“I know,” I said somberly. “We’re doing our best. We’ll be there.”
I hung up, feeling antsy. If we missed this cruise, no one in my family would forgive me. I craned my neck, as if I could see past the windshield.
“Are we there yet?” I asked.
“Almost. We’re rolling into the port right now. That’s the holdup. Parking’s impossible in this place.”
“Hmm,” I said helpfully.
“Bear sounds like a cool kid,” Cruz said, and my heart swelled. Bear was, indeed, the coolest kid on planet Earth. Objectively speaking, of course.
“Naturally. He takes after me.”
“Not in looks.”
There was a brief silence. My brain screamed at me not to broach the subject of Rob. But my big mouth flipped it the finger and moonwalked right into the sticky conversation.
“You know Rob’s back, right?”
Cruz gave half a nod. “It’s a small town.”
“Had a chance to hang out with him?” I asked. “Reminisce about the good ol’ days?”
“Why do you care?”
We were now inside the parking lot area, and Cruz was looking for a parking spot, trailing behind a Buick manned by a ninety-two-year-old woman.
“Because you’re best friends.”
Inseparable during adolescence.
The chosen ones of Fairhope High.
“Were,” he amended. “And I intend to grab a beer with him soon. It’ll be nice. I missed him.”
Of course he would.
They were the same wise guy in different packaging. I had no doubt Cruz would’ve acted the exact same way Rob had if I’d gotten knocked up with his child at sixteen.
Suddenly, I remembered all the reasons I hated Cruz Costello with such a passion.
“Know what?” I sighed. “Pluck it. I can’t do this. I can’t be nice to you.”
“Same. It was good while it lasted, though.”
“Not for me.”
He pulled into a parking spot.
I unbuckled myself. “So you can just stop pretending to be a gentleman around me. I know the truth.”
The truth that got you throat-punched in the first place.
He let out an incredulous chuckle when he got out, rounding his Audi and popping the trunk open. He grabbed my hot pink suitcase and flung it at me, making me stumble back on my high strappy sandals.
He was going to make me wheel my own suitcase, too. SUCH a gentleman.
“Tennessee?”
“Yeah?”
“I strongly advise you to take off your high heels right about now.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re about to make a run for it, and as of five seconds ago, I no longer have the inclination to carry your suitcase and your ass to the ship.”
My feet were burning.
This was not a figure of speech. They were on fire from running barefoot.
Currently, they were the size of the plates at Jerry & Sons and were a nice shade of red, with a few stripes of dead skin that resembled bacon.
I hobbled, shifting my weight from side to side by the check-in desk, in a one-player game of The Floor is Lava. Last week, I’d completed as much of the online check-in process as possible, purchasing an internet and drinks package, ensuring the correct card was on file, and printing and attaching the luggage tags beforehand.
Contrary to popular belief, I was not that messy.
The check-in ticket woman lady (I was too delirious with pain from sprinting through security to decipher what her actual title was) returned our passports, gave us our freshly-taken passenger ID cards (naturally, Cruz looked cover-ready in his, and she’d caught me mid-blink), and handed us a welcome packet, robotically reciting her lines.
“Thank you so much for choosing Allure of the Ocean cruise line! We sincerely hope you enjoy your stay here. Have a wonderful time!”
We tried to sneak past a photographer who forced Cruz and me to take a photo together in front of a cheesy fake background of the ship. Her smile faltered when she realized I could not physically muster a smile through the pain.
She quietly snapped the photos, told us we could purchase them at the photo gallery (hard pass), and sent us on our merry gangway.
Despite the pain, I’d never felt so happy in my entire life.
We’d made it.
We were on the ship, even if we’d had to wait at the check-in line that seemed to snake all the way up to New York (seemed we weren’t the only late ones—ha!). Our suitcases had been checked in, too, and were supposed to be waiting by the doors to our rooms after dinner.
But we were past that line now.
Done.
Finished.
Finito.
Free as birds.
There’s always a foolish sense of arrogance when you leave a trail of exhausted, irritated people behind you in a line you just crossed to the freedom of post-check-in, and in that moment, I felt it.
“Wanna stop somewhere, so you can put your sandals back on before we find our families?” Cruz’s thick eyebrows furled, his chivalry, in that moment, trumping his hatred toward me.
I shook my head. “At this point, putting anything on is only going to make my feet feel worse.”
“There’s a temporary solution for that.” He stared at me flatly.
Oh yeah.
That nonsense he’d been spewing back when we were still by his car.
“If I let you carry me, your reek of toxic masculinity will rub off.”
“How’d you guess?” He looked genuinely surprised and shocked. “That’s my favorite cologne.”
So. Dr. Costello had jokes.
Yay me and the ten days I was supposed to spend with him.
Three minutes of jumping from foot to foot had passed before I realized I was punishing myself, not him.
“Fine,” I said, resisting the urge to remind him it was his fault for choosing the parking garage so far from the port. “You can carry me.”
“Are you sure you’ll survive my stench?”
“I’ll hold my breath. But no copping a feel.”
“I’ll try my best.”
“Don’t try, promise.”
“Do I look that desperate to you?”
I gave it some genuine thought. He was, after all, dating one of the best-looking women in Fairhope.
“Not particularly, but that ’stache gives you a flasher’s vibe. Better be safe than sorry.”
He scooped me up with such ease, an indolent purr escaped me. I let my arms flap aimlessly beside my body, because holding onto his neck seemed too damsel in distress for my taste.
Still, it felt divine, borderline euphoric, when he carried me honeymoon-style in front of dozens of people who boarded the ship and were now aww-ing and ooo-ing, smiling at us with open admiration.
Look at that couple. They’re like Gisele and Tom Brady, but sufferable.
He must give her oral sex all the time, they probably thought. Not just on weekends and after a few drinks.
If only they knew there was nothing Cruz wanted more than to hurl me overboard like an anchor and watch me get dismembered by an angry mob of seals.
One woman elbowed her husband and asked why he couldn’t be that romantic, and another man put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Yeah, baby. That’s how you get some.” Which, naturally, earned him a slap on the head from his partner.