A Royal Christmas Cruise: Stonewall Investigations Miami Read online

  A Royal Christmas Cruise

  A Stonewall Investigations- Miami Holiday Story

  Max Walker

  Edited By: ONE LOVE EDITING

  Proofread By: Tanja Ongkiehong

  Cover Design: Max Walker

  Copyright © 2019 by Max Walker

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Synopsis

  Nicholas Silva

  This Christmas, I was determined to change things.

  I was done living a lie. I felt like a puppet, so I cut the strings. I woke up one morning and parted ways with my girlfriend - to the shock of everyone. That same day, I had tickets booked on a holiday cruise where I planned on cutting loose and finding the truth I had been denying myself all along.

  Little did I know, I would end up finding what I was looking for in the jaw-droppingly handsome man I met before boarding the ship. Our chemistry was immediate, and it wasn’t long before we shared a passionate kiss.

  Then came his question. He asked me to be fake boyfriends with him for the duration of the cruise.

  My immediate urge was to say ‘yes’ except for a tiny complication that forced me to reconsider: I’m the prince of Spain and I am still very much closeted.

  Shiro Brooks

  This Christmas was supposed to be for reuniting with old friends. I didn’t expect to be dealing with a break-up and becoming the seventh wheel. I tried staying positive, but after an embarrassing situation at the security checkpoint, I resigned myself to my crummy holiday fate.

  Imagine my Santa-sized surprise when I bump into (and subsequently make-out with) the hottest man I’d ever met in my entire life. Drunk off our connection, I blurt out a crazy proposal.

  A proposal that he instantly shoots down.

  I for sure thought it would all end there. I had no idea it was only just the beginning of our story.

  Contents

  1. Nicholas Silva

  2. Shiro Brooks

  3. Nicholas Silva

  4. Shiro Brooks

  5. Nicholas Silva

  6. Shiro Brooks

  7. Nicholas Silva

  8. Shiro Brooks

  9. Nicholas Silva

  10. Shiro Brooks

  11. Nicholas Silva

  12. Shiro Brooks

  13. Nicholas Silva

  14. Shiro Brooks

  15. Nicholas Silva

  16. Shiro Brooks

  17. Nicholas Silva

  18. Shiro Brooks

  19. Nicholas Silva

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Also by Max Walker

  1 Nicholas Silva

  The kisses came at me like mosquitos fighting to get through a protective net. Fast, sharp, unwelcome.

  Her lips pecked at my neck first. Like she was searching for some sort of weak spot, where she could break skin and suck out my blood. I wondered briefly if I should let her. Just succumb to the blood-draining, like I’d succumbed to being in this fraud of a relationship for two years now.

  All so Papi and Mami could live happy, knowing their little prince was finding himself a queen.

  I rolled onto my side, cutting off the kisses. She huffed a breath of air before I felt the bed tremble as she fell back on it. I kept my eyes trained forward, on my chipped dresser, set so that it blocked half of the window, keeping the dusty red curtain permanently closed.

  I hated the view. It reminded me of a prison. Keeping it shut meant I could lie on my bed without having to look out at the constant reminder of my, eh, situation. The only reason I even knew it was midday was because the sunlight barreled through the unblocked side of the window, throwing half my room into light and the other into shadow.

  “What’s going on Nick? ¿Que pasa?”

  The question didn’t come out of the blue. Cristella was a very caring, very empathetic woman, which made this situation all the more difficult. She was a proper girl, and a beautiful one, I’d admit. I’ve come to learn that she wasn’t my type in the slightest, but her beauty could never be denied.

  I rolled over, facing her, looking into those doe-like green eyes, some of the waves of her silky brown hair cresting across her forehead, hiding a couple of freckles that dotted her flawless skin. Her pouty lips looked extra pouty. Normally, I would kiss her until I got a smile. I had always felt like that’s what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to act. So I had.

  But not today. Not after this morning. There would be no more kisses.

  “You’re scaring me.” Her eyes bounced between mine. “You’re scaring a lot of us. You’ve just been in your room, for hours. Days. You missed the dinner yesterday, and you missed the fund-raising lunch last weekend. That was one of your favorite events of the entire year. And you wouldn’t even tell me why…”

  Because I can’t look into anyone’s eyes anymore, not without thinking I’m a fucking fraud.

  “I haven’t been feeling well,” I answered, giving my default response to any similar questions hurled my way over the past couple of months. Cristella wasn’t the only one who could pick up on my shift in attitude. Both my parents had briefly brought it up over dinner about two weeks ago. The conversation lasted approximately three minutes before my dad began talking about the preparations for the Christmas festival.

  “But why?” Cristella had determination in her eyes. She wasn’t letting this go for idle chat over holiday decorations. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “A storm,” I said, being honest for once in what felt like months. “I can’t even pull out a single thought.”

  “Try. For me.”

  The thunderclouds filling my head exploded with lightning.

  “That’s the thing, Cristella… I need to do the opposite. I have to try for myself now.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I stared at the beauty mark that dotted her skin near the dip of her Cupid’s bow. “I’ve been living for what everyone else wanted of me. The prince, an heir to a throne that doesn’t even hold any power anymore. It’s all just dressing on a set. People fall for it because it glitters under the light, but when the lights turn off, it all gets dark just like everything else. I’ve been living a lie for what? To make my parents happy? To keep the tabloids quiet?”

  Cristella’s eyes were filling with worry. A crease appeared between her thin brows. She started fiddling with her earlobe, something she always did when she became anxious.

  “Don’t talk about your family like that.”

  She didn’t get it. They weren’t family. They were prison guards, keeping my true self stuffed deep down inside the darkest dungeon imaginable. Somewhere devoid of any kind of light.

  Not anymore, though. Not anymore.

  “I can’t keep this in.” I sat up in bed, leaning back on the plush bedframe, the soft white pleated velvet caressing my bare back.

  “Keep what in? What are you talking about, Nicholas?”

  I wanted to shout it then. Wanted even the guards standing outside the palace gates to hear me.

  The words almost fell from me, but they hit a barricade somewhere in my chest. I stopped myself. Breaking u
p with my girlfriend would cause big enough waves. Was I ready to proclaim why I had broken up with her? Was I ready to tell everyone that I was gay?

  No. The answer, right then and there, was no.

  I mulled over my thoughts, warding away the fears that nipped at my heels like hungry wolves.

  “What happened, Nick? Everything was fine this morning. We had a beautiful breakfast and a great chat over coffee. You seemed so optimistic. Happy, even. And then you go for a walk to Hightower Bridge, and the moment you get back, you act totally different. What happened to you on that walk?”

  Everything happened. Nothing happened.

  There was no way I could dive into that right now. I could only skate above it. Briefly.

  “I realized some things this morning. Things I’d been thinking about a lot.”

  “And?”

  “One of those things is…” I had to word this exactly right. I hadn’t prepared for this at all. “I don’t think I’m right for you. I’ve realized this isn’t going to work.”

  Shock seemed to have slapped her across the face. A rabbit-like sound slipped from her lips, like a frightened animal meeting its certain end.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered, as if that would somehow soothe the gaping wound on her heart. A wound I was sure grew larger by the second, by every accelerated thump.

  Cristella was right in saying that this morning had been great. I woke up feeling better than I had felt in a long while, and that all might have been because of a dream I had woken up from, one that still lingered on my thoughts throughout the day, phantom kisses lingering on my lips.

  It hadn’t been a dream of me and Cristella, or of me and Angelina Jolie, or any other woman for that matter.

  The dream, painted in technicolor bold and still replaying in my head, had me rolling across an infinite meadow of brightly colored poppies and daisies and sunflowers and lavender, their petals all throwing off rays of rainbow light as our two naked bodies writhed and our moans rose up to color the skies, which were dashes of pink and blue and orange and purple. Soon, the meadow of flowers disappeared, and the two of us were resting on a private island, golden sand glittering underneath us, slipping between our toes and our fingers as we moved into new positions, fucking and stroking and kissing.

  I never remembered dreaming in such vivid color. Never.

  Me and the man spent a night more passionate than I had spent with Cristella in the two years we’d been together. This dream had felt more real to me than any of the empty nights I had gone through the motions just to have sex with my own girlfriend.

  And so yes, I was happy during our breakfast, but as Cristella cheerily listed out all the things she wanted to do in America for our holiday trip, I knew that my heart was somewhere far, far from the table. I wasn’t happy because of her, not at all.

  At the same time I couldn’t be fully honest with her. If I told her I was breaking up with her because I was gay, then one: I’d always remember my first time coming out as something terrible, and two: it would be front-page news within the hour. I didn’t want to risk that. I had to beat around the bush without beating up her heart too badly in the process. I still cared about her as a friend, and even though all throughout university I’d been rumored to be an overly cocky and heartbreaking guapo by the Spanish papers, an image that ended up sticking, in reality that portrayal of me wasn’t true at all. I cared deeply about the people in my life, even if very few of them seemed to care much about me.

  “How? Why?” Cristella said, her upper lip beginning to shake.

  Cristella Montenegro, the only girl who had broken through the protective bubble I’d put up, and actually lasted as my girlfriend for longer than six months. Mainly because she had been forcibly pushed past it by my parents, who saw their young prince growing up without ever having one stable relationship, without ever finding his queen.

  “Did I do something?” she continued. “¿Que hice?”

  “You did nothing,” I said, once again finding an opportunity to be absolutely truthful. “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “So what exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I can’t be in this relationship anymore, Cristella. I just can’t.”

  She shook her head, wiped at her cheeks. The skin around her neck and over her chest flushed bright red. She got up from the bed and walked over to the window, her steps soft on the floor and still somehow sounding like bombs going off in the silent room. She pushed aside the dresser with a surprising show of force. Her silk nightgown, light pink and hemmed in black, clung to her skin, hugging her hip bones as she whipped around and grabbed the thick red window blind.

  “Cristella?”

  “I need to see you. Need to see your face.” She yanked the blind open, sunlight breaking in through the rest of the window, lighting me up like a spotlight turning on and aimed at my face. I squinted, the view I’d wanted blocked from sight now on full display.

  Outside my window, like a stupid fucking painting, was the Royal Palace Rose Garden, currently clinging to life through the frigid colds that had spilled over Madrid during the winter months. And yet still, even with the trees bare and the roses out of bloom, the garden somehow retained its imposing beauty. Maybe it was the golden statues scattered throughout, or the two perfectly symmetrical fountainheads on either side of the garden shooting a constant stream of crystalline water feet up into the air. The emerald-green hedges were still holding strong, as were the regal snowdrift crabapple trees we had planted when I was a little boy, their white and red flowers acting like small sun reflectors. Beyond the gardens, I could see the tall crest of the palace itself, a stone spire that rose like a thorn on the side of this earth. It wrapped around the garden, making the roses and crabapple trees a centerpiece of the entire palace.

  I royally fucking hated it.

  “Look at me, Nicholas. Look at me and tell me you don’t want this anymore. Us.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t be in this relationship any longer.” I said it again, meaning it as much as the first time I’d said it.

  “So you’re not joking. This isn’t some kind of prank.”

  “I’m not joking. I can’t continue this… this…” I said the first word that came to my mouth. “Facade.”

  She arched her eyebrow as though it were a bow ready to be notched with a lethal arrow.

  “A facade? You call what we had a facade?”

  “Sí.”

  I said it matter-of-factly. Not because I felt it was that simple—nothing ever really was that simple. I only said it in the way I did so that the point would be hammered home. She had to hear it. Cristella didn’t do well when I beat around the bush. She always had a way of making me second-guess myself, and the more time I allowed her to do that, the more I risked backing down.

  And that was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt like I’d already tiptoed off the cliff’s edge and was now free-falling through the air.

  Exhilarating.

  And there was no turning back.

  “Okay.” Her head started to shake back and forth. A small movement. And then the tears started to flow.

  My heart cracked. I knew this would be painful as much as I knew it had to be done, but that didn’t ease any of the guilt I felt at seeing her hurt. We had already talked about marriage, kids, a castle, crowns. The entire shebang. She must have been watching that all sink to the bottom of the sea, all her dreams slowly bubbling under the previously serene waters, now raging and tormenting.

  “Oh, Crist—”

  “Don’t do that.” She covered her mouth, stifling a cry. Before I could say another word, she turned to the door and bolted. I got off the bed, not bothering to put on anything over my black boxers, and ran after her.

  Crossing the threshold of my bedroom was like crossing a portal into a fantasy land. An entirely different world awaited outside of the doorway. Where my bedroom was simple and elegant, the grand hallway I was now running through felt extravagant and
overly pompous. The ceiling was arched and elevated, with gold filigree running throughout it, playing with the sunlight that bounced off the always polished white marble floors. There were enormous oil paintings hung up on either side of the hall, blurring past me as I ran, bare feet cold against the smooth floor. Holiday decorations had already been placed, leaving this moment all the more steeped in irony as I chased my crying ex-girlfriend past a row of silver and gold candy canes, directly underneath dangling mistletoes that appeared more like the blades of a guillotine than a Christmas decoration.

  “Cristella!”

  She turned into a bathroom and slammed the door shut, clicking the heavy lock into place just as I stopped myself from running past it, carried by momentum.

  I tried calling her name for a couple more minutes before I heard the click of heels coming from around the corner. I looked down and realized just how close to naked I was. Behind me, an arching window looked out over a small courtyard, devoid of anyone. Still, it wouldn’t be long before those heels clicked their way around the corner.

  I cursed under my breath and turned on my feet, speed walking down the hallway back toward my bedroom. There was nothing else I could do. I had broken poor Cristella’s heart while trying to mend my own. Only time would tell if either of us would ever heal.

  “Nicholas?”

  I froze, shutting my eyes and wishing I could just vanish in a puff of smoke. Then I turned, facing my mother. She stood next to the window, the sun shining down on her and causing the sapphire necklace she wore to glow as endlessly blue as the sea itself. It popped against her pale skin, highlighted even more by the black dress she wore, cut just above the ankle and trimmed in silver lace with inlaid pearls.