A Royal Christmas Cruise: Stonewall Investigations Miami Page 11

  We laughed over Nick’s childhood fear of the movie Jumanji and how he was scared a stampede would burst through his home library at any second.

  “The fact that you even have a home library is still crazy to me,” I said. “Which, duh, you grew up in a palace.” It would hit me out of nowhere. How I was hanging out and quickly falling for the prince of freaking Spain.

  And yes. I was falling. Really damn hard.

  This “fake” friendship turned real had exploded as quickly as a wildfire driven by strong, hot winds. Like a hurricane on fire. Over the past few days, I had found more in common between me and Nick than I felt like I ever had between me and Mason. And this was even taking into consideration the fact that Nicholas was a certified prince next in line for the throne. As opposite as you could get from my life as an immigrant and my career as a detective. The only throne that had been waiting for me was the driver’s seat with the scratched-up black leather inside the beat-up and sunburnt Honda Civic my dad had given me for my eighteenth birthday.

  And still, I felt completely comfortable around Nick, and I loved spending every single second I could around him. It helped that he got along really well with my friends, too. We even came clean about Nick’s real name, although we held back his last name when Ace asked randomly.

  So a lot of the time it was all of us hanging out and exploring. But when it was just me and Nick … that was when the fireworks went off at a constant rate.

  And trust me, I tried to find as much time as I could to just make it me and Nick. It helped that I had been sleeping over in his penthouse suite every night, where we’d stay up for way too long, either playing with each other or just talking, naked, lying on top of the covers and eating room service brought up by a butler.

  I was excited about today’s excursion, especially since it was another day of just Nick and me. It was Christmas Eve, and the cheer of the season practically sparkled in the air. We walked into the market together. It was a perfectly romantic setup and one I wanted to stroll through hand in hand with Nick.

  Not that we were even anything official, where I could expect hand-holding status. And yet all I wanted to do was reach out and grab him by the hand as we walked past the arch of lights marking the entrance to the market, two Christmas palm trees bordering either side of it.

  I couldn’t, though. I had to keep acting as if we were simply friends, hanging out on a cruise together.

  You know, just two cruising bros, cruising the seas together, broing it out.

  Two bros, jerking each other off and licking the come off each other’s abs.

  Just bro stuff.

  It didn’t help that I still hadn’t made much progress on who the stowaway paparazzo was. I found it interesting that none of the photos of me covered in cake and Nick helping me had made it to the tabloids. It made me think that maybe the man, who I seemed to have scared away, just wasn’t around to take the photos. I hadn’t seen him anywhere since the incident at the ugly-sweater party. I had made sure to keep an eagle eye out for him everywhere we went but didn’t spot him anywhere. I even did a couple of laps around the entire ship, which took me hours, with the sole purpose of finding him, but he had somehow remained out of sight. When we stopped at Grand Cayman for two days, I wondered if maybe he had gotten off, decided to just fly home from the island. Maybe he felt like his gig was up and he’d rather spend his holidays with family instead of stalking the prince. It was a long shot and one I highly doubted, but until I spotted him again, I had to think of possible alternatives.

  There was also the chance that this man had nothing to do with the leaked photos. Maybe I needed to be looking closer. At someone who had full access to Nick, and worked as a shadow alongside him.

  Luna. I felt like Nick genuinely trusted her, but that didn’t mean she was off my list. As a detective, I had to follow my own instincts, not anyone else’s. I learned that very quickly after my first few cases at Stonewall. It’s why I had spent about half an hour asking her questions out on the deck, and she had answered all of them just fine.

  “And you’re sure no one followed you from the palace?” I remembered asking her, noticing that her eyes barely ever left Nick, who had sat by the bar and was chatting with Ace and Rex.

  “There’s always a small possibility, but, honestly, I don’t think any paparazzo is that determined or skilled.”

  “Have you noticed anyone on the ship who might have recognized Nick?”

  She thought on that one. “No, Nick’s surprisingly been able to keep a low profile. Even with his infatuation with you.”

  “Infatu… me… you think, I mean, you’ve noticed?”

  “It’s my job to notice every little thing that goes on around Nick.” She had given me a playful wink. “It’ll be my secret of course.”

  The talk soon got derailed. After meeting her, I came away understanding why Nick trusted her.

  The paparazzo’s identity remained a mystery.

  For now, though, it was just me and Nick (and Luna somewhere off in the distance), currently walking through the bright and festive outdoor market on St. John’s Island, celebrating with a Christmas festival that took over the entire island. The crowd wasn’t very dense, so I could easily tell that no one was paying any extra attention to us. It was the evening, so the sun was midway down the horizon, the sky painted in bold purples and warm pinks. There were Christmas lights strung up everywhere you looked, wrapping up the lengths of the palm trees, hanging off the market stalls and creating a blast of holiday light everywhere you looked.

  “Check this out,” Nick said, motioning over to a large stall selling an assortment of necklaces, all different colors and styles laid out on open shelves, on top of red pillows. “I think one of these would look good on you.” He picked up a beaded necklace made from black-and-white beads, glittering like little gemstones. He held against my neck. The merchant smiled and agreed with Nick, saying it would look great with a matching pair.

  “You think so?” Nick asked.

  “Oh yes.” She grabbed a green-and-white necklace from the display and held it up to Nick. “No, hold on.” She set that one back down and grabbed a navy blue and white necklace. She held that one and looked between me and Nick.

  “Now you two look like good boyfriends.”

  My face almost cracked in surprise, but I somehow managed to keep my expression neutral. Nick’s cheeks turned a rosy red, which I actually found quite fucking adorable. He stumbled on his words before saying, “We’ll take them.”

  She rolled up our necklaces as she hummed a happy tune. We walked away from the stall with the two necklaces, leaving her with a hundred dollars, eighty of that being left as a gift by Nick. She had nearly been brought to tears by the generous gift, shouting gratefully to us as we left, “Merry Christmas!”

  “That was really kind of you,” I said, admiring the necklaces before I turned my gaze to Nick so I could admire the prince at my side. Even though the sun was almost gone, he still wore a cap low on his head. I could still make out his eyes, though, like two lighthouses I had memorized the route to over the past few days. I could always find his eyes.

  “The necklaces were just that good.”

  “Mhmm.”

  I could tell he was bullshitting. He looked at me with a twinkle underneath the shadow of his cap. He hadn’t given her that money because of the necklaces. He’d given it to her because he wanted to.

  “Well, I’m sure she’s going to have a great Christmas.”

  “How were your holidays? As a kid?”

  I wasn’t surprised by the question. Nick had asked me a ton of questions over the past couple of days, and I’d done the same with him. Our curiosity for each other was endless. Like Newton searching for the laws of gravity.

  “They were great. I loved Christmas. My parents would do the whole ‘cookies and carrot’ thing the night before, and I freaking loved waking up to an empty plate and an empty glass of milk. Don’t get me wrong, the gifts were
great, too, but something about the cookies, milk, and carrot being gone made everything magical. I loved it. Every year. Then after I found my gifts stuffed inside my mom’s closet one holiday and realized Santa wasn’t real, I still left out the plate of treats. And still, they disappeared. By the time I was a teen, we joked that I was just aiding in my dad’s weight problem, but they still ate the cookies and carrot and drank the milk.”

  Nick, smiling, narrowed his eyes. “Carrot?”

  “That’s what you got from the story?”

  “No, of course not.”

  I laughed, playfully slapping Nick’s chest, catching myself too late. I momentarily freaked and scanned the crowd, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to us.

  “The carrot was for the reindeer,” I said.

  “One carrot for all twelve reindeer? Wow. I’m calling PETA.”

  I chuckled at that. “And how about you? Anything I could call PETA about?”

  “Absolutely not.” Nick held his chin. “I left a trough of organically sourced meal for all twelve of the reindeer along with a five-star course for Santa and a separate buffet for the elves.”

  “Of course you would,” I said, laughing, taking in the cool ocean breeze, feeling like I was on top of the world. I wore a pair of khaki shorts and a light-gray button-down shirt, short-sleeved. Normally, my parents rented out a cabin in Tennessee and had us spend Christmas there, so I was used to being bundled up and sitting by a crackling fire. But this variation of the holidays felt equally enchanting.

  “The holidays were a fun time,” Nick said as we continued our leisurely stroll, walking past a stand of colorful soap bars and balls that smelled great. “The palace is always decked out, and there are a lot of fun events through the month. It does get tiring by the end of it, though. Especially lately. It’s why I knew I had to get out of there this Christmas. I couldn’t sit around a table, having dinner with my parents and the prime minister, acting like everything was completely fine and dandy. The idea made my skin crawl.”

  “I take it you aren’t regretting your choice?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Nick said, shooting me a smile that lit up my entire world, from north to south pole. “How about you? Are you regretting our fake-friendship agreement?”

  “Oh yeah, duh. I hate this.” I motioned him up and down. “Hanging out with you? It’s literally the worst thing under the sun. Next to having sex with Chris Evans or winning a gajillion dollars.”

  “Those all sound like wonderful things.”

  I cocked a brow. “Huh. They do, don’t they?”

  Nick laughed and I drank in the sound.

  “I definitely don’t regret it,” I said, being more serious. “I was nervous about coming on this trip. I thought I’d be an awkward seventh wheel, always being reminded that my relationship crashed and burned. I thought I’d be miserable. But I haven’t. I’ve been having the best time of my life, and I don’t miss my ex at all. I feel like I’ve found peace in the breakup. It’s a really great Christmas gift.”

  “Good, I’m glad you’ve found your peace. I’m slowly but surely finding my own.”

  He did something then that surprised the gay glittering crap out of me. He put an arm around me, not even around my shoulder but around my waist, and he pulled me into his side. He gave me a quick but searing kiss on the side of my head before letting me go.

  It felt like a magnitude eight earthquake had finished rocking through me. I half expected to blink and then reopen my eyes to a devastated market, everyone knocked to their feet by the force of the emotion that exploded inside me.

  We both continued walking through the market nonchalantly, as if something didn’t shift between us, something with the power of two tectonic plates tearing the world apart.

  “Oh, check out these books,” Nick said, drifting over to a book stall. I followed him in, making a futile attempt to look at the books and not at the handsome prince who had swept me off my feet. As I was trying not to stare at Nick, I spotted someone else across the way. A bald man wearing a red shirt and standing against a tall brick wall, his attention turned toward us before flicking away. He held a phone in his hand and appeared to be hurrying away.

  “Nick, wait here,” I said, deciding I wasn’t going to lose this guy again. I wanted to ask him a few questions, and I was determined to do just that.

  13 Nicholas Silva

  I thumbed through a bin of old books, checking out the stained spines, reading the different titles but not registering any of them. All I could really think about was the kiss I had planted on Shy’s head. A moment when “fuck it” energy had overtaken me. I had been overwhelmed with how good I felt, walking through the market with Shy by my side. It had felt so fucking right, I had to express it. I couldn’t keep the happiness to myself, and so I shared it with a spontaneous kiss.

  I hadn’t even scanned the crowd for any cameras or prying eyes. It had been that strong of a push. Would I regret it? Maybe in the future, but right then and there, I didn’t. As I mindlessly looked through the books, I found myself smiling.

  It had been a common occurrence now that I’d been hanging out with Shy. I’d wake up with a smile, something that never happened to me before. I hated the mornings and never thought I’d be one of those people who woke up with birds chirping by their heads and a smile that looked as if they’d found a glittering pot of gold.

  Maybe it was because I felt like I’d been waking up next to my own personal pot of gold. Shiro had been sleeping over, and every morning, I’d find his warm back pressed against my chest, our bodies curled together, our legs entwined. It was a feeling I couldn’t quite describe. One I’d been searching for my entire life.

  Who would have thought that I would have felt more at home, floating through the Atlantic Ocean, with Shiro in my arms than I would have felt with any of my ex-girlfriends back at the palace?

  I looked over to Shiro, wanting to admire him some more. I loved watching him, both from close and from afar. I liked memorizing the way he walked, with his hands relaxed and his butt perked out. He had a bubble butt I loved to play with. It had quickly become a favorite pastime of mine. I loved giving him a slap and watching it jiggle, or rubbing myself against him, feeling those globes of muscle press onto me. I had wanted to get between those cheeks and feel myself sinking into him on multiple occasions, but I held back each time.

  “No, you listen to me.”

  The angry words came from the man Shiro was talking to. I instantly went on guard, sensing the tension that rolled off the pair. I could almost see the anger in the man’s face, radiating off his bald head like heat off a strip of sun-battered pavement.

  I moved closer to them. I didn’t recognize the man, but it seemed like Shiro did. Was he the one taking our photos? Had Shy solved it?

  “I just wanted to ask a few questions, that’s all,” Shiro said, his hands up in an attempt to defuse the situation.

  “For what? Are you accusing me of something? Fuck that, I’m just having a good time on my vacation. I already showed you my phone. Fuck you.”

  The man stepped forward, getting into Shy’s face.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked, walking into the lion’s den.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Shy said, putting a hand out between me and the red cherry of a man. It didn’t help that his bloodred shirt matched the shade that was consuming his entire face. “I was just leaving.”

  “Oh, so now you want to leave? Who’s this? Your partner? You two cops?”

  Getting this close allowed me to smell the alcohol fumes wafting from between the man’s chapped lips. He was ten times too trashed. I looked around, wondering if anyone could claim this buffoon.

  “All right, forget it. You can’t even send a text, much less a paparazzi photo.” Shiro turned, nudging me with his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Shiro had made a terrible mistake. By turning his back on the drunk asshole, he gave the man an opening. I saw it happening in slo
w motion. The man reached out with his grubby hands and grabbed Shy’s collar, bunching it up in his fist. He pulled him backward and had another fist ready to crush into Shy’s lower back. I burst into action, lurching forward to grab at the man’s arm. Shouts erupted around us.

  The man’s punch never landed. As Shiro got pulled back, he did something pretty extraordinary. He used the momentum to jump upward, using a solid brick wall as purchase for his feet. He seemed like Spider-Man, climbing up the wall and jumping over the drunk man, landing gracefully behind him. He grabbed the man in a headlock, the dude’s eyes bulging out of his skull from the shock mixed with the alcohol. He must not have known which way was up.

  “Whoa, whoa!” It was Luna, my protective shadow. She had come running, her colorful floral button-up lifted over her concealed weapon, her hands on the gun, ready to take it out. “What’s going on here?”

  “We were just leaving,” Shiro said, throwing the man down onto the ground. He stayed there as we walked away, heading through the market, which now had every eye turned toward us, Luna close behind us.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked as we exited the market, walking toward the lit-up ship. “Who was that?”

  “Sorry, I thought he was the one who’d been taking the photos. I’ve spotted him around… at least I’m pretty sure I have. And I thought I saw his flash go off. I went over to ask him where he was from and why he was so interested in us. I didn’t expect him to go from one to a hundred out of nowhere.”

  “He was trashed. He’s probably been looking for a fight, and you gave it to him.”

  I looked over my shoulder, checking to make sure we’d left the guy in the market. I saw Luna walking behind us, her shirt hiding the gun. She was watching us but talking to someone next to her. I realize then it was her mom, whose pencil-thin eyebrows were scrunched together in worry. She threw a glance at me and subtly waved. I had a feeling she wasn’t sure who knew what, so she kept her recognition of me to herself. I shot a smile back before turning my attention back to Shy.