Page 22 of Date and Switch

“Girl the two of you are on fire! Your Instagram feeds today—between your stories, your feed and that fucking reel of Bryce doing the Macarena. Does he know you posted that?”

A wave of guilt teased at my conscience. “No. I should probably take it down. He’ll probably be pissed.”

“Fuck that. Leave it. It’s adorable and people are going batshit over it.” She paused for a minute and then as if realizing she forgot what she’d actually been calling for she said, “Oh shit! Happy Birthday! I hear there’s some big shebang tonight—unrelated to your birthday obviously—just part of the whole cruise experience.”

“It’s a formal dinner.” I nodded as if she could see me. “Bryce had his assistant send me dresses!”

“Esther sent you dresses? To Brazil? Like in the mail?”

“I have no idea how she sent them. They were hanging here when we came back from touring. Raven, they’re so pretty. They had to have cost a fortune—mother of all things holy—the Christmas tree dress cost nine hundred dollars Raven!”

I scanned the rest of the price tags, and they were similar to or higher.

“Oh Rye, you fuckin softie.” She whispered on a laugh, “He wanted to make sure you had something to wear that was festive and celebratory. Esther has fantastic taste. I bet those dresses are just gorgeous.”

“They are.” I practically sighed. “I’ll send you the picture.”

“Those dresses,” she said. “It’s a gift. Just for you. Seraphim Miller. It doesn’t need to be up on the blog or social media. That’s something special. Personal. Just between the two of you.”

Before I could agree, someone knocked on my door and called my name.

“Hey I’ve gotta go. Someone’s here.”

“Listen last thing. When you port in Los Angeles, Penn and Bryce have meetings all day. I’d love to hang out.”

“Oh that sounds like fun! I’ll see you then.”

I hung up with her at the same time I opened the door to an entire entourage of makeup and hair stylists.

“Hello Sera, Mr. Ellis sent us to take care of your hair and makeup for the evening.”

fifteen

When I’d asked Esther to ship some dresses for me, the request had been more about seeing a deficiency and filling it. Of course, in tandem with that, I wanted to prevent my travel companion any millisecond of embarrassment. I wanted to protect her from feeling judged by others on the ship for dressing outside of social expectations or from feeling diminished by inconsiderate employees.

Seeing the ebullient joy on her face as she conversed with those at our table filled me with pride. I put that smile there. After we left this ship and went back to our normal lives, I hoped she’d remember how wide her smile was, how free the laughter spilled around the table, and how stunning the man beside her in the tuxedo found her to be.

She picked my favorite of the lot. She called it the “Christmas Tree” dress because of its green and gold coloring. The stylists created soft ringlets that fell gracefully down her back, ending just above where the dress fastened. While we sat and chatted with the Arnolds, the Meyers, and the Robertsons, my fingers were drawn to that sensuous expanse of skin begging for me to explore.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you look tonight, angel?” I whispered while the conversation broke while everyone placed refills on their drinks.

“A few times,” she turned to look me in the eye, the melted chocolate of her eyes catching the candlelight that lit the table, “but every time you do, it just makes me smile harder.”

“Keeping you smiling for the entirety of your birthday is exactly my goal.”

While wine flowed generously throughout dinner it was the warmth of the table that made me drunk on their congeniality.

“Can’t complain about the view from my seat either.” She leaned in, our cheeks touching while whispering in my ear. “You are wearing the shit out of that tux Earl Ellis.”

Her perfume teased me like a long-forgotten song. Familiar, but just out of grasp. Something you wanted to sing but weren’t confident enough yet to form the words. Without thought, I took her by her jaw, and poured every ounce of emotion I felt while sitting around our dinner table into that kiss. I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to caress her mouth until we were breathless and desperate for air. I wanted her to feed me back the same emotions, passing them between us until we were blind to everyone else.

“Ahem.” Meyers, Robertson, whomever the fuck it was, tried to pry me away from what I tried to claim as mine. “The cake.”

I broke the kiss—reluctantly—just in time to watch the tiered, sparkler-adorned, confection roll towards our table. In tow was Sera’s songbird friend Omar and the rest of his entertainment crew.

“Please tell me one of your hotel contacts didn’t also Fed-Ex this all the way from the United States.”

I don’t remember any woman I’d been involved with feeding me. If someone had tried, I don’t believe I would have rejected them. However, accepting a bite sized piece from Sera seemed like the most natural action. Like eating off a woman’s fork was something I routinely did.

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