A Royal Christmas Cruise: Stonewall Investigations Miami Read online

  And those obliques. Holy motherfucking shit. The V-muscles that pointed down at those banana briefs like they were advertising a hot sale were sculpted out of fucking marble.

  Coño. This guy is everything.

  Then our eyes met, and the guy who looked like everything suddenly felt like everything, too. It was difficult to explain, and even more difficult to believe. But in just that one fleeting glance, I felt like an entire world of questions had been answered for me. Like I was staring at the key holder to a long-locked part of me.

  And then he disappeared, pulling on his shorts and hurrying to the bathroom, leaving me behind, shell-shocked at what had just happened. I hadn’t realized the line had started to move again until someone tapped me on my shoulder and pointed.

  “Are you okay?”

  The finger belonged to Luna. She wore a wide-brimmed tourist hat and tortoise-patterned sunglasses that seemed one size too big for her face. She normally kept a farther distance from me when I requested it, but the loud situation involving my dream man must have drawn her over. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could tell just by her body position that she was ready to react. She had a hand underneath her oversized button-up teal shirt dotted with multicolored flowers, no doubt over her concealed pistol.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  She looked around me, at the officers who were fixing up the private screening area. “Bueno.” She nodded and took her hand out from her shirt. “I’m not a fan of being the only one on security detail here, just for the record, Nick.”

  “I know. Thank you, Luna. I appreciate it.” And I did. It had taken a shit ton of convincing to allow this trip to happen, and a lot of precautions taken before hand. “I just wanted to keep this trip as quiet as possible. I’ve been dealing with enough back home. I really didn’t want to bring an entire troop of guards and have everyone wonder who the hell I was.”

  “Just don’t go doing anything crazy. Always keep me in mind. I know you can get carried away sometimes.”

  “Me? Ridiculous,” I said as I was actively being carried away on thoughts of where that sexy banana boy had gone.

  Luna went back to her spot in line as I moved up, reaching the security checkpoint. I walked through and into the waiting area before boarding the ship. It felt like a large, modern warehouse, with glass ceilings that showered the space in bright light. There were food stands and supply shops against the wall, along with an abundance of sleek white tables and chairs. A thick palm tree grew in the center of the room, surrounded by benches, a few trickling water fountains set throughout.

  I wasn’t paying attention to any of it. Sure, it registered in the back of my head, but my focus was on finding banana boy, even if it was just for me to steal an extra glance. We were going to be on the same ship for the next twenty-one days, so I figured we would have to bump into each other at some point.

  I looked around, walking through the thick crowd, growing as more people filed in through security. Kids were happily running around, some playing tag, others finding spots to sit where they could play games with their friends, cousins, siblings. The energy was high as the space filled with the constant din of excited conversations. People were taking selfies galore, and thankfully, none of them were asking to take one with me.

  Just ahead of me was a bookstore: Port Pages. Above the wood-framed door was a neon blue, red, and white sign depicting a toy boat jumping into an open book, the name of the bookstore flashing above it. I shrugged, thinking if I couldn’t find that sexy banana-briefed guy, then I could at least find a good book to get lost in. Reading a page-turning mystery while working on my holiday tan sounded like a fun way to spend an afternoon or three.

  Inside, the bookstore felt much cozier than the grand and airy waiting area. Instead of glass and steel, wooden shelves and tucked-away nooks dominated the aesthetic. I almost didn’t even recognize the checkout counter, which was between two tall stacks of thick, leather-bound books. It smelled just like the library back in the palace, a place I’d enjoy getting lost in for hours on end, especially as a kid, when my attention span didn’t feel like it was as brittle as a burnt tree, ready to snap if I strained it for longer than five minutes.

  I walked through the aisles, my suitcase rolling along beside me. I let go of the handle and reached for a book that caught my interest, its cover depicting a silky blue backdrop with an elaborate dagger tucked in the center.

  That’s when I spotted him. Banana boy. He was idly walking through the center aisle, his head slowly nodding as he read the different spines, most likely trying to decide which one he’d pick up. For some reason, I had an urge to peek into his thoughts, figure out what he liked to read, what he wanted to spend hours curled up with. Did he enjoy hard-boiled mysteries, or was he more of a romantic-comedy kind of guy? Did he like reading fantasy adventures or sci-fi rides through the final frontier? He turned into a section that blocked him from view.

  I followed. It felt like some kind of primal pull, like there had been an invisible rope tied to the both of our waists.

  The aisle he walked into was a dead end. He focused on a book with a hot-pink spine. He reached for it when I said, “Hey there, banana boy.”

  He turned on his heels, eyes opened wide in surprise. “Oh, uh, hey, hi.”

  It appeared as if I lit a match underneath his cheeks with how red they turned. “Nice show you gave earlier.”

  “You’re lucky,” he said, finding his footing. “Usually it’s way more expensive.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded before chuckling, a nervous sound that I wanted to drink up. We stood between two tall bookshelves that reached up to the ceiling. One wall held more books, their colorful covers facing us, adding a backdrop of rainbow to the man who smiled in technicolor.

  “Just joking. I’ve never charged before,” he said before he added, “I guess there’s always a first time for everything, though.”

  I laughed, the sound in the quiet space surprising me. “There certainly is.” I offered a smile to match banana boy’s as I reached up and flipped my hat, moving the shadows from my face. Tucked away in the back of this bookstore, I felt safe. I knew no one would be taking secret photos or throwing prolonged glances.

  It didn’t seem like banana boy recognized me either, although he did seem a little taken aback when I flipped my hat. I saw a brief crack in his expression before he composed himself.

  “This is my first time on a cruise,” I offered, wanting to keep the conversation going between us two.

  “Really? You’re gonna love it. Soft-serve ice cream at any time of the day really makes any experience worthwhile.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  And to bumping into you.

  “I’m Shiro Brooks, by the way. You can call me Shy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Shy.” His smirk said he was a lot of things but shy. We shook hands, an action that felt much too formal for a man who I already envisioned naked with his legs wrapped tight around me.

  I had to do a quick calculation just then. Did I offer him my real name, potentially handing him a key to figuring out who I really was? Or did I go the alias route, covering as much of my tracks as I could?

  It was a choice that, if wrong, could really fuck up my time on the ship. A time meant for me to figure myself out and find a kind of peace and happiness I’d been missing in my life for a very long time. It should have been easy to lie to this virtual stranger, and yet, for some reason, his bright brown eyes convinced me that he was the most trustworthy human being on this entire planet.

  “Nick,” I said, making a decision I could very much come to regret later. I reasoned with myself that I still didn’t give him my full name, but it didn’t take much of a leap to go from Nick to Nicholas.

  “Nice to meet you, Nick.”

  Our hands were still shaking. Barely shaking, but still connected. Through our palms ran an undeniable current. The hair on the back of my arm rose. I didn’t want to let go
. I wanted to grab his hand and pull him to me. I wondered how he would feel against me, how different he would be compared to Cristella.

  “Do you, um, like to…” Shiro looked around us. “Read?”

  Our hands separated on a laugh. “I do, sí.”

  “Are you from Miami?” Shiro must have picked up on my accent. Another clue I inadvertently dropped for him.

  “No, I’m not.” More calculations in my head. I was always a bit of a risk-taker, and so the numbers landed on the “why not” side. “I’m from Spain.”

  “Ohhh, a Spaniard.” Shiro looked me up and down. I did the same with him, taking a moment to actually admire him. The way he stood, with his legs slightly apart and his hands at ease by his sides. How he looked in his pressed khaki shorts, cut an inch above the knee, and how his thighs pressed against the hem. His shirt hugged him tight, too, showing off some of the curvature from the muscles underneath. He was a little shorter than me but still taller than average, with a build that made it clear he stayed fit.

  “And where are you from?” I asked, trying hard not to stare openly at his lips.

  “Born in Osaka, Japan, before my mom moved to be with my father. He’s American—they met when he was teaching English over there. We moved to Miami when I was around two.”

  “I love the time I’ve spent in Japan. Haven’t gotten to go to Osaka but I had a blast in Tokyo and Kyoto.”

  “Ohh, Kyoto is beautiful, isn’t it? The Buddhist temples are something else.”

  “They sure are,” I said. “Do you go back to Osaka often?”

  “We try to go back once every two years or so.” He cocked his head, smiling at me in a way I couldn’t quite read. His eyes bounced from mine to my lips. “And you?” he asked, “What brought you all the way from Spain? Is this holiday cruise really that popular?”

  I laughed, toying with the cap on my head. No one had walked past our little nook, making this moment feel all the more private. There weren’t even any voices around us. I wondered if people were already beginning to board.

  “I heard there would be five-star entertainment on the ship. Something about an extremely attractive man in tiny and slightly see-through banana underwear.”

  “Okay, they weren’t tiny.” Shiro cocked his head, his lips pursed into a tight smile. “That tiny. And maybe they were slightly see-through.”

  “Let’s just say, I could tell your banana doesn’t have the peel on it.”

  Shiro’s eyes opened wide, his cheeks turning rose-petal red.

  “Joking,” I said, wondering if I’d gone too far. What had pushed me to go that far? We’d only just met and I was already making dick jokes…

  “Well, your joke isn’t exactly far from the truth.” Although Shiro’s cheeks still blushed, his stance and his gaze radiated confidence. He crossed his arms, his chest muscles perking up, his biceps looking larger, too. He licked his lips. I wondered if it was subconscious or calculated. If he knew how crazy he was beginning to drive me. “Did you enjoy the preboarding show? Are you leaving me five Yelp stars?”

  “I was considering it, but I felt like it ended too soon. May drop it down to four.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I could have watched for hours. I only got barely a minute.”

  “Well…” Shiro moved closer to me. My heartbeat began to thrum louder and faster. I wondered if he could hear it in the encapsulating silence of the bookstore. “Maybe I can do something to bump up that review. Five stars.”

  “For?”

  “For this.”

  He had read me, as if he had picked me up from one of the surrounding shelves and flipped through my pages. He knew I wanted him, as badly as he seemed to want me. No more wasting time. I couldn’t explain it if I tried, but on the same token, I felt like I didn’t have to. My entire life had been centered around me explaining myself. Having to answer to everyone else’s expectations, never considering my own. Never taking into account what I really wanted, for fear I’d upset everyone else around me. That ended with my empty relationship. I was done with wasting time. That’s what this trip was about: living my life the way I wanted to. I made that choice on the morning I had walked home from Hightower Bridge.

  And right now, I wanted to make out with the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on in the seclusion of an empty bookstore.

  His lips grazed mine, tentative at first, his hand coming up to my head, mine to the back of his neck. Our heads moved to a silent beat, finding the rhythm we could both dance to. He tasted like a candy cane, minty and fresh. I wanted more of it. More of him.

  My tongue licked at his lips, fanning the flames that consumed me from my toes to my scalp. He parted for me, allowing me in, giving me more of his taste, more of him. I took it, probing him with my tongue, his other hand moving from my hip to my ass. I felt a shock run through me as he squeezed, pushing me onto him. A moan rose from me, uncontrolled, one he greedily swallowed.

  The kiss exploded, faster and more passionate than anything I’d felt before. It hit out of nowhere, like a bolt of pure lightning striking from a cloudless and sapphire-blue sky.

  But before we could get carried away and start a fire with all this kindle around us, I knew that I had to stop. This had been beyond risky. This bordered on insane. Sure, I could live life on the edge, but this was us plummeting off the edge. If anyone got a photo of this, I would… fuck. I don’t even know what would happen.

  When we broke apart, our lips still shiny from the kiss, I looked past Shiro, hoping against all hope that there wasn’t someone at the end of the aisle with their camera phone aimed at us, reeling in a story that was bound to sell for thousands.

  There was no one with a camera, thankfully. In that moment ,though, someone did cross the aisle, staring directly at me for a brief second before flitting away.

  Luna. She had kept her distance from me like I asked, but of course she didn’t like having her eyes off me for very long.

  Damn it. Did she see the kiss, too?

  “You okay?” Shiro asked me, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You look like you were looking for something. I was scared it was for an escape route.”

  I laughed at that, sucking on my lower lip, as if that would give me the taste my body now craved. “Definitely not,” I assured him.

  “Okay, good. Because running was the last thing on my mind after that kiss.”

  “What was the first thing?”

  Shiro’s lips quirked. “When round two would be.”

  That cocky, banana-brief-wearing fucker. Already assuming round two was a sure thing.

  “Now,” I answered him, pulling him by his hips into my body, my lips finding his again, only then being filled with the taste I was beginning to crave. Starting to need. His tongue pressed against my lips, parting them open, him feeling just as needy as me. I could feel his hard body push against mine. I took a step backward, stumbling, my back hitting the shelves. Nothing fell, so we continued, an endless reservoir of untapped passion fueling this out-of-control wildfire.

  And then I remembered we were in public. As hard as it was (and trust me, it was fucking hard), I separated from Shiro’s lips, the both of us breathless. We looked into each other’s eyes then and shared something unspoken but powerful all the same.

  This had been a collision course set in motion from the moment I spotted him standing at the security line. We had crossed time spans in the blink of an eye, in the taste of a kiss.

  Shiro was no longer a stranger, even though that’s all he was five minutes ago.

  “Wow,” he said. He ran a thumb across his lip, some of the gloss from our kiss wiping off.

  He looked up at me, inquisitive eyes pinning me in place. I could almost see the gears turning behind them. It appeared as if he’d been hit with some kind of idea, the way his eyes narrowed and how he chewed on the inside of his lip.

  It was my turn to ask, “Are you okay?”

  “Better
than okay,” he said, laughing, gears still spinning. “All right, so this is a really nuts idea. Like, batshit, off-the-wall kind of crazy, but follow along with me.”

  I knit my brows together. “Are you about to rob me or something?”

  “No, no. I’m about to potentially make a huge fool of myself is what I’m about to do. But it could… I don’t know, it could make this Christmas one for the books.” Shiro motioned around us. “Get it?”

  “Mhmm,” I said, laughing. “I do.”

  “Ok, because if you didn’t then I’d be worried.”

  “I would be too.” More laughing. There was a pink blush that seemed to spread from his cheeks. He had me intrigued. I couldn’t imagine him doing anything that would make me think him a fool. Shiro squeezed his hands together as if he were drying a rag above a sink. “But, I don’t know, that kiss, it… shit, I think it got me drunk or something. So, okay, this cruise, it’s a kind of reunion for me and my friends. We booked it months ago, and we haven’t seen each other in years, so it’s kind of a big moment…”

  The nervous smile on his face grew. He looked almost bashful to me, his butterfly lashes flicking up and down. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I didn’t mind following Shiro to wherever he led me.

  4 Shiro Brooks

  One for the books? Jesus, I couldn’t think of anything better?

  And still, I was allowing the word vomit to continue: “We’re all meeting up for this cruise and… well, everyone’s paired up. I’m the only one showing up single.”

  Seriously. Pump the brakes on this out-of-control sleigh ride.

  “And so…”

  This was my chance. I could just say forget it, thank you for the kiss, and I hope to bump into you again sometime.

  Instead, I spit out: “So you should be my fake boyfriend. For the cruise. Just, you know, for fun.”

  Nick’s face went blank. As if he had trouble hearing what I was proposing, even though you could hear a damn pin drop and do the cha-cha across the floor with how quiet this bookstore was.