I swallowed hard. I couldn’t push too hard and risk scaring her away. If nothing else, I wanted her to feel safe. “Nah.” I took another sip of my beer and gave her a gentle grin. “I’ll give you an easy one, too. You haven’t injured yourself out here too badly, have you? Any new bumps or bruises?” While she used to be the touchiest girl I knew, she was also the clumsiest. She was the only person I knew who could trip on air, choke on spit, and manage to break multiplebones in a single year.
“Nope,” she said proudly. “That day I busted my arm remains my worst injury.”
I hated that day.I ran a hand down my face. “All right, get up, off your booty. Go knock on wood, right now, girl.”
“What?” Her lips twitched. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I burst out, struggling to tamper down a laugh. “Your next injury cannot be on me,” I said mock-seriously. “C’mon, let’s go.” I nodded at her to get up.
Giggling, she popped off her chair and made a big show of knocking on the ship’s railing. “Happy now?” she asked as she trapezed back to her seat.
“Very,” I said truthfully, hiding my grin behind my beer bottle. Iwashappy. I was happy now that I was with her.
6. ALI – WITH OR WITHOUT YOU
I’m not sure how it happened, maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was JP’s disarming grin, or his calm nature, but it only took a couple hours for my guard to completely drop.
We were running around the cruise ship, knocking out little dares like kids playing ding dong ditch. Sure, we did pass up a few dares, but that just meant both of us had taken our fair share of shots.
I’d been living on a cruise ship for almost a decade, but this was the first time I actually experienced being a tourist; it was the first time I had purefun, and that was thanks to him.
I should’ve known that would happen. I never let myself revisit my past, but if I did, I’d quickly remember that I always had fun with him.
And the more time I spent with him, the more I started remembering. When he dipped close to whisper a joke in my ear, I caught a whiff of his cologne, and it was like inhaling a dose of nostalgic happiness bottled straight from the twenty-tens in Michigan. I always loved the way he smelled. Even after a hard-fought game, when he came out to the rink lobby with sweaty hair and a damp shirt, he never smelled bad to me.
We played a round of ping pong—I won.
We played a round of blackjack—he won.
I dared him to jump in the pool fully clothed—he did it.
He dared me to sing karaoke in the packed bar—I sang my best rendition ofBest Days of Your Lifeby Kellie Pickler.
And now that it was nearing 2 a.m., we were dancing wildly in the strobe lights at the ship’s nightclub.
He kept a safe, respectable distance from me, not daring to touch me as we danced, but I wanted him to. God, I wanted him to take me in his arms so badly.
In the past, I’d never been jealous when watching other couples dance. I typically didn’t even pay attention. I wrote off physical contact as something I didn’t want anyway.
But in one single night, JP was changing that.
He was making me crave it.
“All right, folks, it’s the last dance of the night,” the DJ called out, making the room of dancers groan. “Join us tomorrow starting at 10 p.m. for seventies night!”
JP’s eyes danced with delight. “You hear that? Seventies night. Wecan’tmiss that.”
I laughed as the next song started. I expected the DJ to play a banger, but the song started off slow, making a lot of people immediately leave the dance floor. JP and I now had a lot more space to dance, but he stood frozen, staring at the DJ stand.
When I looked up at him in question, he just shook his head. “Sorry, good song.”
“Really? I don’t recognize it yet,” I murmured, listening closely.
“I think you will,” he said with a shy grin.
As soon as I heard Bono’s voice, my eyes snapped up to his. “With or Without You” was one of his favorite songs as a teen.This felt…
“Did you request this?” I demanded.
