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We stood on the deck as it started to fill with more passengers, hanging out until the ship’s departure. The sun was high up in the sky, a curvy white cloud inching its way over, shading the cruise ship inch by inch. The pool, still closed, was in front of us, and a large polar bear sculpture stood on its two hind legs and appeared to be dipping its clawed toe into the pool. Shiro leaned an elbow on the standing tabletop we stood next to, resting his head on his fist as he looked out at Miami Bay.
“You lied to them,” I said, wanting to talk before his friends joined us.
“Yes, I know that.” He tilted his head, not moving it off his fist. The way the sunlight played with the yellow and gold in his eyes cast a spell on me. “Are you also responsible for steering this ship, Captain Obvious?”
I arched a brow. Shiro had a spiciness to him. I liked it—I enjoyed batting a little with some back-and-forth.
“If you’re a pathological liar, I’d like to know now before we really do go on with this fake friendship.”
“Pathological liar? Then why’d you tell everyone your name was Neal when you told me it was Nick?”
That lie had taken even me by surprise. I wasn’t set on lying to them, but the way one of them was looking at me—Ace I think his name was—I felt like he may have known something. Of course, I couldn’t tell any of this to Shiro, so I just had to dodge around it.
“I use my middle name more often than my first.”
“So what do I call you?” I could tell Shiro was trying to figure out whether he could trust me or not. His eyes bounced between mine. His tongue pushed at his upper lip.
“You can call me Nick.”
His face scrunched. “Fine, Nick. Here’s the thing. I don’t need your fake friendship. I just wanted to dodge the boyfriend question, and you came up at a convenient time. You’re technically my douchebag ex’s friend, so you can go do whatever you want. Spend your holidays judging someone else.”
That shocked me. “I’m not judging anyone.” Did he really think that’s what I was doing? The one who’d been scared of judgment his entire life. I knew the pain of having a magnifying lens tuned to every part of your existence, and I would never want to turn that magnifying glass against someone else.
“I’m not judging you,” I said, a little more forcefully.
He looked up at me with a pair of amber-brown eyes that almost knocked me right off the banister and into the water.
“Well, either way.” He brought his reflective sunglasses down on his face, leaving me with a view of myself and hiding those liquid-gold orbs. “You don’t have to be my fake friend.”
“All right, fine. Forget about the fake part.” I leaned back on the banister. The cool breeze whipped around us, lifting up a corner of Shiro’s loose white shirt. A flash of soft skin caught my attention before it was hidden back from my sight.
“I don’t need more friends either. It’s fine, Nick. Thank you for letting me use you as a buffer for awkward questions right now. I’m sure I’ll get trashed and spill it all later, so it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have asked you to be my fake boyfriend either. I put you in a weird position. Sorry.”
“Trust me, that wasn’t a weird position.”
“Oh no?”
“Not at all.” I winked at him. “I can show you a few weird positions.”
Shiro chuckled at that. He leaned against the table, looking me up and down. I lifted my chin. There was something about Shiro that hooked me. Was it in that subtle smile he seemed to always wear, even when someone (me) was beginning to grate on his very last nerve? Or was it because I could see something else, glittering even brighter than his smile.
Could it have been that kiss we shared? I had only kissed one man before Shiro, and that had been fueled by a night of tequila drinking and salsa dancing. I could barely remember how that night felt. How his lips had felt, how his tongue tasted.
Not with Shiro. I could still feel his lips against mine, his tongue slipping past mine, his hard body fitting with mine.
And I had liked every damn second of it. Became drunk off it. Thought it had ended way too soon.
Maybe that’s why I followed after him. Why I interrupted him and his friends even though Shiro had never dropped anything. The lip balm I handed him had come from my pocket.
And he had accepted it.
“I mean, did you come here by yourself? Do you have any friends here?” Shiro asked.
If only I could answer that honestly.
“Not here, no.”
