Page 4 of Why Cruise

“My guy, it’s an e-reader, not a tablet. I know your distaste for dedicated devices, so that’s exactly what we got you. All you cando with it is read books. We got you the kiddie version with no bells and whistles.”

I stacked up all my gear and left it on the table to hook up later, then strode to the sliding glass doors. The cabin… no, stateroom… was on a high floor. I had a view of one of the pool areas and the bow of the ship. Ceto Bay and the Port Haven skyline sparkled in the mid-afternoon sun.

“Justice. I’m worried.”

I squeezed my fists at the tone in Daisy’s voice. She’d been riding my ass and bitching me out since our auras had presented in college. She was the only person in the world who gave one single fuck that I was losing it.

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” I lied.

I could hear her shuffling papers and typing on her keyboard.

“So, here it is, Justice. You’re taking all that sparkly unlimited PTO you like to brag about. You’re going to read some fucking books. Have drinks with little umbrellas in them. Fuck some hottie on a beach and come back with your head on straight.”

I nodded. I knew she couldn’t see the gesture. I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything. The fact was, I was worried. Maybe even scared.

“All right, asshole. Go relax. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“Make sure the QA team—”

“Justice?” she cut me off again.

“Yeah.”

“Boom, baby.”

I turned just in time to see her call cut off. Then I watched in horror as the screen exploded into a cheesy fireworks graphic.

“No. Fuck no.”

I dove for my phone. I held down the power and volume buttons to initiate a hard boot. Nothing happened. The cascade of fireworks just looped again. I reached for my tablet. Samegraphic. I ripped my laptop cover open with so much force I almost tore it in half. Fireworks sparkled across this display, too.

I put both hands on the bar and took shallow, shaky breaths. “Boom Baby” was the first bit of code we wrote together. It was inelegant, messy, and effective. Too effective. The program was born out of our shared revenge fantasies. A little app that could hold your phone or laptop hostage. It did nothing more than drain the battery with that ugly graphic and couldn’t be removed without the remote device that had installed it.

We’d never used it. We quickly discovered it was much more fun to make our bullies envy us. We retooled the code and turned it into a productivity app that would lock down your device so you could focus and get work done. It made us our first millions, and that was way better revenge.

I wiped my hand across my forehead. It was sticky with sweat. Packing me up in the wee hours of the morning and forcing me on this stupid fucking cruise was extreme. But bricking all my devices? With the code I fucking wrote? To force me to “relax”?

I crossed my arms and dug my fingers into my biceps. Closing my eyes, I visualized my sequence for the Great Roof pitch on El Cap, mapping every finger lock and jam, each cam placement, the exact spot where I’d make that delicate traverse to the anchor. In my mind’s eye, I looked down the three thousand feet of exposure below me. I cracked my neck and shook out my arms. Free soloing El Cap, going up that sheer rock face with no ropes, nothing but your fingers and toes, seemed more rational than this stupid fucking cruise.

Theo Evergreen

I snatched my hand back from the small of Mackenzie’s back. She didn’t need me to shepherd her down the hall. She didn’t need me. Period.

I was too touchy-feely. No.Clingy. Even for an omega. I had a whole folder on my computer detailing the symptoms of touch starvation. “Clingy”was heavily featured. It lived right next to all my pack rejection letters in a digital archive of failure. Could an omega even be too touchy-feely? I didn’t really have any other omegas in my life to ask anymore, a fact that felt particularly pathetic right now.

The elevator dinged, and I shoved my hands deep in my pockets to keep them off her, my fingers curling into tight fists.

“But how do they store them?” she said, looking over her shoulder, her orange blossom wrapping around me. It was fresh and light, but somehow warm. Distracted, I had lost the thread of the conversation.

“Store what?”

“The carpets. You said they change the carpets every day, and each carpet has a different day of the week on it. There are dozens of elevators. Where do they store them?”

I frowned. In my obsessive preparation before getting on board, I thought I had looked up everything there was to know about cruise ships. I knew about the elevator carpets, but not a single blog post ever mentioned how they were stored.

“We’ll have to find someone to ask.” I almost regretted the words the second they came out of my mouth. The thought of approaching a staff member made my stomach twist. It always did when I had to do something that felt big and scary. I’d suck it up, because I had no choice.

“I’m totally going to get lost on this boat,” she said, threading her arm through mine like she had been doing it her whole life. The casual intimacy made my heart stutter.

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