Page 23 of Date and Switch

“I promise,” I assured her, wiping a piece of frosting from my lip, “the cruise staff were the only ones I approached to make your cake.”

“Did I hear you’re in hotels, Ellis?” Teddy Arnold—at least I remembered which one he was, broke into our conversational bubble.

“Teddy,” Sera waved in his direction, “you know this already. We talked about it over Bingo between Mexico and Aruba.”

“You played Bingo?” I asked, valiantly attempting to hide my mirth.

“Oh mister you have no idea all the ways I’ve kept myself entertained.”

For the first time I actually felt a hint of guilt at how much I’d left her to her own devices since boarding the ship.

“I’m sorry.” I rearranged the curls that fell on her shoulders, pushing them to her back so I could appreciate her delectable collarbones. “I didn’t expect to have so much demand for my attention right out of the gate. I thought I’d have until Europe to prepare for these meetings.”

Her hand went to my cheek, caressing the stubble that began forming, “Don’t even hold onto that thought. I came with no expectations that you would entertain me or want to spend every waking moment with me. It’s all good.”

“I’m sorry young lady, but I’m an old, feeble-minded man.” The Arnold guy laughed into his glass. “Remind me again about our conversation.”

“Teddy,” she looked at me but nodded in his direction, “handles supplying incidentals to boutique hotels throughout Europe. And Bryce, she turned to Teddy, owns boutique hotels throughout North America and is working toward European expansion.”

“You don’t say, Ellis! Where in Europe will you be expanding?”

“The standards with the package tours—Paris, London, Rome, Bruges, Dublin, Barcelona, Amsterdam—the usual suspects.”

Teddy nodded, seeming to run through the Rolodex in his mind. “I have a few people I could put you in touch with.”

“We’re meeting with the Gilroy Group when we port in Los Angeles to discuss preliminary expansion plans.”

“Gilroy is solid.” Teddy continued, “Though they are more budget hotel than boutique.”

Gilroy Group had the capital needed to diversify the risk. If in fact we solidified a partnership, we would lead the creative direction. I didn’t want to mention they were the only one who even considered our proposal.

“We don’t need to bore the table with this shop talk.” Teddy pulled a card out of his wallet. “Since we all seem to be unable to cut the cord on these long stretches at sea, have your assistant reach out and I’ll have mine make some connections.”

“Ladies and gentleman!” Sera’s suffocating cruise ship crooner Omar, shuffled up the trio of stairs to where the piano sat. “Did you know that our resident birthday girl is classically trained in opera?”

The overly dramatic pause was nauseating enough. When he held his hand up to his ear as if everyone were clapping seals at his circus, I had to focus on counting in an attempt to keep the bile at bay. Fucking dipshit. The guy was handsome, in a I spend all my free time topless at the gym staring at my sweaty pecs kind of way. The personality dialed up to infinity was the part that absolutely locked my jaw.

“If I didn’t know better,” Mrs. Robertson whose first name I didn’t know, turned to Sera and whispered with a conspiratorial glint in her eye, “that boy has a crush on you.”

The woman had to be from the south. Alabama, maybe Georgia. The way she drew out the word you, as if they were discussing sheep and not the stunning specimen seated next to me, glittering in her Christmas tree dress.

“Oh hush, Mae,” Sera giggled, “we’re just friends. Two people who tried to make a go out of a professional music career.”

“Besides,” I chimed in, unable to quell the urge to whip my dick out and lay claim, “she already has one man falling at her feet… Any more seems excessive.”

Sera turned to look in my direction despite that chirping gnat up on stage talking about how she’s entertained the masses of the ship on more than one occasion. She looked at me with a soft, hopeful expression in her eyes that stripped me bare. Despite a dazzling makeup application, and the soft waves they’d styled into her hair showing off every subtle change in color from copper to russet, the innocence in her eyes wiped away all that glamor. As if she stood, just out of the shower, with no makeup, fancy clothes, or hair to disguise who she was at her core.

“Perhaps it less falling and more already fallen,” I whispered against her temple. Her obnoxious friend sang her name over and again into his microphone. “I think your friend might dislocate his shoulder if he waves you onstage any harder.”

I didn’t want her to go on stage. I wanted her to stay, tucked closely to me where I could be tantalized by her perfume and harnessed by her amiable warmth. She shifted out of her seat, shivering as my fingers traced the arch of her spine. Something primitive in me liked knowing the flush on her cheeks had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with me.

sixteen

While I made the choice to take this whirlwind trip, I thought for sure being this physically distanced from my family on my birthday was going to be hard. It was as if Bryce knew that and planned accordingly. I don’t think I could have written a wish list for a perfect day and gotten anything better. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have hiked straight up a fucking mountain on healing, blistered skin, but other than that.

“Sera is going to serenade us into Christmas.” Omar announced to the room, “it will be our own version of a mass-less, non-denominational, pretty much just the singing portion, midnight mass.”

I rolled my eyes at him, gathering my skirts and settling in next to him at the piano.

---