Rock the Boat

by Gia Riley

  “I love your girl man, but this isn’t happening. I’m here for the music, the paycheck, and to see the world. That’s it.”

  We’ve been on this ship for six months and each and every week a new flock of hopefuls waltz through the gangway like their entire world depends on the outcome of their cruise. Sure, some of them probably make out pretty well, have some sex, see the islands, and get drunk a few times without the responsibilities of the real world holding them back, but there’s little chance of survival as a couple once the ship docks a week later.

  “Dude, you take it up with her. I have nothing to do with this.”

  Just as I’m about to toss the letter in the trash can, Gina’s next to me with a hopeful smile plastered on her face. “Please, say yes.”

  “This isn’t happening.”

  “Come on, Easton. This is our last week on the ship before our contracts expire. Please, if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me.”

  “Why does this matter to you so much? You’ve been on my ass about taking one of these tests for weeks. I took it to get you off my back, but I never agreed to going through with this.”

  “Months,” she clarifies. “I’ve been trying for months to make this happen. This is your last shot. Your next contract could assign you to any ship in the fleet. You’re on the only ship on this side of the world that does The Perfect Match. You may never get another chance like this ever again.”

  “I can live with that.”

  She takes my hand and sits me down on the couch like the protective mother hen she’s become to the entire band. “East, I care about you a lot. From day one, you took me under your wing, introduced me to your band, and made me feel like one of the guys—even though I’m obviously not. You’re responsible for me meeting Dominic. I owe you for that and so much more, but there’s no other way to repay you than to return the favor. I don’t have any more gorgeous women left to throw at you. You turned them all down. Well, after you slept with a few of them first, but we’ll forget about that for now.”

  “I’m not exactly proud about that.” Each time I hooked up with a random girl Gina sent my way, I felt like I was cheating on Shay. Still, it didn’t stop me from getting wasted and doing it anyway. I was a total hypocrite sometimes, especially once the guilt set in and I ended up with an entire bottle of whiskey in my hands. Luckily, Dom caught on fast and put an end to that shit before it got out of hand again.

  “You don’t deserve to spend the rest of your life alone. It’s okay to want to meet someone new. Even if you don’t admit it, I see the way you watch other couples—even me and Dom. You want that for yourself.”

  “I had it all, Gina. I’ll never find that again.”

  She doesn’t try to disagree with me. She never met Shay, but she’s heard enough about her to know we were the real deal. After staring into space for a few seconds, she tucks a piece of her golden hair behind her ear and looks me straight in the eyes. “Shay was so lucky to have you—and I’m positive she knew that because of the man you are. What you did for her in her last days, she took that with her to heaven.”

  I close my eyes, the pain still torturous when I hear her name and heaven in the same sentence. Shay was my world—my other half. She was as close as it gets to perfection. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to replace her, or if I want to try, even if everyone is telling me it’s time to move on.

  “Easton,” she whispers, her breathing labored and her skin so pale this morning it shocks me. Even with her fragile, frail body, she’s still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. Before long, all I’ll have left is the memory of her love, her touch, and her gentle spirit. This body in front of me isn’t the one I’ve worshipped—it’s merely a shell that will be left behind once she’s transported to a better place.

  I wasn’t sure if I believed in an afterlife until Shay’s health started to rapidly decline. After watching her endure so much pain and suffering, there has to be someplace beyond this Earth where she’ll be loved and taken care of for eternity. And if I’m lucky, I’ll see her again someday, no matter what the future may bring for me.

  “Baby, I’m here,” I tell her, as I hold her shaking hand in mine. I thought yesterday was as bad as it would get. I’ve prayed so many times for God to ease her pain, to put her out of her misery, but truth be told, I’m too damn selfish to imagine her gone from my life. I don’t want her to hurt, but this is all I have left of her, and I’ll never be ready to say goodbye to her.

  She sucks in a breath, her eyes fluttering open and closed. “Thank you for loving me. You didn’t have to stay knowing I was going to die.”

  “Don’t do that, Shay. Don’t talk about us like we’re over. Stay with me.”

  “I’m so tired. Sing to me, East. I want you to sing our song one last time.”

  Her dry lips quiver and when her eyes close, her entire body relaxes. The last time I’ll see her sparkling blue eyes has come and gone and I didn’t even have a chance to appreciate it. I need her to open them one last time so I can memorize the color. “Shay, baby. Please don’t leave.”

  I rest my head on her stomach, my sadness suddenly crushing the anger and denial I’ve been carrying around with me for weeks as each test came back worse than the last. There were days I thought if I loved her enough, she would get better. But no matter how many times I told her I loved her, she continued to slip away.

  My throat is raw as I choke out the lyrics to “Amazed”—the song I sang to her when I asked her to marry me, and now as I’m saying goodbye to her.

  “Love you,” she whispers so faintly I can barely make out what she’s saying.

  Her chest rises and falls before one final gasp passes between her lips. I don’t need confirmation from the nurse or doctor to understand what just happened. Like all the air was sucked out of the room, I already know she’s gone.

  I clench the blanket covering her, digging into it so hard my nails cut into the palms on both of my hands. I watch the doctor check for a pulse, a routine move he’s probably done a million times, and when he gives the nurse the signal, a barely noticeable nod of his head, she removes the oxygen from Shay’s nose. Each of them give me a weak smile, their eyes downcast as they move to the door to her room.

  I didn’t have any expectations of what would happen when she slipped away, yet it hurts more than I ever imagined. The thought of never seeing her face or hearing her voice again for as long as I live scares the ever loving shit out of me. I barely remember a world without her in it. How can I be expected to pick up the pieces and walk out of here, leaving her body for someone else to take care of when I’ve been the one making sure she had it all?

  Dom steps into the room, the jingling of the chain connecting his wallet to his jeans giving him away before I even turn my head to see who it is. He stands next to me in support, his hand resting on my shoulder while I break down for the first time since she started her hospice care. I always thought if I kept my emotions locked up, they wouldn’t have the power to control the outcome. Now that she’s passed, the most crippling pain squeezes my throat shut until it hurts so bad I have no choice but to let it out. “What am I going to do, Dom?”

  “She’s at peace now, East. You have to let her go.”

  Fuck, peace. What about me? How am I supposed to find tomorrow when my today has just been destroyed?

  “Easton? Are you okay?”

  I turn my head toward Gina, wishing that when I did, her voice would somehow morph into Shay’s. I’d give anything to hear her say my name again—anything to hold her in my arms and feel her hug me. “I don’t think I’m ready for something this serious.”

  “But you’ve come so far. You’ve changed. You even dated that dealer for a while. She was from Canada wasn’t she?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Dominic told me.” Considering Dom didn’t have all the facts, I guess it would have appeared to be more than it was. In my eyes, it was nothing more than a string of re
peat performances between two people looking to have some fun.

  When I don’t offer to give it a try with this new chick, Gina looks to Dom for help. I can practically see the wheels turning in his head about how he’s going to convince me that his girlfriend is right. If Gina doesn’t get what she wants, Dom does whatever it takes to make it happen for her. Considering I’ve done the same thing for Shay more times than I can count, there’s not a damn thing I can say about it. It’s what you do for someone you love.

  “Go ahead, Dom. I can tell it’s killing you.”

  He rubs his palms on his jeans as he clears his throat. “I tried to stay out of it, but I agree with Gina. What if you have a drink with her in the lounge? If after meeting her you still feel absolutely nothing, then we won’t bother you about it again.”

  “Aren’t I supposed to be doing this for myself—because I’m ready and want to find someone?”

  “In theory, yes. But I don’t see that happening, so consider this a push in the right direction.”

  Gina smiles, seemingly satisfied with his proposal. “Please, Easton. She came all this way to meet her guy. Imagine how disappointed she will be when she finds out he changed his mind at the last minute.”

  I glare at her for obvious reasons. “I never agreed to take part in the first place. You’re the one who signed me up and decided for me.”

  “Well, you have a point, but I only did it because you could make someone really happy. And by doing that, I think you’ll make yourself happy, too. More than half of the women on every cruise look at you like you’re a damn rockstar, but you couldn’t be bothered with a single one of them. It’s time to take a leap.”

  “I am a rockstar.” I’ve been the lead singer of Midnight Fate since high school. It’s the only job I’ve ever had that I cared about.

  “You were a rockstar. Before you threw it all away to live a mindless existence on ships.”

  She knows damn well why I gave it up. The thought of returning to all the places I had taken Shay, where we created memories I couldn’t ever forget, wasn’t going to work for me. I tried for a month, and then after that, when another tour was about to begin, I knew I had to run before I lost my shit. When I ran out of land, I found the sea.

  The guys didn’t have to follow me, but they did. They’re most likely the reason why I’m still alive and not in rehab. The first couple days after Shay passed, I drank nonstop until it became impossible to get my fingers to play a single chord on my guitar. I started forgetting the lyrics and fucking up every song on the playlist. But as long as they kept the song I wrote for Shay in the rotation, there was no way I could sing it sober.

  “It’s been a year, Easton. Shay would want you to continue living. She wouldn’t want you to give up touring to protect her memory. The guilt you feel doesn’t have to exist.”

  “Some days it feels like yesterday. Others I struggle to remember the sound of her voice. I can’t decide which is worse.”

  “They’re both terrible and I hate that you’re even in this position, but this is the end of your second contract with the cruise line. In another week you’ll have to make a decision about your career whether you meet this girl or not. Whatever you decide, I want it to be what you want. Not what you think has to happen.”

  “How do you think I feel, Gina? I don’t like living like this.”

  She stands up, walking over to where I’m leaning against the wall. Placing her hand over my heart, she says, “Keep Shay here, but let yourself live again. She won’t hate you. If you can’t live with her, live for her.”

  I could argue that she’s putting words into Shay’s mouth, but she’s not. Toward the end, I had more than one conversation with Shay before she moved to hospice care. She made me swear that when the right girl came along, I would love her the way she deserved—that I wouldn’t hold back because I was scared or missing her. At the time, the thought was incomprehensible. The only girl I’d ever been in love with, the one I swore I would spend the rest of my life with, was begging me to love someone else. It made me angry she was encouraging me to move on while she was still my fiancée. Mostly because I was in denial I was ever going to lose her in the first place.

  I’m human—I don’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I crave affection as much as anyone else, but that’s the exact reason why I fell into bed with other women. I needed to feel as much as I needed to forget. But as hard as I tried to forget, when I closed my eyes, I pictured Shay. I guess that makes me a pretty sick bastard.

  Regardless of the way I feel about myself, I still promised Shay I would try. I didn’t let her down when she was alive, and I’m not about to do it now.

  “One drink,” I tell Gina before sitting on the edge of the bed. One drink might kill me, but I’ll do it.

  “Thank fuck,” Dom mutters from the couch. I just made his life a hell of a lot easier now that Gina’s beaming.

  She hands the Perfect Match letter back to me. “All you have to do is message her. Imagine how excited she is after finding your name in her own letter.”

  I do as I’m told, typing out my simple request—to meet me in the lounge in thirty minutes. I do it for Gina, but after I press send, I don’t regret it as much as I thought I would. Clearly, I’m spending too much time with these two fools.

  I haven’t been this nervous to meet a girl since high school. It was prom night when I went to pick up Courtney and found her two older brothers waiting for me on the front porch. One had a box of condoms in his hand, the other a rifle. Luckily for them, I wouldn’t need either of those things—Courtney and I were nothing more than family friends.

  Shay had been too sick and battling another bout of pneumonia. I didn’t want to go to the dance at all, but she insisted it was a rite of passage every high school senior should experience. Since I’d do anything to make her happy, I went to the prom against my better judgement.

  The second Shay was feeling well enough to go outside, Courtney helped me plan a private prom for the two of us. I put my tux back on and took Shay to the park behind her house. The dinner was catered from her favorite restaurant. I played music from a CD I made with all her favorite songs, and we danced under the weeping willow tree, surrounded by her favorite flowers.

  There were only a couple weeks of school left, and soon we’d be set free to live our lives however we wanted. We had it all, yet here I am waiting to meet someone new. Someone I’m not even sure I’ll like.

  Aki, a bartender all the way from Trinidad and Tobago, already knows what I want before I even open my mouth. He slides a double shot of whiskey in front of me the second my ass touches the stool at the bar. “You’re ready for this?”

  “Trust me, this wasn’t my idea.”

  “Gina means well, man. Don’t be so hard on her.”

  I set down the glass in my hand before the warm liquor reaches my lips. “How long have you known about this?”

  He grabs his towel, draping it over his shoulder. As he starts putting away a rack of clean glasses, he admits, “Gina called me and said today was the day. I didn’t think you’d show.”

  I’ve humored Gina up until now, but I’m not about to become the crew’s source of entertainment. I’m a pretty private guy, especially when it comes to my personal life and women. It’s always how it had to be when we were touring. I kept my circle of trust small or my life ended up front page news in every tabloid on the market.

  I expect Aki to feed me some of the same lines Gina did when I found the letter, about this being a good opportunity for me to move on, but his eyes are transfixed elsewhere. “If that’s your match, I don’t feel the least bit sorry for you.”

  I look across the sea of bodies to see who has him so worked up. The tall brunette standing in the doorway, nervously glancing around the room screams “fuck me,” yet she looks like she could throw up all over the floor at any second. Nobody that gorgeous should ever lack confidence. Not when she’s turning heads the way she is.

  “H
ow much do you want to bet that’s your piece?”

  Keeping my eyes on her as she shows her letter to the attendant at the door, I backhand Aki across the chest. “Have some manners, man.”

  “I’m just sayin’, whoever gets her this week is one lucky fuck. She might even convince me to give this Perfect Match thing a try next time.”

  “You have a girl of your own who sucks your dick every night. Stop being so damn greedy.”

  He smirks because it’s true, even if he does take one more look at the mystery girl. We both watch her, unable to look away. Aki’s dying to find out who she’s here for, just like I am. After one last glance at her letter, she folds it up and tucks it in her small purse.

  This time when she raises her head, her eyes don’t roam around the room the way they did when she first arrived. This time they land directly on me. It takes her a couple seconds to move after making eye contact, but once she does, she moves with purpose.

  With each step she takes, her skirt hits at just the right spot on her golden thigh. If I pushed it up even the smallest bit, I’d be able to see all of her. Like she can read my mind, she discreetly tugs on the tight material, somehow wishing the fabric would fall a couple inches lower. Her effort does nothing to change the outcome or what I’d like to do to her in that dress. I can already feel her legs draped over my shoulders, her thighs pressing against my face as I dive between her legs.

  The heel of her shoe wobbles ever so slightly as it catches on the thick carpet covering the lounge floor. I stand to help her the rest of the way, catching her before she stumbles. My hands land on the soft curve of her hips, and it takes all the willower I possess to keep from pulling her against my body. My eyes slowly roam over her until they land on her perfectly rounded tits.

  She clears her throat and I drop my hands, already missing her warmth, as I pull out the stool next to mine. As she takes a seat, I can’t even apologize for checking her out. I’d have done it if she was standing next to me or still on the other side of the room with someone else.