With Every Breath (Sea Swept #2) (5 page)

“This is Yasmin, she just started today,” she says. Everyone choruses hellos, and starts introducing themselves. I know Charlie and Paolo from the photo team, but the rest … It’s name soup, and though I try desperately to remember, I’m just going to have to ask Camelia who’s who later.

Someone taps my shoulder.
 

“So you survived your first day, sorority girl,” I hear as I turn around.
 

“Elise!” I say happily, grinning at the willowy blonde. She’s the person who helped me get this job. I’ve only met her in person once, six months ago on my NYE cruise, but we’ve been emailing for the last several months, so I feel like we’re fast friends already. I hug her as if we haven’t seen each other for years.
 

“Welcome aboard,” she says, hugging me back.

An hour or two goes by. Everyone takes turns buying rounds of drinks, and when I take my turn I’m thrilled to find out that with beers for a dollar and rail drinks for only twice that, buying fifteen drinks at the crew bar costs less than three mojitos back home. Around 11pm, the music gets louder, a blend of Europop and dance hits, and the tables near the center are pushed back to make a dance floor. Pleasantly buzzed, I join the crowd for a while, despite my sore feet.
 

It hits me that I’m in the middle of the ocean, making friends with people from a dozen or more countries. As I jump and sway to music I’ve mostly never heard before, I can’t help but think that Sofia would have loved to be here.
 

Pain rips at me like a shark bite. Out of habit I start to push it away, but then I pause. The whole point of being here is to start facing things, right?
 

Quitting the dance floor, I grab another insanely cheap beer and walk through the glass doors at the end of the bar and onto the darkened open deck. It’s cooler out here, and quieter, though even with the doors closed I can hear the party within. There are no lights anywhere, but the stars cast enough of a glow to see once my eyes adjust. The smell of smoke dissipates, and I take a deep breath of clean Caribbean air.

Such a simple thing, breathing, but I don’t take it for granted anymore. With every breath I’m reminded that I’m alive … and that Sofia’s gone. I blink away sudden tears.

Now I know where I am on the ship: the very front. The bow comes to a point ahead of me, the rails gleaming white in the darkness. Several chairs and loungers are scattered across the open space. There are a few small clusters of people talking, but I make for an open space at the railing next to two guys chatting to each other, both of them facing the sea.
 

Just as I reach them, they turn, one of them heading inside. The other guy, I realize, is West. He spots me, and I pause. I came out here to be alone, but it’d be rude to ignore him, so I say hi.

“Hey,” he says. He’s holding a glass of something clear and fizzy, and has changed from his uniform to a dove gray T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans. Leaning with one elbow on the railing, he looks relaxed, and his dark hair moves in the night breeze. His gaze dips down to my short skirt, and my pulse kicks up a notch.

I think he might comment on my stilettos, which are even less practical than my wedges, but instead West nods at my beer.
 

“Word of advice for a newbie: don’t get too drunk.”

“What are you, the fun police?” I say before I can think better of it. Off hours or not, he’s my boss. I expect him to rebuke me for sassing him, but instead his mouth curves with a wryness that makes me wonder if he’s only a jerk when we’re at work. One can only hope.
 

“Crew parties rage every night,” he says, “and they go on until three in the morning sometimes. It’s easy to go overboard. Trust me, I know.”

I glance over the railing.
 

“I hope you mean that metaphorically,” I say, and West laughs, sending warmth pooling through me before I shoo the feeling away.
No distractions.
 

“Yeah. But you still have to be at work bright and early.” He sips his drink, and I hate how sexy he looks when he does that. I tear my gaze away from his mouth.

“What happens if people are late, passengers don’t get pictures of them eating breakfast?” I make my eyes go wide in mock horror, but West gives me what I’m starting to think of as his Boss Look, hard and grim.

“If you’re late, you get fired.”

“Wow,” I say. “You
are
the fun police.”

Does the corner of West’s mouth twitch? “Just trying to help out the new girl.”

“Sure.” A silence falls, and to fill it I ask, “Why is it so dark out here?”

West points at the deck above the crew bar.

“Because up there is the bridge. The captain needs to be able to see ahead of us, and he can’t do that if this deck is lit. That’s why it’s only for crew—if a passenger hurt himself out here, he’d sue the hell out of the company.”

Whereas the crew signed waivers. Well, it’s still awesome that we get to stand at the very front tip of the boat, staring out into the open sea. The stars above us are crisp and clear, probably clearer from this darkened deck than anywhere else on the ship.

My brain swimming with beer and mojitos, I cast about for more small-talk, and end up saying the first thing that pops into my head.
 

“What kind of a name is West? Do you have siblings named North and South?” It’s a lame joke he’s probably heard before, but West actually cracks a small smile.
 

“It’s short for Westley.”

“Not Wesley? Your parents felt you needed an extra T in there?” I tease.
 

“My mom was an artist. She was a little eccentric.”

“Really? A friend of mine is really into modern art,” I say, thinking of my sorority sister Georgia. “Is that what your mom does?”
 

West shakes his head. “Watercolors, mostly. More impressionist stuff.”

“Does she have a website?”

West hesitates. “She’s dead,” he says flatly.

My tipsy brain catches up to the conversation, realizing he’d said his mom
was
an artist. Abruptly, I sober.
 

“I’m really sorry,” I say, thinking, of course, about Sofia.
 

“Yeah.”

West turns to stare out to sea, leaning his arms on the top bar of the railing, and I face the ocean too. Normally when people find out about Sofia, they change the subject or find a way to slip away from an uncomfortable situation. I wonder whether West thinks I’ll do that, but honestly, he’s one of the few people I’ve met my age who’s lost someone.

I take a breath. “When did she …?”

West glances over as if surprised I’m still here, but after a moment answers steadily. “Seven years ago. Car accident.”

“So sudden,” I whisper. West flicks me a glance, but doesn’t respond. My heart hurts for him. At least with Sofia, we knew it was coming. I got a chance to say goodbye.

Tears cloud my eyes, and I try to hide it by sipping my beer. This is why I ran away from my grief my senior year—this pain, this fragile feeling, like I might dissolve in tears at any moment. I wait and get myself under control, because even though West and I got off to a rocky start, I want to ask him so many things. He’s been down this road I’m starting on, and I want to know: does it ever get easier? Will I ever manage to say Sofia’s name aloud without crying? When do the memories stop waking me up at night?

“What was she like?” I finally ask. “Your mom, I mean.”

West turns to me. I can feel his gaze on my face, but I keep mine on my drink. When he speaks, his voice is hard.

“You really give a shit what my dead mom was like?”

I swallow, realizing I’ve overstepped. After all, he barely knows me.

“Talking about lost loved ones is a way to keep them with us,” I say. I’m parroting from a book I read last semester, because I can’t find my own words. When it comes to Sofia, they’re all bottled up, and if I let any out, I know I’ll start crying.

“You sound like a shrink,” West says.

“I was a psych major,” I admit. I try to smile. “I wanted to be a clinical psychologist.”

“So why are you here, on this ship?”

My smile fades. “Life experience, I guess.” It’s a lame answer, and West’s snort tells me what he thinks of it.

“Well, thanks for the interest, but I don’t want to be one of your case studies or whatever.” His shoulders are rigid. “Do me a favor and don’t ask about my mom again.”

My limbs have frozen, one foot propped up on the rails, my hands gripping my beer. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

I want to tell West I wasn’t making a rude attempt to study his grief. I want to tell him I’ve lost someone too, that I’ve seen firsthand how a vivid, laughing person can turn into a rectangle of freshly-packed dirt beneath a cold gray headstone. How I know that open-casket funerals suck, because the body lying on the cushions looks fake and waxy despite the best efforts of the mortician to make them resemble your dearly departed. How no one ever knows what to say, so they wind up whispering dumb things like “She’s in a better place,” and you can’t even bitch-slap them because you know they’re just trying to make you feel better.
 

I want to tell him that. But I’m surrounded by strangers, and West is staring at the ocean, ignoring me; and it’s my first evening on the ship and I don’t want to make a name for myself as the Girl Who Cries.
 

“Sorry,” I mumble, and flee inside.

Chapter 5

West

As Yasmin disappears into the crew bar, I swallow half my drink and curse under my breath. She had tears in her eyes when she left, and the nice guy in me knows I should follow her and apologize. If Mom were alive, she’d ream me out for treating Yasmin—or anyone else—so coldly. But the thing is, my mom is gone and I’ve ignored the nice guy in me for so long that it’s become a reflex to shrug him off.
 

Charlie, the photography team’s resident flirt, emerges onto the Open Deck just as Yasmin vanishes inside. He glances back at her appreciatively before sauntering over to me.
 

“The new girl is pretty hot, huh?” he says.
 

Some of my photographers are a little wary of me since I’m the boss, but not Charlie. And outside of work hours I make a point of not being an ass. Well, I try.

“She’s not bad.” I’m understating. I shouldn’t admit this, especially because I shouldn’t even be noticing, but Yasmin cleans up nice. Damn nice. I’d thought she looked sexy before, even with messy wet hair and wearing the company polo, but with a tousled ponytail and that short skirt paired with another set of her heels, she’s dynamite.

“I mean, she wasn’t much to look at when we first met her at the shop, but I’d totally hit that now.” Charlie gestures inside and grins. “Can I train her up tomorrow?”
 

Something inside me tightens. Charlie goes through women like beers, and has caused his share of drama on the ship. Still, he’s one of the senior photographers, and did a good job of training Paolo, the winner of our sales competition today. I open my mouth to give him the go ahead.

“No, I’m going to train Yasmin,” is what comes out.
 

Charlie looks a little annoyed. “What, are you claiming her for yourself?”

“Of course not. If I were going to date my staff, I’d have given in to Camelia already.” The Romanian beauty has been flirting with me for over a month. A couple weeks ago, we both got hammered and she cornered me on the dance floor, pressing her curves against me and murmuring about going back to my room. She was tempting, but I’ve learned my lesson about shipboard romances, and it’s bad form to date someone I have to order around. So Yasmin has to be off-limits too.

“Have you had anyone since Letta signed off?” Charlie asks with a laugh.

“Nope,” I say.
 

My ex Letta, one of the ship’s pursers—they handle money and personnel issues on board—left a couple months ago. Before that, we’d dated since hooking up a few nights into my contract on board the
Radiant Star
. I’d regretted it pretty quickly—Letta was flexible, worldly, and had a sexy Berlin accent, but she also had a jealous streak. It got so bad that she’d throw a tantrum every time she saw me talking to one of my female staff members. When her contract was nearly up, I told her that I don’t do long distance relationships, and she had to accept it.
 

“I heard she’s coming back on board after her vacation,” Charlie adds. I shake my head.

“Last time I talked to her, her next contract was on the
Midnight Star
.” Thank the lord. I definitely don’t want to start up with Letta and her antics again.
 

“Come on, West. Let me train Yasmin. I’ll train her good.” Charlie waggles his eyebrows in case I didn’t catch his meaning. I sort of want to deck him, and the urge makes me frown. With her nosiness and psych babble about my mom just now, why the hell am I trying to protect Yasmin from Charlie? A gorgeous girl like her surely has the experience to fend off unwanted advances. Hell, maybe they wouldn’t even be unwanted.

“I want you focused on photos, not hitting on Yasmin,” I say anyway. It’s true, after all. “You came up short on your daily roll count last cruise.”
 

Charlie face darkens. “Fun talk, boss,” he says sarcastically, and stalks back inside.
 

I sigh, because I hate being the guy who thinks about numbers and roll counts all the time. Sometimes I wonder if Mom would even recognize me. If she were here, I bet she’d look me in the eye and tell me in that gentle way of hers that I don’t look happy. That I’ve lost sight of what I really want.
 

What
do
I want, though? Besides another drink and to get the hell off this ship into a cushy corporate job as fast as possible, I have no idea. My mom back, I guess. My family made whole, the way it hasn’t been for seven years.

But what’s gone is gone, and there’s no getting it back.
 

Thoroughly depressed now, I mentally rearrange my plans tomorrow. I’d planned to assign Yasmin to one of the others to train, but it actually makes more sense for me to do it. Camelia has already helped out her roommate enough, and the guys would all be too distracted to focus on training. Yasmin will already be deadweight until she learns what to do, and I can get her up to speed faster.