Chapter 7

Eric

 

I woke up before Andrew did, but that wasn’t surprising. The first morning after with a new guy, I was always on edge.

Most guys who I hooked up with were fine. If someone had any issue with me being trans, we’d never get anywhere near the bedroom in the first place. So if I had sex with a guy, he was usually fine afterward.

Once in a while, though…

Some guys were game for anything in the moment, particularly after a drink or two, but they could get weird once they’d gotten off and didn’t need to think with their dick anymore. Suddenly the need for an orgasm was gone, and there was room for their hang-ups to come out and play. Andrew’d had what looked like a strong drink—the bar hadn’t exactly been watering them down last night—and I had no idea what his tolerance was like.

Except he hadn’t seemed drunk. No slurring except when he’d been about to come (Jesus, he’d sounded hot like that). No problem at all keeping an erection all three times. If he’d had any underlying hang-ups about my body, he sure as hell hadn’t let them show. He’d been a little hesitant now and then, but it had never felt like revulsion. Just someone getting used to the topography of someone new.

And when he’d come back to bed after that first round, he’d paused to look me up and down. The scrutiny had made me nervous—being naked in front of someone for the first time would never not be daunting—but he’d seemed to pick up on that quickly. Thinking back, nothing about the way he’d gazed at me had suggested he was put off by me. Just the opposite, in fact. Maybe a little curious, and maybe unaware that looking quite so intently at a naked trans person he’d just met could send messages he hadn’t intended to send, but in those seconds before realizing his faux pas, he’d also looked like he’d wanted to eat me alive. Which might not have been far off the mark, given the way he’d fucked me into the mattress two more times last night.

I shivered, grinning to myself. As he slept beside me now, the Mediterranean sun warming his soft features, I was pretty sure I had nothing to worry about. A handful of bad experiences in the past had left me gun shy, but was Andrew like that? I really didn’t think he was. There were no red flags waving. Not yet, anyway.

Am I just seeing you through rose-colored glasses? Please say no.

Especially since we’d been practically tripping over each other—in one case, literally—since we’d boarded the ship. This could make the rest of the cruise really fucking awkward.

Andrew shifted a bit, then rolled onto his back with a sigh. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, blinked a few times, and turned to me. As soon as our eyes met, a smile spread across his lips. He rolled closer, onto his side, and under the sheet he slid his palm up my waist. “Morning.”

“Morning.” Relief was already rushing through me, and I was tempted to kiss him, but…morning breath. Neither of us needed that. “Sleep all right?”

“Are you kidding?” He grinned. “After that last round, I was out.”

“You’re not the only one, believe me.”

Andrew’s grin broadened into a soft chuckle as he watched his hand slide up my arm. “Good thing you let me stay, too—I’m pretty sure I’d have dropped somewhere between here and my cabin.”

We both laughed, but as his humor faded, he seemed nervous, struggling to hold my gaze.

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I…” He moistened his lips, still not looking at me.

Aw, shit. So much for—

“Is it too soon to suggest doing this again?”

I blinked. “What?”

Andrew studied me shyly. “I know we haven’t even gotten dressed yet, and I don’t want to sound like a clingy weirdo, but last night was fun. I’d…I know we brought it up last night, but that was kind of in the heat of the moment, and the thing is, I really would like to do it again.”

I laughed, both because I was relieved and because he was so damn adorable. “We’re on a cruise.” I curved a hand over his ass. “Not a lot of time to play games with waiting three days to call.”

“True.” He brightened a little, eyebrows rising. “So do you want to do this again?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Good. Me too.” His lips quirked. “After I’ve had a few gallons of coffee, though. I’ve got nothing left right now.”

I laughed. “I know the feeling. Want to go grab breakfast?”

“Definitely. But I…” He frowned, looking around the room. “Oh crap. What time is it, anyway?”

I craned my neck to see the clock beside the pile of condom wrappers. “Almost eight.”

“Shit. I’m supposed to meet up with my folks at nine. We’re going out for another excursion.” He watched his finger trailing down my upper arm. “But I could bail on it if…” He let his raised eyebrows finish the thought.

I grinned. “You’d rather spend the day with me than wandering around Valencia?”

Andrew chuckled. “Valencia sounds amazing, but I’m not gonna lie—I’m pretty intrigued by what might happen if I stay onboard.”

“Well…” I slid my palm up the middle of his chest. “Why don’t you stay onboard, and we’ll see what happens?”

“I like the sound of that.”

 

***

 

Once we’d finally dragged our aching carcasses out of bed, Andrew left to get a shower and a change of clothes and also to let his parents know he’d be bowing out of the day’s excursion.  We’d agreed to meet in an hour at one of the restaurants on the seventh deck, so I took my time showering, shaving, getting dressed, and wandering in that general direction. As much as my hips hurt, taking my time was about the best I could do today; good thing I’d gone for a run yesterday morning, because my legs barely felt like they were attached to my body anymore.

Worth it, I thought with a grin on the way to the seventh deck.

In fact, the sore joints were barely noticeable over the sheer relief of having taken someone to bed. If there was one thing that soothed the sting of a breakup more than any other, it was amazing sex. When Chris and I had split up, part of me had been especially disappointed to see our sex life coming to an end. I could say a lot about the man, but he’d been incredible in the sack, and I’d convinced myself I’d never find someone who could turn me on and get me off like he had.

Sometimes it was good to be wrong.

As I stepped up to the podium in the restaurant, the hostess plucked a menu from the stack and chirped, “Just one this morning?”

I smiled. “Two. He’ll be along in a few minutes.”

“Perfect.” She picked up a second menu and gestured for me to follow her. She seated me at a table for two by a window with a panoramic view of the city Andrew and I would be ignoring today.

The ship was moored quite a ways out from the city proper, much like it had been in Barcelona. A vessel this big just couldn’t squeeze into anything closer, so we were at the far end of a long pier. Buses were lined up outside to take passengers into town, and people were disembarking by the dozen for a day of history, food, and scenery.

I hadn’t left the boat since I’d boarded. I knew I needed to—there was no point in visiting all these places if I wasn’t going to actually visit them—but I’d been too caught up in the “vacation” part of being on vacation. There were still several port calls left, though. And besides, I’d be spending two weeks in Rome after this, so I’d have plenty of time to wander ancient streets, try local food, and explore places I’d never been. Nothing wrong with chilling on the ship for a while in the meantime.

Gibraltar was also coming up soon, and I’d always wanted to visit there, so I’d make sure I left the ship for that one. Malta and Sicily were high on my list too. Since I’d already done Barcelona, I figured I could give myself a pass on some of the Spanish ports. Or maybe I was just lazy and enjoying being lazy. Whatever. I was on vacation.

“Sorry I took so long.” Andrew’s voice made me jump, and I looked up just as he was taking the seat across from me.

I smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Your parents didn’t object?”

“Eh.” He waved a hand. “My mom is kind of annoyed because she’s all excited about this paella restaurant in town, but considering the last time we had paella…” He shuddered.

“Not a fan?”

“Not when it’s got black squid ink in it, no.”

“Oh God.” I wrinkled my nose. “I like paella, but that doesn’t sound appealing at all.”

“It was awful. Trust me.”

“Well, hopefully this place won’t be quite as horrifying.”

Andrew laughed as he opened the menu. “So far, the food on the boat has been good, so I’ve got high hopes.”

We perused our menus, settled on a couple of basic breakfasts, and placed our orders.

After the waitress was gone, I stirred sugar into my coffee and looked across the table at Andrew. “So, what do you do in Des Moines?”

His face fell a bit, and he stared into his own coffee. Shit. Had I struck a nerve?

“We, uh, don’t have to talk about that,” I said quickly. “We’re on vacation and all. No shop talk, right?”

“Something like that.” He sighed and sat back, staring out at Valencia. “To tell you the truth, I’m not really doing anything right now. I left one miserable job for an even more miserable job, and then got laid off from that one a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Eh.” Andrew shrugged, and he met my gaze with a weak smile. “Guess it’s not all bad. Being unemployed is why I got to come on this cruise with my folks.”

“Nice silver lining?”

“You could say that.” The smile brightened a little, but only for a second. “Anyway, before I got laid off, I was co-managing the production department at a textile manufacturer. They mostly did cotton-based thread and yarn that other companies used to make fabrics for clothing.” He waved his hand. “Not the most exciting field and not the greatest work environment, but it paid the bills.” He took a sip of coffee. “So what about you? What do you do?”

“I’m a cyber security consultant.”

His eyebrows jumped. “Wow. That’s almost a tongue twister.”

I chuckled. “This early in the morning, yeah, it kind of is.”

“So, what? Like keeping companies from getting hacked?”

“More or less. Keeping networks secure, preventing data and identity theft…that kind of thing.”

Andrew whistled. “In this day and age, you must be busy as hell.”

“You could say that.” I paused for some coffee. “This is actually my first vacation since we started the firm. I mean, there’ve been a couple of three-day weekends here and there, but it was mostly six-day weeks and fourteen-hour days for a long, long time.”

“Jesus. Sounds like you were long overdue for some time off.”

“Yeah. Now that we finally hired some new staff and delegated some of the workload, we can actually do it. And this was supposed to be…” My coffee turned acidic in my stomach. Fuck. I’d let my mind go there without even realizing it, and now my good mood was threatening to vacate. I cleared my throat. “This was supposed to be my honeymoon.”

Andrew tensed. “Your honeymoon?”

Staring out at the city, I nodded. “Yeah. I busted him cheating, and we called everything off.” I laughed bitterly. “This part was non-refundable, though, so I figured, why not?”

“No point in wasting the tickets, right?” He sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but he was uneasy.

I looked at him again, and my hackles—which I hadn’t even felt go up—went down. I smiled and put a hand over his. “I’m glad I decided not to waste them.”

He smiled back, if a bit nervously. “Yeah. Me too.”

With my free hand, I picked up my coffee cup. “The really fucked up thing is it’s weirder to be away from work than it is to be moving on without him. Guess I should take that as a sign. I’m done with him, but it’s weird, being away from the office this long.”

That seemed to ease relax Andrew a bit. “How long have you been gone?”

“Almost…” I mentally calculated. “A little over two weeks now. I spent a few days in London and a week in Barcelona. After the cruise, I’ve got another two weeks in Italy. Mainly Rome, but I’m sure I’ll wind up going someplace else while I’m there.”

“Wow. Rome.” Andrew sighed. “That’s one place I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Good thing the boat lets off there, right?”’

“Well, sort of. Isn’t the port like two hours away?”

“Something like that.”

“Eh, isn’t like I have time anyway.” He shook his head. “We’re flying out the day the ship pulls in. I might get to see Rome from the air on my way out, but…”

“That’s a shame. You’ll have to come back and see it for real.”

“I know, right? But I need to get back to Des Moines and see about, you know, finding a paycheck.” The faintest hint of bitterness laced his voice.

I frowned. “I’m sorry to hear it. Job hunting is a pain in the ass.”

“It really is.” He took a deep swallow of coffee, and shrugged as he put the cup down. “But I’ve got another ten days or so before I have to worry about it too much, so I’m just going to do my best to enjoy this time while I’ve got it.”

Grinning, I leaned a little closer. “I’m pretty sure I can help with some of that.”

“Oh, I know you can.” He winked as his expression brightened. “I’m counting on it.”

 

***

 

After breakfast, we went back to my stateroom under the pretense of taking a shower. Didn’t matter that we’d both already showered. It sounded like a good idea to grab another one. Together. Which we did. Eventually.

It was almost noon when we finally got dressed again and went out exploring the ship. We wandered the decks at a leisurely stroll, which was about all either of us could manage at this point. I couldn’t possibly imagine why he hadn’t wanted to go out and walk through Valencia with a fast-paced tour group; if he was half as sore as I was, he’d have been miserable.

But our unhurried pace was comfortable and relaxed, especially on the nice flat decks of the ship. I was amazed at how much ground there was to cover, though. The vessel had seemed enormous on the website, but in person it was absurdly huge. The decks were packed with shops and restaurants of every variety imaginable. At one point, Andrew and I spent a good twenty minutes speculating about how rich someone had to be to pay for a cruise and still have enough cash leftover to drop fifty large on a gold Rolex.

“Being loaded enough to buy a watch like that as a vacation souvenir.” He’d shaken his head and whistled as we’d walked away from the jeweler. “I can’t even imagine.”

“Hey, when you’ve got that much money to burn, a snow globe just isn’t going to cut it, you know?”

We’d exchanged glances, snorted, and laughed as we’d continued along the promenade to check out the other absurdly expensive shops.

One of the gift shops still sold film, which surprised the hell out of both of us. People still used film cameras? Kodak still existed? The mind boggled.

We wandered, we chatted, we had a leisurely lunch at yet another onboard restaurant, and…and I fucking loved this.

But it kind of gnawed at me too. Up until a few weeks ago, I’d been engaged to Chris. We’d been together for almost five years. So why couldn’t I remember the last time I’d done this with him? Not being on a cruise, but just wandering aimlessly, talking about nothing, enjoying being together without feeling like we had to be somewhere? It was such a simple thing, and it wasn’t something that required flying halfway around the world and getting on a gigantic, people-packed ship. Chris and I could have done this any time. Downtown Seattle. Somewhere on the Eastside. Maybe take a ferry over to Bainbridge Island or something. All we’d had to do was come home from work, make the effort to go out, and we could’ve done this.

But we hadn’t. Not in a long, long time.

I tamped the thoughts away. I was having an amazing time on my vacation, loving the time I was spending with the hot man I’d just met, and I wasn’t about to tarnish that by wallowing in all the reasons my engagement had ended. Chris had cheated. We were over. End of story.

Is it the end of the story, though? Is it really?

Yes. For right now, it was. I’d dig in and think about it later. But not now. That could wait until I wasn’t strolling a cruise ship with a man who was somehow both mind-blowingly hot and ridiculously adorable. Maybe on my flight home after this was all over. Maybe one night in Rome after a few too many glasses of wine.

But not now.

 

***

 

Around seven, while Andrew and I were outside soaking up the sun and the warm breeze, people started crowding back onto the ship after their day out in Valencia. We were standing on one of the outer decks, leaning on a railing and watching the throngs of passengers migrating toward the boat. It was a hell of a hike down the long pier, too; my hips were grateful as fuck I hadn’t gone out today. Even walking around the ship had left me a little tender in whatever had been left of me after last night and this morning.

Beside me, Andrew looked at his watch and sighed. “Damn.”

“What?”

He looked at me a little sheepishly. “My parents should be back in an hour or so, and I, uh, promised I’d have dinner with them. You…don’t mind, do you?”

“Do I mind?” I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Andrew. You’re on a cruise with your family. I’m not going to get butthurt if you want to spend time with them.”

He eyed me uncertainly.

“I mean it,” I said. “I’ll go to the gym, and we can meet up at one the bars later on.” I smiled as I drew him in a little closer. “It isn’t like I’m going to bail if I don’t see you for a couple of hours.”

He laughed softly. “No, I didn’t think you would. I guess I still feel kind of weird about…I don’t know. I’m a grown man and I’m partly joined at the hip with my parents. Probably because they’ve been helping me out since I got laid off, and I…”

“You don’t like being an adult who feels like he’s depending on his folks.”

Avoiding my gaze, Andrew nodded.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re lucky as hell to have parents who will keep you afloat during setbacks, you know?” I tipped up his chin so our eyes met. “Go. Enjoy dinner with your parents, and we’ll pick up later tonight.”

He gave another quiet laugh, blushing as he said, “Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to focus on conversation with them when I’m counting down the minutes until I’m with you again?”

“Can’t imagine. But just in case…”

I drew him in, pressed my lips to his, and made damn sure he’d be thinking about this until he saw me again.