I can. Just meet us there and have somebody ready to move the boat as soon as we’re off. Call Bryan at the Anchorage Inn Marina. Tell him who you are. Use my name. He knows me and my boat. He’ll help you. Tell him I’ll come by and settle up tomorrow.”
I assume Fox is talking with James or someone from the detail. I recall the way James and Troy looked on so helplessly as we pulled off from the dock earlier today. I regret that now. It seemed so harmless at the time, but in hindsight it was thoughtless. They’re willing to put their lives on the line for my safety every day, and I just smiled at them and waved ‘goodbye’.
“I fucked up,” Fox says, laying his phone down, his tone tight, angry. “They told me this would happen, and I didn’t listen. I thought I knew better.”
He glances in my direction, his expression angst-ridden. “Keep this in mind for future reference; I’m not always as smart as I think I am, and I’m an arrogant fuck.”
I blink twice, unable to contain my smile or clever retort.“Oh, sweetheart, I knew that as soon as you said I couldn’t get Topsiders in pink. There’s no point in arguing with a man so certain of facts he has no experience with.”
Fox gives me a wry smile, but his eyes are still dark. “You’re a smart-ass,” he says. “And it’s lucky for you I can appreciate a smart-ass. Otherwise, I’d toss you off the back and let you swim home.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Promises, promises. You just wanna see my breast stroke.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FOX
I weigh anchor in the Ocracoke Sound near a remote part of the island known as “Old Slough,” far out of eyeshot of the paparazzi and their Ski-Doo’s. This isn’t how I anticipated spending my evening; laying low on the water as the sun sets and the temperature drops. Nikki’s taking the change of plan, along with my epic miscalculation regarding the paparazzi and the security situation, with more grace and understanding than I deserve. I promised him a dressy dinner at the Marina. Instead he’s getting a banana and peanut butter crackers in the galley, wrapped up in his expensive new jacket against the plummeting temps.
I called James as soon as we were clear of the paps. He’s not in the least happy with me, and I can’t blame him. I apologized on the phone, and I’ll do it again in person, but something tells me it’s going to take some serious deferring to earn back the respect I’ve sacrificed with this stunt of mine. I thought that we could get away. But that’s apparently pretty far from the truth.
“Hey Fox, look at this,” Nikki says, calling me over to the galley table. “This is messed up.”
I take a seat, peering over his shoulder at his phone which he’s been staring at for twenty minutes.
“This is a fan page on Facebook,” Nikki says, handing me the phone with a grim expression. “Have a look at the comments on the post with the link from TMZ.”
