Page 74 of Wish You Would

It was the first time I’d seen her play, and I couldn’t look away from the way her fingers danced along the fretboard, or the way she strummed with her other hand. The music she created swirled around the room, casting a spell I couldn’t keep from falling under.

Or maybe that was just her.

The last few days had been bananas as Gigi and I searched for our rhythm, a balance between our vastly different schedules. We squeezed our time together between classes and studying and bar shifts. A hurried kiss here, a clandestine make out there. Last night, I’d actually set an alarm to wake up at three a.m. and drove to Gigi’s place, just so we could sleep in the same bed.

Not that I was complaining. A few stolen moments with Gigi made up for the sleep I’d missed.

But it wasn’t sustainable, and we both knew it.

Hence our current situation.

I desperately needed to study for an upcoming exam, but I wanted to see Gigi almost as desperately. So, here we were, in the same space. Me, with my books and her with her guitar. It was the perfect compromise. If only I could stop staring.

As if she could feel her eyes on me, Gigi looked up. “Aren’t you supposed to be studying?” she asked with a teasing lift of her brow.

“I am studying.” I let my gaze drift over her face and down her neck, to where her off-the-shoulder t-shirt revealed the soft slope of her breast.

She cleared her throat. “Eyes up here, Samuels.”

I smiled shamelessly as I looked back up. She shook her head, but her lips lifted in a grin of her own. “I’m gonna have to send you home if you can’t get your work done.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” I tossed my hair away from my face and straightened my spine. “I’m focusing now.”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmured, giving me a wink before returning her attention back to her guitar.

I plucked my glasses from the top of my head and put them on, then tapped the trackpad on my laptop to wake it up. With a quick, bracing exhale, I dove into my work.

Hours—or maybe minutes—later, I closed my laptop and set it aside. “Hey,” I said, dropping my feet to the floor. “Did anyone ever die on one of your cruises?”

Gigi’s head whipped up, fingers frozen on the neck of her guitar. “What?”

Undeterred by her shock, I forged on. “I read somewhere that more people die on cruises than we would think.” I leaned forward, elbows on knees. “And that, if they run out of room in the morgue, they’ll give away all the ice cream to make room in the freezer for the dead bodies.”

I could feel her judgment from across the room as she stared, unblinking. Then, slowly, she shook her head and went back to strumming her guitar, the melancholy chords punctuating her lack of response.

“Gigi!” I leapt up from the couch and knelt in front of her, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “Come on!”

Laughing, she sat her guitar aside. “Okay, okay.” She pulled my hands from her shoulders and held them in her lap. I sank onto my butt, sitting cross-legged in front of her, waiting like a rapt kindergartener during story time.

“There was this one guy,” she began. “Cassius, I think his name was.” She stared off into the distance, squinting as if trying to recall the details. I leaned in, elbows on knees, and waited. “He had to be, like, ninety. Had this big old cloud of white hair, and an age spot that was shaped like Luxembourg on his forehead.”

I nodded, letting the thread of Gigi’s store pull me in. I could picture him, the little old man. Probably in a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops.

“Cassius was flying solo on this cruise. His lady love had passed the winter before—this was smack in the middle of summer—and they’d planned to take this trip together. So, he brought her along.” She shook her head. “He carried that urn everywhere he went.”

My mouth dropped open. “He didn’t.”

“He did.” Her brown eyes widened. “I can’t tell you how many times I serenaded sweet, ashy Martha over the course of those five days. Her favorite song was ‘I Fall to Pieces’.”

I snorted, then covered my mouth, shame prickling my skin. “Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “That’s not funny.”

Gigi’s lips twisted. “It kinda is, though.” She picked her guitar back up and strummed, singing a few lines from the song. Her voice really was pretty. Especially when only backed by her guitar.

“Anyway.” Abruptly, she stopped singing and laid the guitar flat in her lap. “The very last night of the cruise, I got onstage, expecting to see Cassius and Martha right down in front, like they’d been every other night. But…their table was empty.”

My body moved closer of its own volition. “What happened?” I whispered, my heart beating faster. Silly question. I knew how this story ended. Yet, I was pulled in as if it was one of life’s greatest mysteries: what happened to Cassius?

“Dunno.” Gigi shrugged. “Some say that Martha fell overboard, and he went in after her. Others say he went peacefully in his bed, clutching Martha tight.”

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