Page 43 of Never Been Shipped

“You did that on purpose,” she said, but her voice held no real censure.

John was as surprised as she was. Not about the way he felt—that part had been there for so long, he didn’t even know who he was without it. He was just surprised he’d actually said it out loud, toNightshiftersstar Tatiana Rivera, of all people, in the middle of the night in the middle of an ocean while playing shuffleboard in front of a crowd that included several werewolf masks.

“And how does she feel?” Tatiana asked.

“That,” John said, setting up his next shot, “is the million-dollar question.”

“She’s jealous as hell right now,” Tatiana said. “I can tell you that much.”

This time John could’ve been the one to accuseherof doing that on purpose. He sent his disc ineffectually down the court, where it landed almost dead center on the line. Not out of play, but worth nothing unless it got knocked into the scoring zone later.

“No, she’s not,” he said automatically.

“Trust me, she’s practicallygreen. She keeps glancing over here when you’re not looking.”

In normal circumstances, John prided himself on hisdiscretion, and there were many reasons to be extra discreet around whatever was going on between him and Micah. At the same time, he couldn’t help but want more of Tatiana’s insights now that he had her here. God knows he couldn’t talk to the rest of the band, and the terrible reception on the boat made any chance of a long conversation with any of his housemates back home impossible.

“We hooked up,” he said. “But I couldn’t tell if it was just physical for her or if it meant more than that.”

“How long ago did you hook up?”

John glanced at his watchless wrist in a gesture that probably looked like a joke, but had just been a vestigial instinct. “Two hours?”

Tatiana laughed, then seemed to get that he was serious, and laughed even harder. “Oh my god,” she said. “This is too good.”

There was a sharp whistle from the other side of the court, and John and Tatiana both glanced over to see Ryder gesturing at them. “We gonna play or what?” he yelled.

“Patience,” Tatiana called back, “is a virtue.”

The crowd cheered, obviously loving the banter, and Tatiana turned to wink at John. “So how did things go afterward,” she said, leisurely setting up her next shot. “Two hours ago.”

But the crowd had spooked John. He and Tatiana had been talking in low voices, and they were far enough away, but it occurred to him that having this conversation surrounded by people recording on their phones probably wasn’t a great idea. Besides, he was pretty sure they were supposed to be hamming it up more, actually putting on a show instead of just quietly talking to one another and playing shuffleboard. The showmanship part had never been his strong suit.

He also had no idea how he would answer Tatiana’s question, because he wasn’t surehowit had gone. He glanced over at Micah again. She was leaning against the scoreboard, waiting for the end of the frame when she could add more points to the running totals. She was playing with the end of her braid, flipping the comma-shaped bit over her fingers and then pulling it through. He remembered that moment in her room—undo your braid. From the directness of her gaze when she looked back at him, he thought she might be remembering the same thing.

“I think I’m about five seconds away from forfeiting this game,” John said, sliding one of the yellow discs into position to take his turn. “But you said patience is a virtue, so here we go.”

Chapter

Twenty

Micah wished shehad her phone on her so she could quickly searchhow the fuck long are shuffleboard games supposed to go actually. It felt like this one was taking a million years.

Heading into the final frame, ElectricOh!’s team had taken the lead by seven points, but Micah didn’t even care who won. She’d felt like she’d taken a million pictures, she’d signed a million autographs, she was cold, and she was sick of watching Ryder’s over-the-top celebrations whenever he scored.

John took his turn, which landed neatly right in the middle of the eight-point section, and Tatiana squeezed his arm in congratulations. Okay, Micah wasn’t too proud to admit it.Thatwas another reason she was looking forward to the game being over. Hadn’t they just met? How were they already so…chummy? They’d spent practically the entire game talking, laughing, touching, and it was driving Micah crazy.

She knew she had no right to be upset about it really. She and John hadn’t discussed what exactly they were doing—had it been a onetime thing, awhat happens on the cruise stays on thecruisetype of deal? Had it been the start of a friends-with-benefits situation? Micah didn’t even know where they stood on thefriendspart, much less thebenefitspart. Had it been something more than that?

“Would you sign my CD?” She heard the voice come from over her shoulder, and she turned around, pinning a smile on her face.

“Sure!”

It was ElectricOh!’s first album, which was titledSelf-Titled. Not the band’s name to make it an actual self-titled record, but literallySelf-Titled. What could she say, they’d thought they were so clever at sixteen.

The picture on the cover was the five of them, standing behind a chain-link fence that had a triangular warning sign in the upper left corner—yellow with a black lightning-bolt arrow, indicating that the fence was electrified. They’d thought that was clever, too. Her four band members were standing in various poses—hands in pockets (John), arms crossed over chest (Frankie), hand running through hair (Ryder), looking down and laughing (Steve). Micah was the only one touching the fence, her fingers curled through the chain link, one eye partially obscured, the other staring directly at the camera.

God, they looked soyoung. The kids on that CD had no idea what was coming. They had no idea what they were getting into. They were on the other side of the fence and couldn’t see the warning sign.

---