Page 25 of Date and Switch

“Sera, deep breaths.” I heard him snap his fingers somewhere in the distance. “You’re working yourself up and if you wind any tighter, you’ll launch into a panic attack.”

“I can’t take a deep breath.” It felt like a cry, but also a giggle, “There’s so much perfume in the air I’m probably high on the fumes. Not that I’d know. I’ve always been the straight and narrow kind of kid. And I never wanted to ruin my singing voice. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette let alone pot.”

“You should have said something, we probably could have bought some brownies on any of the Caribbean islands.” Bryce chuckled, finally popping his head up from beneath the blankets.

“Sure, and my luck I’ll come home to a job offer with a drug test and they’ll be like remember that time six months ago when you ate that pot brownie, sorry no job for you.”

“I can give you a job.” Bryce says it so casually, like he’s telling me there’s blue skies and sunshine outside and not a hungry white tipped monster in search of a misbegotten cruise ship. “It may not be as exciting as banking but I’m sure we could find something to keep your attention.”

“Bryce, this isn’t funny. You are talking about jobs and banking when we’re in the middle of a serious situation.”

“It’s going to be okay.” Bryce tried to sit up, only to be lurched forward, collapsing against the side of my bed, as the ship pitched in the opposite direction. “Christ!” He pushed himself upright, rolling next to me.

He touched the screen on his phone, which he must have found when he fell to the floor.

“It’s four in the morning. We’ve only been sailing for three hours, which means we’re probably getting close to approaching Argentina. If the boat sank, we’d be in warm water, not cold. And I promise you, chivalry can kiss my ass. You’ll share that damn door—even if we end up with more of our bodies in the water than on the wood.”

He twisted on his side, using his body to guide me toward facing the wall. He spooned behind me, held me against his chest, and used his legs to brace himself so he wouldn’t rock into me.

“You’re shivering,” he told me, like I didn’t already know that.

He pulled the covers around us, creating a cocoon.

“I’ll keep you safe.”

He whispered, pulling me tight against his body. While he wasn’t exactly nuzzling against me as a lover would, his nose was buried in my hair. It almost felt intimate.

“Too bad you can’t hold my feelings as tightly.”

It was the panic that bubbled all my truths to the surface.

“I guess if we’re going to die in the next few hours,” he joked, smiling into my hair, “I should unburden myself with a last confession.”

seventeen

If it took a storm and panic to have Sera in my bed, I’d gladly accept this kind of weather every night for the rest of the cruise. Even her warmth had a scent. That same long forgotten song that lulled me into total calm.

I’d watched the storm building over the horizon. The tortured clouds threatening to unleash their torment were oddly symbolic of the tumult I felt inside. Moments before Sera took the stage, I’d been downright smitten. When she all but publicly declared her interest in me, competing poles waged war inside of me. One part thrilled that she reflected the same burgeoning interest. The other, doused in shame and panic. How could I be sure of my own instincts when I’d been so clearly wrong the last time?

I’d come onto the cruise feeling shattered but loosely glued back together. With every day those pieces felt a bit stronger. A single public declaration from Sera and I’d lost faith in the strength of any of those newly forged reinforcements.

Logically I knew she didn’t deserve any of it. This crazy mood swing exposed a live wire of emotions I was lately. Penn was used to me, so he’d just tell me to fuck off, but she was different. She was way too polite to push back or call me on my shit.

“It’s not you.” I held her tight, her lush ass teasing my cock awake. “I promise there is absolutely nothing about you that would diminish my interest in you.”

I stumbled over my words. Saying kind, flowery, or flirty things had not ever been my forte, but now my tongue seemed anchored and paralyzed.

“The way things ended with Sarah—I feel like I got sucker punched into a full knockout, and my coach is yelling and clapping in my ears trying to force me awake and my bearings are all out of whack. Experience tells me to keep an eye out for that right hook.”

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a boxing fan.”

“Can you even call yourself a Bostonian if you don’t have a passing awareness of boxing?”

“Mr. deck shoes, shorts with alligators, and sexy calves you could bounce quarters off of, is in direct conflict with smelly, loud, boxing rings.”

At least she chuckled. Perhaps I had a chance at smoothing things over after all. And she thought my calves were sexy. Even if she didn’t realize she’d said it.

“Passing interest.”

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