But right now, it feels just fine.
Warm from the sun baking down, and okay with being exposed and on display, my shoulders out under my tank top, legs only covered by loose denim shorts, and maybe, remembering what it was like to be loved by the man beside me whose arm brushes against mine from time to time.
“This ship is fucking huge. What a nightmare.” Bohdan grips his jaw with a terse shake of his head.
He put a shirt on, fortunately for me, and everyone around him who stares when he walks by.
A statue, hewed from marble and stone and wonderful things, brought to life and walking around their ship.
I nod, cringing behind my sunglasses. “I really think I would have preferred the riverboat.”
He holds his arms wide, muscles tensing. “We haven’t even made one full loop around.”
“Are you sure?” I point to a bar with fake palm trees on either side, casting shade down on the throngs of cruise goers lined up, some already holding giant, towering frozen drinks with curling plastic straws and umbrellas dotting the rims of their glasses. “I’m almost positive we passed that same bar.”
Bohdan shakes his head again, and I can practically see his eyes rolling from behind the dark lenses of his prescription sunglasses. “They have them spread out all over the ship. I don’t even know where we are.”
“I bet there’s a map included with our itinerary,” I offer dryly.
He cracks a sideways grin just as we pass the bar, stepping under the awning of the ship and back into the shade. Shops and restaurants line the path, and passengers spill out onto the deck in no particular order, with no real care.
At one point, Bohdan sidesteps two teenagers sprinting past us, knocking into me. He reaches out, hands gripping my shoulders to stop me from tripping. We stay like that,immobilized until he clears his throat, and his hands find their way to his pockets.
We don’t really have a destination—but I didn’t think it was wise for us to sit still anywhere. My brain gets louder, crueler, when I sit still, and I can’t imagine the horrible things it would have to say if I was alone with him.
We haven’t said much either. It’s not an awkward silence—those disappeared between us a long, long time ago. I don’t think it’s possible to feel awkward around someone who’s as much yourself as you are.
But I try to break the silence anyway, because I’m not sure it’s something that belongs between us.
“Is your—” I glance at him, pointing towards his sunglasses.
Bohdan speaks at the same time, hand scrubbing across a lightly stubbled jaw. “So you’re—sorry,” he says, a sort of sheepish grin playing across those sharp features in a way that makes my heart perk up, awake but still drowsy, and my lungs take this deep inhale I don’t think I have any control of.
I blink, staring at the planes of his face before resting my eyes on his lips. Full, lovely.
Sensuous.
The word pops into my head, and I remember our first date, thinking it’s how Tia would describe his mouth if given the chance.
She wouldn’t have been wrong, but it’s an absurd descriptor for Bohdan, and I snort, trying not to laugh.
“What?” Bohdan asks, and I can tell his eyes narrow behind his sunglasses by the way his brows come together.
“Nothing.”
“Sloan,” he says flatly. “You’re a terrible liar.”
I roll my eyes, holding a hand in the air. “Tia’s always said you have a sensuous mouth.”
He stills, and one hand comes out of a pocket, slowly taking his sunglasses off, folding them in the neck of his shirt where they tug down, revealing another sliver of bronzed skin, and he blinks grey eyes at me.
“That sounds like something she would say. But I know you’re lying.” He tips his chin to my fingers, feathering over my bicep.
I glance down. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. I narrow my eyes at him, a bit annoyed he can still see right through me. It’s something we used to share. I could have told you everything there was to know about Bohdan Novotnak.
The good: that this steadfast, patient, endlessly compassionate man lives behind all those features that look like they were made from stone and could cut it, too; that he’s got this dry sense of humour, and even though he doesn’t speak often, you’re so, so lucky when he does. That he swears in this funny mix of English and Czech when he’s angry. That you’ll never beat him at chess because he’s more patient than you. That he always holds the door open for others, and he always waits to make sure you’ve gotten inside safely when he drops you off somewhere. That he learned to count to six in five languages. That he loves his grandmother more than anyone on the planet—except for, maybe, the time he spent loving me.
The bad—there’s really not much, and it’s only bad because I wish he could see himself the way I do: He holds himself to impossibly high standards, and I’ve seen him break more hockey sticks than I think his equipment manager liked when he didn’t perform to those standards.
