Full Steam Ahead

by Valerie Chase

  “I’m so glad I sprang for the balcony,” Yasmin says. “How’s your room?”

  “Tiny. Filled with Jace’s stuff.” Georgia’s voice is flat, and I glance up from slathering sunscreen to see her make a face. Yasmin cocks her head.

  “Everything okay with you and Jace?”

  Georgia shrugs. “It’s fine.”

  “What’s wrong? Did he try something with you earlier?”

  “No, he …” She pauses, and I see a hint of a smile curl her mouth. “He was in a towel most of the time. Just a towel. Sort of … distracting.”

  I feel my muscles tighten. Georgia, Her Highness, found me distracting?

  “Nice,” Yasmin says, but right as I’m feeling flattered, she gives Georgia a sober glance. “Be careful with him, sweetie. You know how he is—he’s probably going to try real hard to get you to hook up with him.”

  Georgia shrugs her slim pale shoulders, left bare by her swimsuit.

  “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m so not interested.”

  Ouch. I mean, not that I’m interested, but can’t we go back to how distracting I was in a towel? Damnit, now I’m feeling stung. I slap sunscreen onto my legs faster.

  “What are you wearing to the New Year’s Eve party tomorrow?” Yasmin says, setting her magazine down on her chair. “You brought that shimmery gold dress from Nordstrom, right?”

  Georgia winces, and for a moment I swear she looks like she might cry. Before she can answer, though, Parker arrives with a pitcher of margaritas in one hand and three cups in the other. I escape before Georgia notices me, and play pool volleyball for a while. The girls from FSU are playing too, and one of them, a cute curvy blonde who’s exactly my type, is definitely interested.

  “Let’s go give the girls a refill,” Dan says when I take a break for a beer. I follow his glance to the lounge chairs and groan.

  “Please don’t make me play wingman on this trip. Parker is never going to give you the time of day.” But when he orders a pitcher of margaritas I follow him dutifully, because that is what a brother does, even if it means being around miss I’m so not interested again.

  Georgia is reading on a fancy tablet, something I’d love to be able to afford. Dan pours Parker and Yasmin fresh drinks, but Georgia declines, putting her hand over her still-full cup. I notice all the ice has melted, so it’s not a new drink.

  I nod at her tablet screen. “Whatcha reading there?”

  She glances up, and for some reason her cheeks turn pink.

  “Nothing,” she murmurs, turning off the screen.

  “Were you writing down our ground rules?” I say. Yasmin and Parker share a puzzled glance, so I explain, “Lady Cantwell here has set up a bunch of ‘roommate’ rules I have to follow.”

  “You didn’t, Georgia!” Yasmin says, slapping Georgia’s arm.

  “He’s exaggerating,” she says. I ignore her annoyed expression.

  “I’m totally not.”

  “Wait, wait, you have to tell us what these rules are,” Dan says. “Let me guess: no walking around naked?”

  “No nicknames. Pick up after yourself,’” I mimic Georgia. “And under no circumstances am I allowed to hit on her.” I grin, because Georgia is glaring at me now, and it’s fun to get under her skin. At least when she’s angry, she’s not wearing her prim, blank expression. “I think she’s afraid that my natural charm will melt her wall of ice and turn her to butter in my arms.”

  Dan laughs. Georgia scowls, shoving her sunglasses on her face.

  “Are you still moving to New York after graduation, Dan?” Parker asks, and they chat about future plans. Dan is starting law school early at NYU. Yasmin and Parker are heading off to grad school. Georgia doesn’t participate in the discussion, instead applying a new layer of sunscreen. I try not to watch her smooth it over her skin, but it’s pretty damn hard.

  Finally I stop trying to ignore her the way she seems to want me to, and plop myself on the foot of her chair. She yanks her feet away, tucking her knees against her chest.

  “So what are you going to do when you graduate?” I ask, listening with half an ear as Dan, Yasmin, and Parker compare the horrors of the GRE versus the LSAT. “Since apparently my answer was wrong earlier.”

  Her voice is chilly. “Oh, you know, I’ll be searching for any guy who’ll have me. Getting that MRS degree.”

  I’m startled into a laugh. “Did you just make a joke?” She glares at me behind her sunglasses, and I grin. “Fine, maybe I deserved that. But come on, I’m dying of curiosity now. What are your big plans post-grad?”

  She hesitates for a long moment, and I think she’s going to tell me to jump off the boat before I even think of speaking to her again, but then she says, “Go to London and Paris.”

  “Really?” I’m intrigued, because those cities feature in my post-graduation plans too. “Why there?”

  “I want to see the Tate and the Pompidou.”

  Recalling that she’s an art history major, I nod. I read about those museums in a travel book I bought. “Modern art. Good stuff.”

  She looks surprised. “You’ve actually heard of the Tate and the Pompidou?”

  “Why shouldn’t I have?” I say, just to needle her. Most of our peers couldn’t name a museum besides the Smithsonian, and since I’m a pre-med biology major there’s no reason for her to think I’m any different. Georgia smiles a little wryly.

  “I mentioned them to Hunter once and he thought I was talking about a new band,” she says, and we laugh.

  “My little sister loves to paint,” I tell her. “I’ve taken her to probably every museum in the south by now.”

  “I want to see every art museum in the world,” Georgia says, her blue eyes lighting up. She’s so closed off usually—lately, anyway—that I tend to forget how gorgeous she is when she gets excited about something. But I’m noticing now.

  “That’s going to be expensive,” I observe, and am surprised when Georgia sinks back against the chair, face falling as if I’ve told her all the art museums had closed forever.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” she murmurs.

  Suddenly Dan claps a hand on my shoulder. He must have overheard our conversation because he says, “Expensive? Like Georgia has to worry about money. The Cantwells are totally loaded.”

  Georgia smiles, but it’s her tacked-on smile, the frozen one that bugs me. All her light has faded. I glance at her friends, but they don’t seem to notice how still Georgia’s shoulders have gone.

  Dan starts telling everyone about our plans for tonight. Apparently we’re all hanging out in Hunter’s suite because he smuggled a few bottles of rum and tequila into his suitcase, which means we won’t have to spend eight dollars per drink. After that, we’ll hit up the piano bar, and maybe the club after that.

  “Have you guys seen Hunter’s place?” Dan goes on. “It’s huge, at least compared to the other rooms. He has a fucking veranda.” Georgia’s expression gets even more frozen as Dan rattles on about Hunter’s palatial estate, not seeming to remember that Georgia would have been sharing that fabulous stateroom if she and Hunter hadn’t broken up a few weeks ago. Dan’s a little oblivious sometimes.

  “Let’s get some burgers,” Yasmin interrupts, because she finally has seemed to notice Georgia’s misery.

  “Yeah,” I say. “We have to grab them from the buffet, but we can eat them out here. Let me know what you want, and I’ll bring them over.”

  “What a gentleman,” Parker teases, making me smile. I take orders, then turn to Georgia. She’s staring off the side of the ship at the ocean with her closed-off expression, the one that makes her look snobby. Now that I’m getting a close-up, though, she looks less cold than … fractured.

  “Hey,” I say, my voice coming out gentle. Georgia turns her head to focus on me, but her sea-colored gaze is still a million miles away. “What do you want on your burger?” I ask.

  Georgia stares at me a moment, then shakes her head.

  “Thanks, but I
’m not hungry,” she says, and stands. “I’ll be right back, y’all.” She picks up her bag and heads towards the doors that lead inside the boat to the elevators, the opposite direction of the buffet.

  God, she’s frustrating. Why did she get so upset when Dan mentioned how rich her family is? And if she and Hunter had such a friendly break-up, as they both claim, why does she look so wrecked?

  The best question, of course, is why I even care. I shake my head and go get the burgers. When I return, tray loaded, I’m not surprised that Georgia is still missing. All she left behind was one of the white pool towels that belong to the cruise ship. By now she’s probably in the cabin reading whatever it was she wouldn’t show me earlier.

  What the hell is her deal?

  Chapter 4

  Georgia

  Hunter’s suite makes me queasy.

  For one thing, it’s gorgeous. It’s also six times the size of my own cabin, with a living room area, a bathroom you can actually move around in, and a killer veranda overlooking the glassy Atlantic.

  The Kappas and Alphas have crowded into the suite, most of them piling onto the balcony to watch the blazing sunset that has left the sky a painter’s palette of red, gold, and purple. It reminds me of a painting by Georgia O’Keefe. I have three of her prints hanging above my bed at the sorority house, reminders of the career aspirations I used to have.

  Dan Friedman, one of the Alpha brothers, hooks up his iPhone to a speaker set, and a bass-heavy song blasts through the room. Everyone starts dancing, passing around a tequila bottle that Hunter stowed away in his luggage. I didn’t want to come up to the suite, but Yasmin and Parker wouldn’t let me stay in my room-dungeon. And I guess I should keep up appearances that Hunter and I had an amicable split.

  Sill, I wish I were in my room reading. Just before I boarded the plane this morning I downloaded the latest sequel in my favorite zombie series, The Dead Awake, and today at the pool I only got through chapter 1.

  I haven’t told anyone except Yasmin that I read zombie novels. My mother would be horrified, no doubt; I can hear her lecturing me about how Cantwell women don’t read trash. And the one time I mentioned a zombie book around Hunter’s family they all stared at me like I was crazed, a zombie myself. I pretended it was a reading assignment for a literature class and never brought it up again.

  But I figure everyone has her own inner weirdness, right? These books are one of the only things that take my mind off of my mess of a life, so even though I can’t really afford the three dollars for the book, I paid it. Those stories are my little pills of escape, in novel form.

  “God, this stateroom is the best!” says Chloe, one of my Kappa sisters. She hands me the tequila bottle and, though I know I shouldn’t, I take a long swig before handing it back.

  “Totally.” I sound stiff, but thankfully Chloe’s distracted when her boyfriend Pete catches her around the waist. They head out onto the balcony, and my gaze follows them before pausing on Hunter, who’s hip to hip with Kelsey by the railing. She’s wearing an adorable red dress with a sweetheart neckline. It’s designer, the kind of dress people expect me to wear because everyone thinks my family is so rich. We’re not.

  The Cantwells used to be wealthy, but these days my branch of the family only pretends to be. My parents are in debt pretty bad, holding on to their monied veneer by the grace of credit cards and a third mortgage. My computer tablet was a birthday gift from Hunter last spring, and I haven’t bought a new outfit in months.

  I watch Hunter laugh with Kelsey, waiting for my heart to ache, waiting for that dead feeling like I’m rotting from the inside to overtake me; but oddly the feeling doesn’t come. Hunter looks happy. He’s a good guy; he deserves to be happy. Even if it’s with someone else.

  Hold on, did I really just think that?

  It doesn’t matter. Hunter and I are over, and there’s no way to fix it. I have to focus on the here and now. Like how my family is going to be ruined the old-fashioned way—gossip, scandal, bankruptcy—because my expected engagement went up in smoke. And we’ll sink even lower if I can’t figure out how to handle the emails I keep getting.

  Wait—there’s the nausea. It surges up at the thought of my mom’s disappointment, the vicious, quiet anger she lets loose after the housekeeper leaves and it’s only her and my dad and me. I can already hear the despair in their voices when I tell them that the engagement is off, can already see the panic in their eyes when they find out that I can’t save them, can’t even save myself.

  I swallow hard and beeline for the bathroom.

  “Georgia!” Out on the balcony, Yasmin waves at me. “Get out here!”

  I paste on a smile. “Be there in a sec,” I call, and keep going.

  Unfortunately, I don’t feel much better once I’m inside the bathroom. I don’t throw up, but it’s close; I’m already feeling the tequila on my almost-empty stomach. I managed to eat a few grapes and a wheat roll at the dinner buffet, but I had to beg off Yasmin’s attempt to shove a pile of lasagna onto my plate by claiming I was seasick.

  Hunter’s bag of toiletries sits on the counter, and next to it where my pink polka-dotted satchel should be is another bag of guy stuff: shaving cream, hair gel. They belong to Hunter’s roommate Andy. I stare miserably at the sink, thinking about how I was supposed to be staying here, my future at Hunter’s side bright and set.

  My mother warned me not to tell Hunter our family secret until we had exchanged vows, but that didn’t feel right to me. Besides, my parents don’t know that I’m being blackmailed about it. I figured Hunter deserved to know the truth before he tied his life to mine, and I can’t blame him for breaking things off after I confessed. I was desperately hoping he would stand by me, but he did the only thing that made sense—his family can’t afford scandal any more than mine. Maybe less.

  I wish I had that tequila bottle with me right now, but it’s probably better that I don’t. With my stomach so close to empty, I can’t drink too much before getting drunk, and I can’t risk getting sloppy. I might say something off. Something true. Shutting my eyes, I brace my hands against the cold sink.

  Before the ship left the harbor this afternoon, I sent off a reply email to my blackmailer. We lose satellite coverage out at sea, and I can’t afford international roaming or the ship’s wi-fi fee. I knew if I didn’t reply, he’d get angry, so I’d typed out a quick:

  January 15. You’ll get your money.

  I wasn’t brave enough to ask him for more time, even though the fifteenth is going to be tight. I have no idea what I’ll do. Open another line of credit? Get another job? Sell a kidney?

  God, I need another drink.

  When I emerge from the bathroom the sun has finished falling into the sea, and the group is chowing down on tacos that Andy ordered from room service. The platter is already half-eaten, so I claim I’ve already had one. My stomach growls, but I don’t know if I can keep down a greasy taco. I’ve already thrown up once today, and I can only use the seasick excuse for so long. I do, however, take a few sips of tequila as the bottle is passed around.

  After half an hour of socializing with my well-practiced Cantwell smile, I escape to the balcony. The air is cool without the sun, and a salty breeze whispers against my bare arms and legs. I’m only wearing a pink tank top and a ruffled black skirt, but I’m warm because of the tequila.

  Beneath me, waves curl whitely in the lights of the ship. The horizon is far off, lost in the dark. I wish again that I were in my cabin, reading. The alcohol must be getting to me because I start thinking about zombies. If this were one of my books, I’d see arms emerging from the froth around the boat. Zombies would try to climb the ropes when we dropped anchor. One bite, and the whole ship would be at risk for infection, and …

  “Hey,” Jace says, startling me. He pokes his head out the glass door. “Yasmin thought you went up to the bar already. Didn’t you hear the exodus?”

  I glance inside the suite. There’s hardly anyone left aside from a c
ouple making out in the corner and a bunch of empty cups.

  “Where did everyone go?” I ask.

  “Piano bar on the Atlantic deck. See you there, I guess?”

  “Sure, I’ll be up in a bit,” I say, and Jace turns to go. I bet even the cheapest rail drink or glass of wine at the bar will cost eight to ten dollars. Cruise ships, I am rapidly finding, are not actually the all-inclusive vacations I thought they were, and we’re way past happy hour. As much as I want to drink until my worries slip away, I can’t afford to spend twenty dollars tonight, plus who knows how much more on the rest of the trip. Then I get an idea.

  “Hey, Jace?”

  He glances back.

  “What happened to that tequila everyone was drinking earlier?” I ask.

  “Hunter hid it in his bag so housekeeping won’t find the bottles. We’re not supposed to have outside alcohol, remember?”

  “Oh,” I say. Rooting through Hunter’s luggage is not something an ex should do. But Jace could do it for me. I’m done caring if he thinks I’m a lush. Let him assume whatever he wants—he has obviously done that already. “Can you get it for me?”

  Instead of making a joke and locating the bottle, Jace studies me for a long moment. Right before I’m about to repeat myself, he runs a hand through his dark hair.

  “You’re family isn’t loaded, is it?” he says quietly.

  “Wh-What?”

  “At the pool today. Dan said your parents were loaded, but I’d bet our towel pig that you’re strapped for cash.”

  “Excuse me?” My tone is harsh, defensive, but Jace only shrugs.

  “Why else would you be stuck in steerage with me? Now that you and Mr. Moneybags are ‘just friends,’ I mean.”

  The fact that he formed quotation marks with his fingers when he said ‘just friends’ makes my hackles rise. “We are friends. And how are my decisions any of your business?”

  Jace holds up his hands. “Whoa,” he says. “All I was going to say was that I know how it feels to be broke.”