The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (103 page)

“Hey, we’re going to go sign up for a few mixers. They serve free drinks at those,” Avery said, finally remembering that Easton and I existed.

“Sounds good,” Easton replied, taking my hand to help me stand.

I’ve never had someone offer me their hand before. We were living in a time where men rarely opened doors for women anymore. I saw more women holding doors open for men than I did the other way around.

“Thank you,” I told him for the simple gesture.

“You look—your boyfriend doesn’t do that for you?”

“Um—no,” I said flatly.

“His loss. I would do it every chance I got just to touch you.”

I could feel my face flush. It had been a long time since someone flirted with me. I forgot how simple it could be and how good it felt to be desired.

Easton gave me a knowing smile. A smile that I took to mean he knew he was getting under my skin in this short amount of time. There was something special about him. Something that felt right and like we could be either good friends or amazing lovers.

We signed up for the ten o’clock mixer, which wasn’t long after our dinner. We all walked the cruise ship, looking out at the open sea and trying to determine where everything was.

The pools were on different levels than the rooms, several restaurants and bars were scattered throughout, and the fitness center and spa were on different levels, but connected. I knew I would get lost multiple times a day trying to find everything.

We ended up by the pool, sipping on drinks and people watching. People were all around us; some laughing and drinking while others were already making out and probably on the verge of going to one of their rooms to hook-up.

Nicole and Avery continued their private conversation, and I decided that it was time to get Easton a girl.

“What about her?” I asked Easton, motioning towards a blond sitting alone at the bar near the pool.

“No. She looks frumpy.”

“Frumpy?” I laughed.

“Yeah, you know—frumpy. She’s by the pool with a baggie t-shirt on. Next!”

I laughed at him.
This may be harder than what I bargained for
. “Okay, moving on,” I said, scanning the candidates. “Her?” I pointed to a redhead who was laughing with a group of girlfriends.

“No, her hair is too poofy. If she can’t tame the hair on her head, imagine the hair between her legs,” he said, shuddering with disgust.

I burst out with laughter. “ I thought the rule of thumb was that if a chick doesn’t keep her toes manicured or at least clean, then she has a jungle growing between her legs?”

Easton looked down at
my
manicured feet. “That too.” He smiled and we both laughed until I realized he
knew
I kept my hair trimmed.

“Alright, well...maybe we should start by you telling me what your type is then.”

“Well...” he said, looking directly into my eyes. “She has to have brown hair—I have a soft spot for brunettes—green eyes, a killer smile that lights up her eyes and someone who isn’t afraid to drop the F Bomb.”

I groaned silently; this man was trying to get the better of me. Trying to break me down and make me rip off his clothes.

“Really? Is that all? I’ll be on the lookout for her then,” I said with a chuckle.

Before we could have more of the increasingly awkward conversation, Avery and Nicole returned from their walk—or at least that is what they told us they were doing. I didn’t even realize they left our table. They motioned for us to follow them, mentioning it was time to get ready for our dinner.

*~*~*

T
he boys waited for us to meet them at the lounge bar so they could walk with us to the restaurant. The sun was setting over the endless sea of blue as we approached The Aqua Room, where we would be dining during our whole cruise. All cruises, especially this one, were set up to place strangers at the table with you so that you could mingle. Nicole and I would be placed at a table with two other people that we didn’t know.

At first, I thought the concept was strange, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. They needed to fill every seat, and this way, Nicole could meet more men—unless they stuck us at a table with women.

When we walked up to the hostess stand, Easton and Avery let us go first. We gave the lady our cruise ID cards so she would know what table we were assigned to. The room was beautiful. Aqua carpeting was throughout with red swirls for contrast. An aqua glass divider divided the hostess stand and the main dining area, and strange aqua art with women dancing in circles hung on the walls.

As we followed the hostess, I looked up at the ceiling that sparkled with LED lights. Each tile above them had been placed randomly to give it a look like we were dining under the stars. It was beautiful. There were just a few windows in the room, casting a fiery hue as we took our seats in orange and red checkerboard chairs at a round table in the middle of at least one hundred people who were already waiting to be served. White tablecloths hung on the tables that were graced with white place settings, only to be offset by a beautiful tiny bouquet of orange blossoms.

I took my seat, glancing up at Nicole, only to follow her eyes as she watched Easton and Avery walk with the hostess who was leading them to their table. Easton’s eyes met mine, and I smiled as I watched them come to a stop at our table.

“This is your table, too?” Nicole asked, giving a hopeful smile.

The hostess answered for them. “Yes, these gentlemen have been assigned this table as well. Enjoy.”

“What a coincidence,” Nicole said as Avery sat next to her and Easton next to me.

“Sure is,” Easton said, giving me another smile.

A waiter came and took our drink orders as we looked over the simple menu. Each dinner would include a soup or salad, entrée and a dessert. I eyed the desserts first, seeing that they had Crème Brûlée on the menu. I already knew that I would be getting that, no matter how full I was from dinner, and I would get it every night after if it was on the menu.

I could tell that Nicole was happy that Avery was dining at our table, too. It was almost as if we were on a double date. She laughed at all of his antics, made googly eyes at him and always found a way to touch his arm.

“So Brooke,” Easton said, attempting to bring the conversation back to the table and not just between the two lovebirds. “What do you do back in Boston?”

When Nicole and I discussed that this was a singles cruise, I told her that I was going to have a fake name and a fake career. I’d already told Easton my real name by mistake, and since Nicole was so smitten with Avery, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get away with a fake career. But I was going to fuck with him just a little anyway.

“I’m a doctor.”

Nicole almost choked on her water, giving me a what-the-hell look.

“Really? What do you practice?”

“Gynecology.”

Easton and Avery both choked on their water as I tried to suppress my laugh. Nicole was still giving me a look and I shrugged, not able to hold my laughter any longer. “I’m just fuckin’ with you. I’m a paralegal.”

Easton laughed after he quit choking a little and then said, “Add sense of humor to my wish list.”

E
aston

This girl.

This girl was going to be the end of me. Who the fuck goes on a singles cruise and is not single? Well, I actually suspected a lot of people did. Some people living double lives, cheating on their spouse, but not Brooke. I could tell she was genuine and sincere.

I hadn’t been this attracted to or turned on by someone since—never. Part of me wanted to walk away and go find another chick, but her smile was addicting. Fuck, her eyes were addicting. Her laughter, her lips, her sailor’s mouth, and now her jokes.

And fucking Avery wasn’t helping matters by being all clingy to the first girl he saw. Fuck, I was being all clingy with the first girl I saw. What was wrong with me? This would have been so much easier if Avery had left Brooke’s best friend alone, and we scoped out the ship. Let me walk away and hopefully forget about the little brunette whose legs I wanted to bury my face between forever.

But no...Avery and Nicole were going to fuck tonight and would probably fuck the whole seven nights, and I was stuck with this addicting woman who didn’t want me to touch her. Normally, I wouldn’t care if a chick had a boyfriend. I would seduce her, charm her, flirt with her...anything to get into her pants, but I didn’t want to piss Brooke off. I—I wanted to get to know her.

I was trying to play it cool, but I knew she knew that the woman I wanted her to find for me was her. The only other women that I had seen since meeting Brooke were the ones she pointed out in our little game, and none of them compared to her.

*~*~*

A
fter dinner, we walked Brooke and Nicole to their cabin and then left to freshen up for the mixer. Being with Brooke for the last several hours was fucking with my head. I wanted to kiss her soft lips, run my hands through her long, dark brown hair, and just do what came naturally like Avery and Nicole were doing.

“You need to snap out of it, man. If you don’t get your shit together and Nicole leaves to hang out with Brooke so she won’t be alone, I’m going to kick your ass,” Avery said, ironing one of his dress shirts.

“I know.”

“You’re supposed to be my wingman. Stop with the silent bullshit.”

“I’m trying,” I said, slamming a drawer a little too hard with frustration.

“What the fuck is the problem?”

“I like Brooke, okay?”

“Yeah? So what’s the problem?”

“She has a boyfriend.”

“When has that stopped you before?” He laughed.

He fucking laughed
.

Avery had been my best friend since we were in diapers and lived across the street from each other. We would terrorize the neighborhood. One time, we filled water balloons and shot them over my fence at passing cars. We never once got caught.

Another time I stole a matchbook from my parents, went over to Avery’s house, and we started lighting the matches on fire in his driveway. We were stupid and started gathering dead leaves to catch on fire. It would have been fine, except we weren’t lighting them on the cement of the driveway; we were lighting them near the bush that the leaves fell from. The small fire from the leaves started to burn the bush, and before we knew it, the flames were huge.

We ran inside, told his mom, and she called the fire department. That was the day I decided I didn’t want to be a fireman. That guy was an asshole and gave us a lecture. We were young —maybe twelve—and thought we knew it all. Obviously, we didn’t know how to put out fires.

In all the years that we’d been friends, we’d had arguments, but never gotten physical with each other. But now that he was laughing at me and basically calling me a pussy, I wanted to punch him in the face.

“I know, but she’s not one of the whores from the bar. She’s—different.”

“Nicole is different, too. I think we got lucky.”

“Yeah...” I muttered, slamming the bathroom door so I could take a shower.

Lucky.

*~*~*

T
he girls didn’t know when they would be ready, and since we were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, none of us had cell service to text each other. Avery and I forgot to look at their room number when we walked them to their door after dinner, so we couldn’t call their room, either. We decided we would just go to the mixer and wait for them.

The mixer was in the champagne bar on deck six near the casino. Avery and I walked into the art deco bar that was designed like something out of a book I read in high school. I had an inkling to call everyone “old sport” and watch women in flapper dresses dance around to the jazz music that was playing through the speakers.

“They’re not here, yet,” Avery said as we settled up at the bar.

“I noticed.”

The room was on the small side. As soon as Avery and I entered, I scanned the area for those piercing emerald eyes that I was already addicted to in such a short amount of time, only to not see them.

I ordered a beer instead of a hard drink. I wanted to stay kind of sober. Usually, I didn’t give a fuck. I would get drunk, take a girl anywhere I could get a blow job from her and call it a night. I knew tonight wasn’t one of those nights, and I actually wanted to stay sober so I could remember everything Brooke said.

After Dana and I split, my father told me that when I met the one who I was supposed to be with forever, she would devour my every thought. She would make me smile just by her walking into a room, and also make my dick hard at the same time.

I never experienced that with Dana. I believed that it was because we were kids when we met. and I didn’t know about true love. I was just glad to be getting some when all my other friends were jacking off nightly, thinking about the girls at school.

“Before they get here, tell me what your plan is?” I asked Avery.

“Nicole wants to...”

Before Avery could finish, two brunettes walked up to us. “Hello boys, I’m Kristen, and this is my friend, Stacy.”

“I’m Easton, and this is Avery.”

We shook hands awkwardly like this was some sort of business meeting.

“Usually the guys are supposed to approach the women, but Stacy and I made a pact that this go around, we would take the initiative and approach the ones we were interested in.”

Kristen and Stacy both had curly brown hair and green eyes. Stacy’s was shoulder length while Kristen’s came to the middle of her back. Their hair and eye color matched Brooke’s, but their eyes weren’t speaking to me like Brooke’s did. I didn’t want to be rude, but I wasn’t interested. Neither Kristen nor Stacy were
my
brunette.

“Does that mean this isn’t your first singles cruise?” Avery asked.

“No, we’ve been on a few with no luck, but they are so much fun that we just continue doing them,” Stacy said.

I could tell that Stacy was interested in Avery, and Kristen was interested in me, but we needed them to leave us alone so Nicole wouldn’t get mad at Avery. Women tend to jump to conclusions when a guy is talking to another female.