“Could’ve happened to anyone.”
Bear shrugged adamantly the next day, referring to the Cruisegate debacle—again—while we were FaceTiming.
I held my phone high in the air, drifting around my room in my hot pink bikini, over which I’d thrown a pearl caftan that looked very much like something you’d find in Victoria’s Secret’s raunchier side of the store, not the beach.
I headed over to the bathroom where I slathered my face with makeup.
“No, it couldn’t. And anyway, it didn’t happen to anyone. It happened to me.” I pouted at the mirror in front of me.
“I just don’t understand why you’d make us look so bad.” My mother, of course.
She peeped behind Bear, joined by my father, who gave me a tired grin and said, “Hi, Nessy.”
“Hope you’re being nice to Dr. Costello, pumpkin.” Mom’s voice held a note of a warning. “He’s a stand-up guy. Doesn’t deserve to be stuck in the middle of this.”
That stand-up guy told people I was his cousin and we were passing sexually transmitted diseases to one another last night—before hitting on anyone in a skirt, I wanted to scream.
Instead, I told myself that I was currently riding this jerk’s overpriced internet package talking to my family, so it wasn’t like karma didn’t get him at all.
“Yes, he knows how terribly sorry I am.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. “Where’s Trinity?”
My mother looked over to the other side of the room and winced.
Oh, goodie.
So Trinity was there and didn’t want to talk to me. Again.
I didn’t know what had happened between us, exactly.
I’d always been so close to my younger sister—even after I fell pregnant and became an embarrassment to my family—but in recent months, she’d grown detached, cold, almost judgmental.
It made no sense.
Trinity had always been the one to jump at someone’s throat when they said something mean about me.
She defended me with everything she had and maintained that people gave me a heck of a bad time, conveniently ignoring Rob’s wrongdoings. Some even said they understood him for not choosing to screw up his life and stay.
Trinity and I hadn’t fought, or anything like that to warrant the sudden way we’d drifted apart. Though, I had an inkling why she was reserved.
Dr. Costello Senior and his wife Catherine were arguably the most honorable citizens of Fairhope. While Trinity didn’t give a clap about what her classmates had said about me, Catherine and Andrew’s opinion was an entirely different matter.
She didn’t want me to mess it up with the Costellos for her sake—for her future as part of their family.
Which meant I had to make an effort with Dr. Satan. If not for myself, then for her.
“Gotcha.” I popped my lips around a scarlet lipstick. “She doesn’t want to talk. That’s fine.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to talk.” Trinity’s face invaded the phone camera, two stains of blush marring her cheeks. She looked otherwise pale and worried. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, was also dressed like a nun in an attempt to impress her future in-laws. “It’s just that…Christ, Nessy, Catherine is already such a pain in the…”
“Mass,” Bear completed for her.
He knew I didn’t like profanity.
“That,” Trinity agreed. “And now she is going around muttering mean things under her breath about us. Oh, Nessy, she is so awful.”
Something in my chest eased that she was talking to me again. Maybe it was just wedding stress?
“Look, I’m sorry. It was an honest mistake. What does Wyatt say about all this?”
I applied a third coat of mascara, waiting to hear a knock on the door and find a wrinkled-looking Cruz. So far, the morning had been blissfully Costello-free, but I wasn’t counting on that to last.
“He’s not saying anything.” Trinity sighed. “His parents are his idols. He’ll never go against them.”
“Sounds like a catch.”
“Don’t give me lip, Nessy. You’ve no right after the life choices you’ve made.”
Ouch.
“Well, hang in there, okay? I’ll make it better when I see them. I’ll apologize a thousand times. I swear.”
After hanging up and looking overly made up—I didn’t need a weekly therapist appointment to know it was a camouflage technique designed to protect myself from society—I strutted out of my room, swinging a little faux-fur purse.
I looked about as classy as a ketchup stain on a strapless cropped top and was perfectly okay with that.
After all, I couldn’t be accused of trying to bag a British royal on a cruise from North Carolina to the Bahamas.
I couldn’t find Cruz anywhere during breakfast, which contributed greatly to my sense of urgency to fix whatever I messed up between my family and the Costellos.
Afterwards, on my way to the pool, I strutted by a glass-walled library overlooking the ocean and spotted him sitting by himself, looking fresh as a daisy, wearing an entire outfit I’d seen on a mannequin the day before from the boardwalk in Prada’s window.
Black Bermuda shorts, a chunky navy top, and his big, bold watch.
He’d so spent the night in Cruise Director Lady Woman’s room. If anyone was giving anyone STDs, it was this gasstard. I made a note not to get anywhere near Gabriella Holland’s southern region when we did our bridesmaids’ fittings.
He was sipping an espresso and catching up on the news on an iPad attached to the table by a security wire.
Taking a few calming breaths, I pushed the glass door to the library open and sashayed toward him, stopping right in front of him.
Low elevator music filled the room, which was full with men of fifty-five and over. I wondered at what point in time, exactly, Cruz Costello had morphed from a dashing Q1 with steel buns to a Floridian pensioner.
“Did you know constantly reading the news is almost as detrimental to your heart as smoking?” I blurted. Because saying stupid stuff had always been easier than apologizing.
He didn’t look up from the iPad, swiping his finger across it to turn a page.
“I didn’t know that, because it’s not true. Cite your source.”
“Southern Belle magazine.”
“Allow me to be skeptical. Is this your version of an apology?” His words rippled through me.
Dang, he had a good, low voice.
“If I’m going to apologize, so should you.”
He looked up, lounging back on the plush, brown recliner he was occupying, a puff of his undiluted woody scent invading my nostrils, making everything under my naval tingle.
“What for?”
“Telling Brendan we were cousins, and married, and carrying STDs. In that exact order.”
“Fair enough,” he surprised me by saying. “You go first.”
I closed my eyes.
I wasn’t four anymore.
Then why was it so hard to apologize?
Your sister’s happiness is on the line. Now’s not the time to have pride.
“Sorry I booked us the wrong tickets. I truly, truly didn’t mean to.”
“In that case, I apologize for embarrassing you in front of your little friend, but reserve the right to do it again when provoked, on the grounds it was more fun than I’ve had in years.” He motioned toward the chair next to him. “Coffee?”
“Please.” I sat down, feeling a little awkward.
The truth was, I wasn’t used to being served. I’d always been the one doing the serving. Nonetheless, a waitress from the attached coffee shop came to take my order—a flat white and a French-sounding pastry I couldn’t pronounce, but could point out on the menu.
It occurred to me that I had to pay for my food, and I hated myself for not sticking with free breakfast, served earlier, or the free twenty-four-hour buffet on the lido deck I had too much pride to bail to.
But I had the tip money from yesterday in my purse, so I wouldn’t have to tally it up on my monthly Excel sheet. I could still get Bear his video game at the end of the month. Maybe.
“So. Did you get lucky yesterday?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
“If by lucky you mean I didn’t have to spend the night with you, then yes.”
“Did you spend it with someone else?” I asked casually.
“Yes.”
Okay, that was not supposed to hurt. Certainly not the way it did. I was tangled in tight vines of jealousy that suffocated me.
“Nice. Is she from our neck of the woods?”
“Unsure.” Cruz flipped another page on the iPad. “She was a fifty-year-old Prada saleswoman who secretly rented me her top bunk on the staff deck and opted to sleep with your Brendan, making a hundred-percent profit margin.”
Holy clap.
Dr. Costello was resourceful.
He must’ve mistaken my surprised face for another emotion, because he said slowly and thickly, “Sorry it didn’t work between you and lover boy. Unless, of course, you don’t mind being Bonnie and Brendan’s fifth wheel.”
“He can have Bonnie.”
“From what she told me, when she came to get her electronic card back this morning, you also told him I have two penises.”
I could feel myself getting redder and redder, but I didn’t reply to this.
Cruz threw me a little patronizing smirk. “Actually, I have just the one, but I can see why you’d make that mistake, considering its length and width. I’m flattered you paid such close attention.”
“Why’d you say you weren’t alone, then? She wasn’t with you.”
“Just to see your face. You hate seeing me win.”
“True.” I sighed. “Which sucks, because you’re Dr. Cruz Costello, so you always win.”
“Not always.”
There was a lull in the conversation, and I felt the urge to fill it, somehow.
“I have to say, it’s pretty creative of you to find a way to take my potential sugar daddy away from me before I even made a move.”
The waitress served me my flat white and pastry and hurried to the next table, where people weren’t discussing penises and sugar daddies. Or were they? I took a bite of the buttery dough, washing it down with the hot liquid.
This was definitely better than an orgasm. Or so I told myself, since an orgasm wasn’t in the cards for me. I was bad at giving one to myself and always forgot to plug my vibrator into its charger, since I could only do it when Bear wasn’t home.
Anyone who had a teenage son knew better than to leave things in plain sight. Bear always looked for something in my room, be it a charger, a battery, an elastic band, or some change.
“You don’t need a sugar daddy.”
Was it just me or did Cruz Costello sound super annoyed all of a sudden?
“Why not?” I purred.
“You can get an actual damn husband if you put your mind to it.”
“Ha.” I took another sip of my coffee. “Not in Fairhope.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” He gave me his superior look. The one that reminded me he was so much better than me.
“What’d you hear?” I cocked my head, curious all of a sudden. “Is it Tim Trapp? Because you know I cannot, in good conscience, marry that man and have my son become Bear Trapp.”
Cruz stared at me with a mixture of irritation and revulsion, shaking his head.
“I haven’t heard anything specific. All I’m saying is that if you put a bit of effort—and a lot more clothes on—you’ll find people aren’t as allergic to you as you think.”
“I thought guys liked big hair and boobs and tiny clothes.”
“Not the kind you want to attract.”
“And who should I want to attract?” The conversation was taking a surprising turn once again. “People like you?”
“For instance.” He took a sip of his espresso, crossing his legs like George Clooney in a private plane commercial or something. “Why? Would ending up with someone like me be so terrible?”
No, it’s just that someone like you would never look at me in a billion years.
“Yes,” I said curtly, the sting of rejection already prickling my soul before he blew me off. “It actually would.”
Cruz snarled, baring his teeth in what was supposed to be a smile but left me feeling cold and a little queasy. He stood up, setting the iPad down, handing the waitress his cruise ship ID card, so I wouldn’t have to pay.
If he thought I was going to take the high moral ground and demand to go Dutch, he had another thing coming.
“For the sake of this trip ending without any murder charges being pressed against either of us, I suggest we stay away from each other and meet in the stateroom at the end of every day,” he suggested.
“Sounds good.”
“Where we will share a bed, seeing as I’m not going to sleep on the floor or let Bonnie run my bank account into the ground.”
“That’s fair,” I said evenly. “But there’ll be a pillow barrier between us.”
“All the better.”
“Good. Great. Glad it’s all settled.”
“Oh, and Tennessee?”
“Yes?”
“Next time you lock me out of my own room, paid for by my family, I’m smearing you with blood and tossing you off the ship as shark bait. Understood?”
I could tell by the darkness gleaming from his ocean-blue eyes that he wasn’t completely kidding.
Still… I had to push.
It had become a game.
One I couldn’t find the maturity to stop.
“Whose blood would that be?”
Two hours later, I found myself in what should be my natural habitat—poolside, on the upper deck, tanning my butt cheeks.
After talking to my parents and ensuring that Bear was having a blast (apparently, he hadn’t left the arcade since ten in the morning and had even found a fellow smelling-of-goat teenage friend named Landon), I snagged a sunbed, grabbed a soft paperback someone had left behind, ordered a fruity cocktail, and did something I hadn’t done since age sixteen—relaxed.
No double shifts at the diner, cleaning, washing, doing the laundry, or helping Bear with his homework—or Trinity with her wedding preparations. No bending over for teenage boys or braving the wrath of my ex-high school friends who sneered down at me, with their wedding rings and mortgages.
Even the book was really good for something I’d found with a discounted sticker and a suspicious white stain.
The day was turning out to be too good to be true, which was how I knew things were about to go sideways. Mark my words, if the Elation didn’t suffer a fate similar to the Titanic by the end of the day, then the entire cruise was going to suffer from food poisoning.
Shortly after I had a refreshing salad full of fruit and nuts for lunch, me and my food belly returned to our sunbed. I turned on my stomach and flipped a page in the book when a shadow cast over my body, descending down to my right as someone took a seat on the sunbed beside me, even though the whole row was empty.
There’s a special place in Hell reserved for people who choose to sit beside you when everywhere else is available. And I truly, sincerely hoped this place was overcrowded, and that everyone there had BO, because that’s what these kind of people deserved.
“Why, hello there, sweet cheeks.”
He was definitely not referring to the pair on my face.
I squinted up, using my hand as a visor against the sun. The guy in front of me looked like your typical frat boy, not a day over twenty, with a baseball cap turned backward, Hawaiian swim trunks, and a Bros Before Hos tattoo across his chest that I wagered his fraternity friends had inked themselves with, too.
“Name’s Dale.”
Of course it was. I bet when his mother had an ultrasound, all they saw inside her uterus was a cardboard sign that said douchebag.
“Nessy.”
“That’s a cute name. You from around here?”
Where would that be?
The middle of the Caribbean Sea?
“Look, I’m real flattered you saw my tush and didn’t think I was a twenty-nine-year-old overworked, underpaid single mother, but that’s what I am. So can we skip the chitchat, and may I suggest you try the waterpark across the deck? Lots of girls your age there.”
I was entirely too direct. But struggling single moms did not have the luxury of blipping around with flunk-boys.
“I don’t mind you’re twenty-nine.” He was rolling a swizzlestick from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Well, I do.” I let my head drop against the sunbed and turned it in the other direction, considering the conversation over.
It wasn’t that I was against dating men, but if I were to end a thirteen-year man-strike, it wasn’t going to be with Dale here, who found it fitting to ink himself with something so classless, even by my standards.
“Age’s just a number.”
“That’s a very romantic take.”
Pucking chit, would this guy ever leave?
“Oh, I’m not a romantic. I’m only looking for something casual, honey pie.”
“Thanks for clarifying. I was just debating what kind of diamond I want on my engagement ring.”
I was going to have to evacuate myself from the spot soon.
I couldn’t afford to brawl with someone on this boat. The Costellos were already watching me with hawk eyes, waiting for me to deliver the final blow to my reputation’s back and make them beg their son to cancel his engagement to my sister. And their informer, Cruz, was on this boat.
Nope. I was walking on thin ice as it was already.
Stumbling, more like.
“Damn, Nessy. Just give me a chance. I’ll make it good for you.”
Douchebag Dale placed his hand on my elbow, giving it a squeeze. I withdrew quickly, like he’d put fire to me. Maybe it was an exaggeration, but I hated men touching me.
Perhaps because the last man who had left me in the most vulnerable position I’d ever been in. Or maybe because it was far too common in Fairhope to pinch my waist or pat the small of my back—too close to my butt—to grab my attention when someone wanted to place an order with me.
“Don’t touch me!”
The words didn’t mean to sound like a whimper, but they came out like it, anyway.
“Sweetheart,” I heard a familiar, raspy brogue. One that couldn’t belong to just any ordinary mortal. Every inch of my flesh blossomed into pebbles, and the fine hair on my neck stood on end despite the sun pounding down on me. “There you are. Sorry I’m late. I decided to take the advanced jujutsu class after kickboxing.”
Before I knew what was happening, Douchebag Dale’s hand was off of my elbow, tossed away physically by another, much larger male hand.
Cruz landed on the edge of my sunbed, making it dip to one side. He was shirtless now, wearing a ball cap the correct and grown-up way.
I was glad I had my shades on, because now I could drink him in without him having the satisfaction of knowing I was looking.
His torso was mouthwateringly muscular, his skin golden and smooth. He had bulging arms, with veins that snaked all the way to his forearms. A thin strip of blond curls snaked from below his navel and disappeared somewhere under his shorts.
I wanted to follow that trail with my tongue.
I should really remember to charge my vibrator when I get back home.
Cruz polished a shiny red apple on his swim trunks, then took a juicy bite.
Slammed with this surprise lust toward Dr. Costello, and an unexplainable desire to switch places with his apple, I turned my head away and ignored both men.
“She your wife?” Douchebag Dale mumbled.
“The one and only,” Cruz replied. “The lucky Mrs. Weiner.”
“Weiner,” DD repeated, giving a Beavis-and-Butthead type snort.
“Problem?” Cruz asked.
“No. No. Great last name. German, right?”
There was a pause. Cruz picked up the sunscreen beside me, squirted a generous amount of white lotion onto his hand, and began massaging my back with it.
Holy wow, this feels good.
“Gotta keep you safe from the sun,” he said with the apple still trapped between his teeth. “You know I’m the only thing allowed to make your behind red.”
Oh. My. Grub.
His hands were strong and confident, his fingers long, and I told myself I was letting him do this because I didn’t need another fight on my hands with a Costello.
Not because it was stirring all kinds of things in the lower region of my body, or because the minute his skin touched mine, I realized that my back had really needed a massage for the last decade or so.
“You’re still here,” Cruz said casually, referring to Douchebag Dale. “Do you want your face punched, or are you waiting for me to forget you’re hitting on my wife and go grab myself a beer?”
“Uhm. Yeah. No. I’m…” Young Dale stood up, looking around him, as if he forgot something. Maybe his pride. “Sorry. My dad…I mean, bad! My bad.”
“Go on. And tell your friends she’s taken, too. I don’t want to see any of y’all getting anywhere near my missus.”
Cruz made a show of flexing his muscles, giving Dale a front-row ticket to the gun show.
I had to admit, I was impressed.
I knew Cruz was a runner and that he took it upon himself to coach the T-ball little league at our local elementary school (which, frankly, I found creepy considering he had no kids there), but I didn’t know he was that ripped.
He was considerably taller than Dale and had at least twenty more pounds of muscle on him.
“All right. Yeah. Fair.”
As soon as Dale was gone, Cruz withdrew his hands from me as fast as humanly possible, shifting to the sunbed next to mine. I mourned the loss of his touch, but celebrated the fact I might get to relax enough to nap under the sun for a couple more hours before dinner, now that the frat boy was gone.
“You’re welcome,” Cruz said, when I didn’t offer him a thank you.
I propped my cheek against the sunbed, staring at him through my shades.
“You really like being everyone’s hero, don’t you?” There was no cure for my pettiness where this man was concerned.
“What’s not to like?”
He braced the sunbed from both sides, his biceps poking out, his six-pack on full display. Beside them, his apple was eaten to the core. He’d demolished it.
I wonder if he eats his apple the way he eats pu…
“Heroes are such simple creatures,” I heard myself exclaim passionately. “I, for one, am always hot for the villain in the movies.”
“That could explain a few things about your life.”
“Hey.” I curved an eyebrow. “You calling your best friend a villain?”
Now that Rob was back in town, I was sure he and Cruz would rekindle their bromance.
“No, I’m calling you a woman with very few scruples.”
I laughed throatily, turning on my back and propping one leg over the other. I noticed that not even Saint Cruz was able to rip his eyes from my swollen breasts, which made the strings holding my bikini top work extra hard.
“Nice truce, we’ve got here.”
“What can I say? You bring out the worst out in me.” He shook his head.
“Then why did you save me from Mr. Douchebag?”
“Only one person is allowed to give you a hard time on this cruise, and that person is me.”
I mulled his words over.
On one hand, I liked the fact that despite our banter, Cruz Costello truly was completely harmless, in a sense that I knew he would never be cruel or downright mean to me. He just didn’t have it in him. He was genuinely a good guy, and he would never do anything to spite me. He would protect me from Dales.
On the other hand, that was precisely what made him so dangerous. He was lovable to a fault, and I…well, I couldn’t fall in love. I couldn’t afford the distraction.
As it was, I was flailing to survive.
And he had Gabby. Or not? Why tell me that?
When I realized we’d been silent for over a minute, I told Cruz, “Look, we need to try to be cordial with one another. It’s important to Trinity and Wyatt.”
“I’m cordial.”
“Can you pretend I don’t appall you?” I stressed.
“I can try.”
“Good. Your approval of me in Fairhope is like getting absolution from the pope. While you’re at it, my eyes are up here.” I motioned to my face, when it became apparent Dr. Costello couldn’t stop looking at my cleavage.
His cheekbones flushed pink, and he swung his gaze to the pool.
“You’re wearing shades,” he said.
“Then look elsewhere.”
“Already on it.”
“They’re not fake, you know.”
I sniffed. It was one of the many rumors about me around Fairhope. That I got myself a new pair of tits for my eighteenth birthday to try to bag a wealthy husband who’d accept my toddler son as a package deal.
In truth, my breasts just never fully bounced back (pun definitely intended) from being Bear’s open buffet for the two years I breastfed him (formula costs a fortune).
“I never bought into those rumors.”
“Then why were you looking?” I challenged.
“Because I’m a red-blooded man, and you’re…” He stopped himself from finishing the sentence.
“What?” I asked, almost frantically.
Up until a second ago, I found it impossible to believe he found me more attractive than a warm bucket of spit.
“Nothing.”
I ripped the shades from my face, swinging my legs across the sunbed and sitting up straight. My harlot smile was scarlet-red and on full display.
“What am I, Cruz?”
“Hot,” he said gruffly, his voice low and measured and full of the things he wanted to do to me. “Extremely hot.”
“You think?”
“Now you’re just fishing.”
“Humor me,” I pouted.
“Why?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, which was slightly pink in comparison to the rest of his bronze self.
Ha!
So Cruz Costello didn’t get an amazing tan all over. This insignificant imperfection made me feel way more happy than I should.
“Because we have eight more days after today to spend together in a stateroom the size of a postage stamp, and I want to know what to expect.”
“An abundance of alone time and zero hanky-panky.”
“You just said hanky-panky.” I may or may not have giggled.
“You say gasshole, lady. And I’m leaving.”
But he didn’t stand up, and I suspected I knew why. My eyes slid down to his crotch.
He shifted on the orange Moroccan deck chair, crossing his legs.
I pouted, pretending not to notice. “Not good enough for you, am I?”
“You’re full of bull, Tennessee Lilybeth Turner. You wouldn’t have me if I were the last man on Earth.”
He remembered my middle name.
A flutter passed under my belly button.
“And why do you think that is?”
“Because you hate men.” His ’stache twitched. “All of them. No exceptions. We scare you. You do realize Bear’s going to grow up to become one, too, right?”
Yes, and I’d rather not think about it.
There was a beat of silence. I didn’t deny his analysis. There was no point.
We both leaned back on our sunbeds, watching people doing laps in the pool, couples making out and splashing one another.
“What’re you thinking about?” he asked after a few minutes.
“Why’re you asking?”
“You always think about weird stuff. Like that pearl thing. The blister story.”
“That’s a hard fact, Dr. Costello.”
“Well.” He tipped his ball cap down, like a cowboy, a smile tugging on his lips under his perfect mustache. “Indulge me.”
I frowned. “I’m thinking there are so many germs and semi-exposed genitalia happening in this water every single day. There’s absolutely no way on Earth you’ll find me inside a cruise ship’s pool.”
He laughed.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“That you’re different from what I thought,” he said. “Very different.”
“Whatever,” I answered, because he didn’t seem like he said it in a bad way, but frankly, I had enough pride that I didn’t want to be caught fishing for compliments twice in ten minutes.
“So. Wanna have dinner together? A friendly dinner,” he asked.
“You’re buying.”
“It’s free.”
I sighed. “The drinks, too?”
“I’m afraid so.”
A woman walked by in a fancy dress.
“Then how about a nice Prada dress? I really do want to live the kept woman life, even if only for a day.”
“That’s a no.”
“Ugh.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re a clappy husband, Mr. Weiner.”
“And you have a weird aversion to profanity.”
He got up and offered me a hand, and I took it.
And that’s when the trouble began.
