by Ellie Pond
2
Daniel dropped his shot glass on the table. “I’m done.”
Chad seized Daniel’s sideways spinning glass with his left hand and with his right took the bottle from the table to fill it along with the other glasses on the table.
Daniel turned it upside down before Chad could fill it. “Done.” He pushed away from the table while Chad, Zach, and Billy downed the next shot. Daniel stared at Naomi’s empty seat and frowned. The lights from the dance changed as the next song pulsed forward and he caught sight of her canvas bag. Naomi’s bag was covered in patches from her travels. At lunch once she told him the story of a few of them. She always wore it when not working. The bag held her private sketchbook. The music pulsed; he pushed his way through the few crew members still left in the middle of the bar and plucked the bag up. He glanced back at the table of guys and waved to them as he dodged his way out of the bar. Daniel held the bag to his chest. He wanted nothing more than to open it and see what her precious notebook contained. Should he open it to make sure it was Naomi’s? Not that he didn’t see her with it every day. There could be a second one. Right? He paused in the middle of the hallway. And wanted to open it. He pulled on the snap and then snapped it shut immediately. Daniel pulled it apart and closed it again and hugged it to his chest and sniffed it. If he opened it, it would be a betrayal. That wouldn’t get him anywhere with Naomi. Without another moment’s pause, he jogged the hallways to her cabin. The decorations on her door he had memorized: a picture of Alaska with a star over her home town and pictures of a lynx and a cartoon lion leaning against each other. He wondered more than once if she had drawn it, but she said she found them. There were pictures of Collette and her family. And moaning. Lots of moaning poured from the room. Daniel froze. He knew that Naomi and Edvard had an arrangement. Not that he could stop it. He and Naomi were only friends, if barely that. The moaning continued. Collette yelled out. And Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing that that Naomi and Edvard had a thing and listening to it were two different things.
He hung the bag on her door handle and took a few steps down the hall before he turned around and grabbed it from the handle. Daily he saw crew members trying to grab her sketchbook. Anyone could grab it and look through it or keep it. Daniel snatched the bag back and headed to his room. Light spilled from room, into the hallway, and Billy sat in the open doorway of his and Zac’s cabin.
“Hey.” Billy adjusted his hat as he squinted up at him as Daniel stepped over his legs. Zach sat on his bed with Chad next to him. Rama sat on his desk chair and Hope hugged her knees on the floor with her back up to their little fridge. Chad flipped playing cards from a deck into an empty shoe box. Daniel shook his head. This game he made up had no rules. The only rule was to confuse the new person who was learning to play into drinking more. Chad flipped a card, and it fluttered to the side of the box.
“Four of hearts out of the box,” he said with authority. “You drink, Hope, and the person to your left flips.”
“Wait? I drink?” Hope turned to Rama.
“That’s the rules.” Rama took the cards from Chad and flipped one after the other into the box.
Daniel pushed his shoes off and tossed Naomi’s bag up onto his top bunk. He used Chad’s head as leverage to push himself up too.
“Dude, don’t mess the hair.” Chad smoothed his hair back.
Daniel scrutinized his now sticky hand. “Dude, what the hell is in your hair?” He reached down and wiped his hand on Chad’s back.
“My hair is perfection.”
“You have more product in your hair right now than I have in my whole bathroom.” Rama flipped another card into the box. “Three of clubs. You drink, Chad.”
Chad nodded and took a drink.
“He drinks?” Hope pointed to Chad.
“Yeah. Three of clubs, the person to your right drinks,” Zach confirmed.
That was the thing with this game. The only rule was that you agreed with the rules that the flipper called. No matter what; that and you had to invite someone new to play each time. Preferably female, and human if possible—their gullibility made the game more fun.
Hope glimpsed up at him. “Do you know the rules to this game, Dan?” She sneered her red lips at him.
He gritted his teeth. What was up with her? Her normal sunshine and rainbow personality had gone MIA lately. Not to the passengers at the front counter, but mostly to him. They worked together on most shifts. She knew he hated that nickname. Only his dad called him that. With a quick move he pulled his shirt over his head and shucked his pants off and lay naked on his bunk; he forgot that Hope was human for a moment. Her eyes dilated as she stared at him. All the shifters turned towards Hope as her scent changed.
“Cover your damn self up, shithead.” Rama threw a card at his cock that was going half-mast at the smells coming from Hope. He didn’t have any interest in her, but that didn’t mean his body didn’t think for itself when it smelled something delicious. Usually he didn’t sleep with a sheet, but he unscrunched one from foot of his bed and pulled it up.
Rama glared at the four guys and pointed at each of them. “Cool it. She flipped a card into the box.” Jack of diamonds landed in the center. “Jack, all asshat shifter boys, drink.” Billy, Chad, and Zach took a drink. “You need a cup, Dan.” Rama stared at Hope when she said it.
“I am good.”
“More for us then.” Rama shrugged her shoulders and poured more from the tumbler into her cup.
“I just don’t get this game,” said Hope. “Who taught you, Rama?”
Rama touched Hope’s head. “Daniel taught me how to play.” Rama pointed at the bag. “What’s in the bag?”
Daniel pulled his pillow over Naomi’s bag.
“Not quick enough, Wolf. Is that Naomi’s bag?” Chad asked.
“I think so. Found the bag in the bar, I went to return it but she wasn’t in her room. I’ll give it to her tomorrow.”
“You better, she’ll skin you.” Billy laughed.
Skin me? Daniel pictured her being happy, having her bag back.
“No way she doesn’t think you looked at it anyhow.” Chad added.
“Well, I haven’t, and I’m not going to.” He wanted to see the sketches, but someday she would show them to him on her own. Like she did with some of the patches on her bag. Zach was right, he was in too deep.
Chad stood and snatched the bag from under his pillow. With only a beat, he reached in and pulled out the sketchbook and had it open.
“Give it back,” Daniel yelled.
But Chad had it open and moved towards the hallway. Billy put his leg up so that Chad tripped as he stepped out of the room. Daniel leapt out of the bed, at the same time as Hope stood up. He crashed into Hope, his tucked in sheet sending him off balance. He pushed her with his naked body into the closet.
“Get off me!” Hope screeched as Rama pulled him backwards off of her. Zach chased Chad in the hallway but ended up pushing Daniel into Rama on the other wall.
All the while Billy had Chad’s leg pinned to the ground and all over the hallway Naomi’s sketches fluttered about. Fifty some of them, some in charcoal, and others in colored pencils. They rolled around the hallway floor, at the same time as the door across the hall opened.
“Get off me!” Daniel screamed back. Rama and Hope gathered the drawings.
“Stop—all of you. Get out. Now. Put that down.” He pointed to Chad, who was looking at the drawings. “Go. Get out of here.”
Billy pulled Chad done the hall. “He’ll kill you. Just move.”
Rama picked a few of the drawings up and handed them to Daniel. “I’m sorry.” She looked between the drawings and Daniel.
Hope was doing her best to not ogle him as he dropped to his knees to pick up the drawings.
The door across the hall opened wider. “I need a new room.” Josie watched, with her hands on her hips. She grunted and closed the door to her room. “You need to be quiet. Some of us have early re
port times.” The guys ignored her.
“Let me help you.” Zach picked up a few drawings and handed them to Daniel.
“She’s talented.” Zach handed him another group of pages. The top one was a sketch of himself and Zach at the pool table in the community room. Zach had his arm over Daniel’s shoulder, his head thrown back in laughter. Daniel remembered the exact moment it happened too. Zach had bet him he could make an impossible shot, and he took the bet. Like a fool. His roommate outplayed everyone on the ship. He gathered another handful. Some of them were realistic like the one of him and Zach, but a bunch were cartoons of different shifters. And a few of them were funny. Dragons in captain’s hats with things that Captain Matthias said all the time. The two roommates had all the sketches picked up within minutes. Daniel’s stomach churned with disappointment. There was no way that Naomi wouldn’t find out they had all seen her notebook now. He put the sketches on his desk. Chad. Daniel’s blood curdled. He opened their now closed door, but not before a hand wrapped around his wrist. He glared at Zach’s hand.
“He’s not worth it. And you’re not wearing pants.”
“Why do you keep inviting him into our room?”
“It’s easier than keeping him out. He’s usually not such a dick.”
“Yes, he is.” Daniel pulled his arm out of Zach’s grasp.
“Getting in a fight with him won’t help anything.”
Daniel let out a breath. Zach was right. He didn’t want to get kicked out of the crew. He wasn’t ready to go back to school. He didn’t think his wolf would let him leave Naomi. Not that the wolf listened to him. It didn’t matter now. There was no way she would get over half of the crew seeing her notebook.
He straightened the sketches under the cover the best he could. There was no way to tell the order they had been in, so he didn’t even try.
“You’re not going to look at them anymore?” Zach motioned to the notebook.
“Feels wrong.”
“We’ve already seen them.”
“I know, it still feels wrong.”
“She’s talented. Why doesn’t she want anyone to see them?” Zach stripped and crawled into his bed. He pushed two empty red cups to the floor.
“I get it. It’s hard to have anything that is just your own on this ship. We share everything.”
“I suppose. Makes no sense to me, with talent like that.” Zach turned off his bunk light.
Daniel swallowed hard, the bag clutched next to his chest. He knocked on her door. She was in there. He could hear her talking to Collette.
Naomi swung the door wide open.
“Naomi.” He smiled at her and his cock hardened.
Steam billowed out from their open bathroom door. Collette glided to the middle of their room, her strawberry hair gathered in a pink towel. Her pale skin glistened as she rubbed lotion onto her legs.
Naomi wore her uniform for the Hoard restaurant. A gold jumpsuit, it clung to her in all the right places and did more for him than Collette’s naked body shimmering behind Naomi.
“Daniel, what do you want… Oh my God. You have my bag. She looked over at her desk. How the hell do you have my bag?” She grabbed it from his arms.
“You left it last night at the bar. I tried to bring it back last night. But you weren’t here when I tried to drop it off and Collette…”
“I was a little busy,” Collette laughed in the back of the room.
Naomi pursed her lips and glanced over her shoulder at Collette. “Collette, move out of the way. You’re going to make it hard for little Daniel here to walk.”
Shit, that wasn’t why he was hard.
Collette put her chin on Naomi’s shoulder. “Doesn’t look that little to me. Besides, he was like that before he saw me.”
Naomi smacked Collette away.
“Thank you for bringing it back to me.” She went to close the door on him. He put his foot in the doorjamb. She glared at it.
“Naomi, there’s more.”
“You brought me my bag and you want a reward. Okay then.” She pulled him in by his dress shirt collar. And kissed him. The shock held him for a moment, before he reacted and kissed her back. He wrapped his arms around and brought their bodies together. He ran his tongue over the seam of their lips until she parted for him. She moaned and he brought his hands to her hair.
She gave him a giant shove. His eyes flew open as she shut the door.
Damn it. He knocked on the door.
“Go away, Daniel.” Did her voice sound a little lower than normal? Not so unaffected as she thought she would be.
“Naomi, There’s more.”
The door sprung open. “You looked inside.”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Shit… Daniel.” She opened the door a crack.
Her hair was a mess from his hands and it made him throb. Right, words. She was expecting words. “So, after I left here with the bag, I brought it back to my room. Only my room wasn’t empty. And someone snatched it from my bed, only they tripped, or rather were tripped. And the sketchbook landed in the hallway and the drawings rained down.” He cringed. Her dilated eyes didn’t blink.
“I am going to need you to start from the beginning of that story and tell me exactly what happened and who saw what.” She held his stare.
3
She closed the door with a silent click. Collette gawked at her.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m just surprised. That’s all. I thought you…”
Naomi held up her hand to stop Collette from prattling on. Yes, she had told her she would never touch Daniel. Not if her life depended on it. She had no idea what possessed her to pull on his collar and reach for his lips. Or why she had moaned. Her eyes glazed over.
“You moaned.”
“I was there…here. I know what I did.” But why she had, she didn’t have a clue. Something in her wanted to shock him. The adrenaline of having her sketchbook missing and then back in an instant made her shake. Then knowing that a lot of others had seen her drawings made it even worse.
“So, you’ve changed your mind?”
Naomi rolled her eyes. Yes, she kissed him. He tried to keep her sketchbook safe, and that did mean a lot to her.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“That’s a hard no.” She didn’t want anything to do with Daniel that way. Yes, he was a nice guy, but not her type. Interesting though. The goosebumps that lingered on her arms might not agree.
She sat down on Collette’s bed. And opened her sketchbook. As Daniel told her, they were all out of order. Some of them were a little crumpled. That didn’t matter. They were moments, not granite statues in her life. She pulled out a few and arranged them on the desk. Portraits with portraits, cartoons with cartoons. Collette watched her. She turned and glared back.
“What? I’m curious too.”
“Well, being curious never ends well for a cat.” Naomi glanced at her watch. “Shit, while you were in the shower they announced an all hands for 6:00 a.m. All staff.”
“All staff? On a passenger day? Really? Okay. I guess I’m not doing my hair today.”
They both laughed. Collette never did her hair. She piled it on the top of her head in a wet bun and applied a small amount of makeup as Naomi cleaned up her sketches and shoved the bag into the back of her closet.
She touched her lips; they throbbed. That didn’t happen after spending the night with Edvard.
The roommates entered the smaller of the ship’s two auditoriums—this one on decks 5 and 6.
“Hey, Naomi, Collette.” Billy waved from the seat in the middle of the auditorium. He motioned to the two empty seats next to him. “I saved you seats.”
Collette held on to her arm as they scurried down the auditorium stairs. Were eyes on her? That happened when she walked with Collette. Daniel peered up at her from an aisle seat. He nodded. Zach smiled at Collette before looking away.
The girls edged their way past a group of engineers in
the row with Billy.
“Hey, girl.” Billy smiled. His face lit up the entire room with his glowing smile. “You remember Lucy, right?”
“Yes, right, Lucy.” Naomi waved at her over Billy’s lap. The tiny human with long blond hair gave a little nod. They had met a few times in the bar. She didn’t say much and left almost as soon as she got there each time, saying that she had to get up early to hit the gym so that she wouldn’t be too sore for the evening show
“How are the shows going, Billy?”
“It’s going. Little Mermaid is still the bomb. Right, Luc?”
Billy touched Lucy’s arm. “But good night, we don’t have it together on the new show. Holy holy. It’s a hot mess—H-O-T M-E-S-S.” He lowered his voice. “If they would move our girl Lucy up, it would be an H-E- double L of a lot better.”
“It’s getting there,” Lucy muttered.
“You didn’t come to the dress rehearsal last night. It’s a good thing the passengers don’t have to pay extra for it. Did either of you come to the crew performance of Little Mermaid on the last cruise?”
“I meant to, but…”
“You were busy with you little bridge man. I get it. But you need to come. I am perfection.” Billy didn’t like Edvard, much.
“Ego much, Billy?”
“He really is.” Lucy leaned forward over Billy.
“Ah. Thank you.” He kissed her cheek. “Oh, here comes the boss man.”
Captain Matthias rumbled out onto the stage and stood next to the cruise director, Rebecca Vane, and another officer Naomi didn’t know. He crossed his arms over his chest and smoke came out of his nostrils.
“Help us,” Billy muttered. And he was right. The captain stomped farther down stage. Smoke billowed around his head. Hopefully, this would not be like the last time when they all had to scrub the boat because a practical joke had gone wrong and scared a human passenger.
