At Sea
When shit went wrong in my life, I always headed here. Well, not here, on the Athena, but to the garage, to my bike. So naturally, knees tucked to my chest, I sat on the vinyl floor ten feet away from Elizabeth. Damn skippy, she was a girl. The RM125’s curves were hard, like mine, her motor powerful, and she was capable of so many amazing things with the right rider.
I just wasn’t sure I was the right rider anymore.
How the hell had I gotten into this big of a mess? How could the only man I’ve had a connection with in my entire life be the only guy I couldn’t get near?
My fucking professor.
Not fucking, remember?
God, how was I going to sit in class, watching him? Listening to that sexy-as-hell voice? Looking at those heaven-sent dimples and squeezable ass? Remembering…
Nope.
I shoved the thoughts, memories, and all the yearning in my stupid heart into a neat little emotional box. Then I shut it, locked it, poured some concrete shoes for it, and tossed the damn thing overboard.
There was enough crap in my head without adding him to it right now.
There wasn’t a time I could really remember that I wasn’t in love with racing, with tricks, with feeling the power and freedom that came with freestyle motocross. Until now.
But who was I without her? Without the person I was when I rode her? Sure, I’d proved there was a little Rebel left in me by jumping off the High Roller, but she’d hidden in the darkest nooks of my soul the moment I’d come into our onboard mechanic shop.
“I guess I win the bet,” Landon said, sitting next to me and mirroring my posture. His was for comfort, while mine felt like self-defense. Moments like this were why I’d always be the tiniest fraction closer to Landon. When I was at my worst, Pax would always lift me up, but Landon was willing to come down to my level and walk out of it with me.
“What bet was that?” I asked, leaning my chin on my knees. The chill had long since seeped into my shorts, but I couldn’t find the energy to move, refusing to get closer to Elizabeth, but not ready to admit defeat.
“I bet Pax that you’d be here.”
“Intuition?”
A small smile played at his mouth. “I’m dating your roommate.”
“Ah, you cheated,” I answered, unable to hold back a small grin.
“Guilty. We have a production meeting in ten minutes.”
He said it without expectation or condescension, which tightened my heart in a way neither of those two could have. “You want me to come.”
“I want you to want to come.”
My eyes fixed on one of the hot-pink strips of molding on Elizabeth. “I want to want a lot of things.” I wanted to ride my bike, to let go of everything that weighed me to the earth and fly with her, to gain that sweet solace I’d always found refuge in.
“I get that.”
“How is it that I can jump off a Ferris wheel, but I can’t swing a leg over my own bike? How can I be that broken?”
“You weren’t on a Ferris wheel when the light came crashing down. You were on Pax’s bike. You were doing what you love, and then Brooke twisted it into something evil that it had never been for any of us.”
My gaze shot to his. “Landon—”
“What? I can say her name, too. She is your sister, but she’s my friend. And I say ‘is,’ because there’s every chance that after she gets the help she needs, she’ll be our Brooke again. I was there. I should have caught on, but we all missed it. I was the one who got to you first, who saw the wreckage of your leg. You can shut us all out if you want, but don’t think for a second that you’re alone in this.”
“You’ve forgiven her?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to think that I’m a big enough person that I can. Right now, it’s still very real and very raw.”
“I don’t know if I can. I still can’t resolve my Brooke, my best friend, my sister, with the lunatic who sabotaged the stadium light and nearly killed me. Nearly killed Leah.”
He stood. “That’s a choice you’re going to have to make. The same as getting back on that bike. And it’s not something you have to choose right now. But you could start by coming to a production meeting, not because we need you but because you know that eventually you’ll want to.”
When he reached out his hand for mine, I took it.
I had to start somewhere.
…
“Wait up!” Leah called, and I slowed my pace to accommodate her much shorter stride. “Man, you walk fast. Then again, if I had those legs, I’d walk fast, too,” she joked, catching me mid-hallway. “Ready for another class with Dr. Delicious?”
It was our fourth day at sea. Other than a quick refueling stop in the north of Japan, we’d been shipbound. Thankfully I’d been successful in avoiding Cruz—Dr. Delgado, I reminded myself—all four of those days.
That didn’t mean I’d avoided the gossip.
He’d pretty much turned the head of every girl on this ship, not that I could blame any of them. He’d turned my head, too.
“Delgado,” I corrected her, shuffling my books as we turned the corner toward Cruz’s classroom.
“Right, Delgado, Delicious…get it?” she asked with a grin.
“Yeah, totally.” I forced a smile.
“So did you guys think of a place for the last live expo? Pax won’t stop stressing about it.”
“Not yet.” We’d spent at least two hours out of each day crouched over a map, trying to figure out where we could host the last live expo before the ship docked in L.A. The plan had been Miami, until the space we needed booked out. Even Pax’s money couldn’t get the other event to budge.
“You guys will figure it out.”
Figuring out where to host the expo was the least of my issues. Whether or not I would perform, that was the cause of a constant state of nausea. After all, it was my turn to wow everyone. Pax had pulled off the first triple-front flip in Dubai, Landon had nearly been killed by an avalanche in Nepal, and now the spotlight was on me.
“Penna!” Bobby’s voice carried down the hall, and I cringed. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a production issue.
“I’ll meet you in class?” Leah suggested with raised eyebrows. She’d stay if I wanted her to, knowing Pax would have Bobby delete any footage of her she wanted him to.
“I’ll be fine.” I declined her offer of protection and turned to see our very frantic, caffeine-jittery producer tugging on his baseball cap.
“Rebel. Thank God.”
I glanced over his shoulder and, seeing the camera, put on the smile I was obligated to wear. Because I loved Nick like a brother, and this documentary was for him. “What’s up?”
“You haven’t been at the nightclub since you’ve been back…”
“Right.” I tilted my head in obvious challenge. Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was haul my library books down to the club. It wasn’t like I was picking up guys—the whole party aspect of this documentary had always been carried by Landon and Pax.
“I just wanted to make sure you’d be at the whiteout party tomorrow night for the International Date Line crossing?” He matched my head tilt. Asshole.
“Yep, I’ll be there,” I said and turned to go to class.
“Preferably in something that shows a little midriff?”
Oh. Hell. No.
I spun back. “You had better be fucking kidding me, Bobby.”
He threw up his hands. “Totally was. Just wanted to see if you were still in there, Rebel.”
I gave him a one-fingered salute and walked away. “The things I do for you, Nick,” I mumbled to our missing Original as if he could hear me. Passing a few loitering students outside the door, I made my way into the classroom and took my seat between Pax and Landon.
“It’s like a fashion show in here today,” Leah whispered, leaning over from where she sat behind Pax.
I took a quick look around, my eyebrows rising. She was right. For a crew that had fallen into leggings and sweats after the first few months on board, the girls in our class were dressed in real clothes. Skinny jeans, trendy tops, hell, one girl was even in ankle boots. I, however, had still gone the comfy route with super soft black leggings, my pink and gray Fox motocross fitted hoodie, and Vans.
“It’s got to be for Dr. Delicious,” Rachel answered.
“Oh my God. You, too?” I groaned.
“Seriously?” Landon said, giving his girlfriend a WTF face.
She shrugged. “Don’t be jealous. My eyes are straight forward. I’m just saying that with the two of you on the monogamy train”—she waggled her finger between Pax and Landon—“there’s a new thoroughbred in the stable.”
“A horse?” Pax snorted. “Nice.”
“A freaking thoroughbred,” Leah muttered.
He turned in his seat, and I barely had time to look away before he was kissing Leah like he needed to remind her that she was spoken for. Blocking my peripheral vision, I rolled my eyes.
For the love of God, the girls all had makeup on, too, hair done like they were ready to hit up the club. Maybe if I’d been trying to attract Cruz, I would have bothered to do more with my hair than pile it on my head, or tossed on more makeup than a coat of mascara. Was that girl in the second row seriously applying more lip gloss? She’d be able to signal other ships with the sun if she kept that up.
“He’s a teacher,” I seethed quietly, shaking my head as I took out my books and set them on my desk. Maybe if I kept my head down the entire class, I’d make it through without embarrassing myself. After all, he set the rules—with good reason—and the least I could do was abide by them. He was a teacher; I was a student. That was it. I could sit through his class with no issue as long as I remembered that.
“Good afternoon, class,” Cruz said as he walked in.
Like a magnet, my head popped up, and my eyes found him.
Unh. He was in jeans today with a pale blue, rolled-sleeve button-down shirt, his tie a deeper shade of blue. He’d grown a full, dark scruff that clung to his jaw in the short four days since I’d started carefully avoiding him, and his hair was in a styled disarray. The breath left my lungs in a whoosh as our eyes locked for an electric second, and I forced mine back down toward my paper. I wanted to tug at that tie like Rachel had suggested, to pull him in to my kiss, to feel his hands on my body, to hear his words soothing the ragged edges of my soul.
It hadn’t just been a physical connection between us. I could have walked away from that. It was the way he saw through the Rebel shell to me, the way I felt inexplicably safe and yet challenged in those few hours with him. Somehow Cruz cut through the bullshit and expected me to do the same.
He moved to the farthest seat at the front of the room, a bowl and a piece of paper in his hands. “First things first. Take a number from the bowl, and then write your name next to the corresponding number. Make sure to keep your number so someone else doesn’t accidentally draw it. You’ll be turning in a lot of papers in this class in preparation for your seminar thesis, which is due the day before we dock in Miami. That’s only two days after our last shore excursion in Cuba.”
The way his accent changed the word Cuba had me gripping my pencil tighter. How the hell did they let someone so naturally sexy teach? Just his voice was enough to have me crossing and uncrossing my legs. Subtle, Penna. Wasn’t there a rule against hot teachers somewhere?
“So that I can grade you each without judgment as the term continues, you’ll write only your number on the first page of each paper, then flip that page over when you turn it in. This will be our routine for each assignment.”
His gaze flickered toward mine and then ripped away as he cleared his throat. He’d found a way to grade me fairly, to assure that he wouldn’t favor me—or punish me—for our history. If you could call our few hours history. It sure as hell felt more like the present for me.
He didn’t waste time, immediately launching into the reading we’d been assigned on the Aztec and Mayan cultures.
I kept my eyes glued to the text and my notes for the rest of class, knowing that was far safer than watching Cruz.
Okay, so maybe this was going to be tougher than I originally thought.
Six hours later, he was still in my head as I put my water bottle on the console of the treadmill in the deserted gym. The machines faced the ocean, which was a fabulous view to run to when it was still light enough to see the vast blue water. We were way out at sea, no land anywhere in sight, which happened to be my favorite part of this worldwide adventure. The days when we were isolated from the rest of the world. No stunts. No touristing. No phone calls. No external emails. Just sweet, blissful isolation.
Not that anyone had really tried to contact me since I’d come back to the Athena. Mom and Dad were busy with Brooke, and everyone else I loved besides Nick was on board. I’d even been ducking his emails about ramp design, since I had no idea if I’d need anything special for the final expo. Or if I’d even ride in the final expo.
I was mid calf stretch when Cruz walked in, his focus on his phone. He was in shorts and a tight Under Armour tank, and I suddenly felt very exposed in my running capris and sports bra.
“Dr. Delgado,” I said so I wouldn’t surprise him.
His focus snapped to me, and a slight smile tugged at his lips before he straightened them. “Miss Carstairs. Getting ready to run?”
“Nawh. I just like to come up here and stretch on the treadmill sometimes.”
“Nice,” he said with a full-on grin. “I figured now was the best time to get some miles in without a crowd in here.” He claimed the machine next to mine. “At least the music works,” he said, nodding toward his phone. “No music for you?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Running for me is like sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool. I do it to drown out the noise, not let more in.”
“Want to tell me what you’re drowning?” He watched me thoughtfully, and in that moment it didn’t feel like we were in the northern Pacific Ocean. The tense understanding between us felt like Vegas…and more.
How long would this awareness last between us? Would it fade over the next few weeks? At least enough to make the term a little more bearable?
“As my teacher?”
The muscles in his bicep moved, rippling his Airborne tattoo as he reached for the treadmill’s panel, turning it on. A scar next to the parachute of his tattoo caught my eye. It was a burn mark, the width of my thumb, in a perfect circle. I quickly looked away. Cruz and his scars were none of my business.
“As…someone who worries about you.”
“Just worry about keeping up,” I deflected, and started the treadmill. My feet found the rhythm as his did beside me.
“I’ve been running since before you were born,” he joked.
“Come on, you’re not that much older than me. What? Five, six years? That’s nothing.”
He laughed, the sound deep and goose-bump-inducing. “That’s everything right now. And yeah, I was running by five. I had to where I grew up.”
“Where was that?” We bumped up the speed after the first quarter mile.
“Cuba.”
Do not groan. That word is not sexy.
“Wow. How did you…?” I waved in his direction, keeping my pace steady. It was nice to be able to hold a conversation comfortably at this pace. Maybe I wasn’t as out of shape as I originally thought.
“I’ll make you a deal, Penelope. I’ll answer one question for every one you do.”
I didn’t savor the way he said my name. Not. One. Bit.
Liar.
“Deal.”
I admired his posture, of all things, the upright way he carried himself as he effortlessly moved his body on the treadmill. Sure, I’d always been drawn to athletes, but Cruz didn’t fit into any category I’d ever known.
“I came to the U.S. with my mother and grandmother. My grandmother signed her consent for me to join the military right after graduation, even though she was pissed about it. Those three years didn’t just get me a bachelor’s degree, they gave me citizenship.”
“Wow. And I thought I was driven.”
“You want something bad enough, you’ll find every opportunity to get it,” he said, looking over at me for a moment.
“So why didn’t your mom sign for you?” I hit the button to increase my speed, and he matched me as if we were running outside.
“Nope. I get a question.”
“Fine.” I sighed as hard as I could while at a 6.0 speed. My legs were surprisingly steady, as if my muscles remembered what my heart hadn’t—my body was honed for exertion, to be pushed to the max. Three months in a cast hadn’t changed that.
“What thoughts are you drowning out right now?”
“Too many. They all come crashing in without any form or order.” I glanced over to see that, as usual, he was patient, content to wait for my answer. “I’m worried that we won’t find a good place to have the last live expo. Miami fell through, so now we’re kind of floundering.” Crap, I was getting a little short of breath to carry this conversation. Maybe my leg was good to go, but my endurance was shitty. “We need it…to be spectacular… a truly once-in-a-lifetime…kind of event…and that’s hard…to do when the venue…you’ve planned on for the last year…screws you.”
Yup. I needed to hit the gym more.
“You could do it in Cuba,” Cruz suggested. “It’s legal now. Complicated, but doable. Just a thought, of course.”
A good one. Wicked complicated, that was true, but it would be amazing to be the first show on our level done in Cuba.
“My turn?” I asked, knowing that even though we’d only run fifteen minutes, I was about done.
“Go for it.”
Damn, and he was still going steady and strong, barely a sweat broken. Did his lips taste like a slight sheen of sweat? A hint of salt? Or were they as decadent as they had been in Vegas? Knock it off, Penna.
“Why didn’t your mom sign for you?”
“She’d already gone back to Cuba. She was in the States with us for only about a year before she returned to my father.”
“Oh,” I said, hearing the darker undertones of what he hadn’t said. She’d left him. As peeved as I was at my mom for being rather Brooke-centric right now, she’d never abandoned me.
“One more thought that’s got you running?” he asked.
“My sister,” I answered, my breathing becoming even more labored.
“The anger?”
“No. Don’t get me wrong. I know what she did, but she won’t speak to me. Won’t come to the phone when I call, even. I’ve resorted to writing her letters, not even about all this, but just…”
“You miss her.”
“I miss her.”
“That’s okay. You know that, right?”
“It’s like she’s two completely different people.” I slowed the treadmill, knowing I was done. I was going to have to work myself back up to the stamina I had before the accident, but Cruz kept going, his pace gloriously steady.
“In some ways, Penelope, we all are.” He kept his eyes locked on the window ahead of him as I came to a standstill.
It would have been so easy to fall for him under any other circumstances, as easy and natural as breathing. But nothing was ever easy for me. Not anymore. Maybe that was my true punishment for my part in Brooke’s madness.
I wiped down the equipment in relative silence, his last words echoing through me. I was two different people, too—Penna, who followed rules and wore pretty dresses to cotillion when her mother asked, and Rebel, who broke them all.
But with Cruz, I was a third—Penelope, a curious combination of both, and I was loathe to let that realization slip away.
Grabbing my water bottle, I paused at the door to the gym. “Cruz?” I called out his first name just because I could—it was safe here in our tiny haven.
“Penelope?” he called back, meeting my gaze in the reflection of the window.
“It’s usually quiet here this hour. It’s a good time to run. My favorite time, actually.”
Eyes locked, his jaw flexed. “Maybe I’ll see you here, then,” he finally said.
My heart leaped, and I bit back a smile. “Maybe you will.”
I heard him increase his speed as I found the strength to walk away from him and the momentary respite he always seemed to give me.
