Unexpected Gift - 3. Chapter 3: Antigua

The first week rolled into the second. He woke up early, ready to see Chris, often before breakfast hours began. Then he paced in his room, wondering if Chris had left already or if he’d get to see him. When he missed him, disappointment welled and shadowed him all morning. Then they caught each other at lunch and Josh would smile and soak up everything Chris told him about his day, just as Chris seemed to soak up everything that Josh had to say himself. He never went looking for him; they just seemed to find one another, and as the days went by, Chris looked more rested, relaxed and even better than when they first met.

They seemed to be gravitating toward one another more and more, and Josh felt his fight against starting a relationship slipping further away with every encounter. Every conversation lasted until something drew them apart, or lapsed into comfortable silence; there was no awkwardness, no rush to fill every gap. New thoughts and ideas rushed into Josh’s mind when they parted. He couldn’t wait for the next time to see Chris to bring it up. He’d rambled incessantly about his trip to the island and the things he’d seen and done; Chris had listened and added his own observations and experiences to the conversation, his perspective enlivening and enriching Josh’s own, and he seemed pleased by and keenly interested in what Josh had to say. It was never dull. This man was worth jumping head first into the deep end for; he was perceptive, funny, attentive, and so many other things that Josh found attractive. Being with Chris felt like being home – the kind of home that was about warmth, laughter and contentment. He sighed, trying to decide how he was going to bring up these feelings. He wasn’t good at the romantic things.

The reality was that he was scared to death that Chris didn’t feel the same way. It wasn’t the mad rush of love at first sight that he’d heard about; it was quieter and calmer, more like a familiar hand slipping into his than a headlong plunge into excitement and desire, but that made it all the more meaningful. Chris seemed to take real pleasure in spending time with Josh, but his friendliness didn’t mean he was ready to change his life for a man he was still getting to know. Josh was, though. He exhaled and contemplated going to the smoking deck again, but knew a cigarette wouldn’t solve his problem. Nothing could, except doing what he always had, the thing he’d promised himself that he’d never do again: jump in head first and chance making a fool of himself—or driving the man away.

He looked out of the cabin window, watching the water ripple around the hull. He was afraid he and Chris might be like that steady wake: forced in different directions, slipping further and further from each other whether they liked it or not, helplessly parted by something bigger than them, even though they were so close together.

***

Christmas Eve arrived, obvious by the change of bearing in the staff. It was like they’d switched onto ‘high’ to please the passengers even more with the inherent excitement of the holiday. They were perkier and full of more smiles than usual. They also made sure everyone was aware of the dance that night.

“There’s even a special round of speed dating for the singles. Just for fun.” The stewardess smiled broadly, almost vibrating with enthusiasm. She was attractive enough, but he had no interest in her below the neck. He tried to smile back but had a feeling it was a little flat. He wasn’t interested in speed dating for fun, or any other games. Before he closed his door, he looked at Chris’s, wondering if he was in. He wouldn't be: Josh had learned that Chris left his cabin in the morning and did not return—except to change—until bed-time. Josh didn’t want to be dateless for the dance, and it seemed like it could be fun. He’d forgotten how much he liked to dance until he’d gone to the club on the island. He smiled slightly; he couldn’t imagine Chris doing the sort of grinding that went on that night—sex with clothes—but the formal stuff, Josh figured he’d be very good at. And, it was Christmas Eve: They should do something fun. They only had so much time together before they’d go their separate ways. England was a long way from North Carolina.

Josh wandered around until he found a central location. Satisfied, he sat with his book and waited.

He realized he’d read the same page three times and set the paperback aside to watch the world pass by. Eventually, he looked up to see Chris spot him and divert from his course to head in his direction.

“Chris.” Josh smiled, pleased that their paths had finally met.

“I was hoping I’d run into you.”

Chris smiled back. “Were you?”

“Yeah. I wanted to ask you if you had plans for the Christmas dance tonight.”

Chris rubbed the back of his head and looked like he’d just stolen a cookie from Santa’s plate. “I was planning to avoid it.”

“Oh. I was going to ask if you’d be my date.”

Chris blinked. There was no pretending that he wasn’t disappointed; Josh was, after mulling the idea over and deciding to take the chance once he’d cogitated long enough. The silence stretched, felt like a rejection that Josh wasn’t prepared for after how well their relationship, whatever status it was, had been going.

“Were you?”

“Yeah.”

When there was no immediate response, Josh frowned, trying to figure out what he’d said or done wrong. His heart hammered in his chest, the last few moments replaying in his mind. He didn’t have time to process it anymore; Chris hummed and he looked up.

“I think I’d rather just go for drinks. Parties tend to be loud and one can’t hear oneself think.”

Josh nodded. “Piano lounge bar?” At least Chris hadn’t blown him off.

Chris’s smile looked as relieved as Josh felt. “If you aren’t sick of it by now.”

“The scenery makes it worth it.”

Chris laughed. Josh wondered if it was because he didn’t know how else to respond or was embarrassed by the compliment—or if he didn’t recognize a compliment when he heard one.

“It’s true. What time is good for you?”

“Eight?”

Smiling, Josh nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

***

Saying I love you didn’t feel right. The words themselves didn’t mean anything; they were just words a lot of people said for no reason, or the wrong reason. Josh didn’t like them, but he did recognize their importance in relationships. His mother said it often and, he assumed, believed that saying it at every chance meant somehow the same feeling transferred to the person she’d told. It was also sacred and not a phrase uttered in the throes of passion or fear of abandonment. Josh remembered hearing those conversations between his mother and sisters growing up. He sighed and looked at the present he’d bought. It was a trifle compared to what he wished he could do. It was something to show how much Chris meant to him, how much he appreciated his company and companionship. Not quite love, but close enough to wanting to express himself rather than bottle up his feelings and thoughts. Anyway, saying he loved Chris would be empty, and creepy, at this point in their relationship. Besides, words could be more damning than silence. If he’d learned anything from his father, showing that he cared and valued his partner was worth more than twenty I love yous which were more like I owe yous for being an asshole or inconsiderate. Like when his dad brought home flowers after being out late with his card buddies; then there’d be a special dinner after. From the marriages he was closest to, those words seemed to be a way to apologize for not being a good spouse, or make up for forgetting important things: birthdays, anniversaries...

Josh finished wrapping up the present he’d bought for Chris, then got dressed, shaking off thoughts of his family and love.

***

Chris was already in the lounge when Josh got there. They both smiled.

“Merry Christmas. I reckoned I’d give his to you early.” Josh sat down and slid the box across the table between them.

“That’s very kind of you, thank you.” Chris sounded and looked genuinely touched. Warmth spread through Josh.

“I saw it and thought of you. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

Chris’s lip quirked up. “Impulse buying?”

“No, thinking of you.” Deflection, Josh noticed, was a regular part of Chris’s reaction to compliments or things Josh reckoned made him uncomfortable.

“Ah.” Neutrality wasn’t exactly what Josh was hoping for.

“I hope that isn’t a bad thing.”

Chris stared at his drink as though it might tell him something important. “I really don’t know. Josh, forgive me if I’m... misreading things, but I seem to be receiving the distinct impression that this...” he gestured between them, “...isn’t entirely straightforward.”

Josh didn’t sigh. “I like you. And I didn’t come on the cruise looking to meet someone or start a relationship. The last thing I wanted was a relationship, actually. But... I’ve become very attracted to you.”

Chris rubbed his forehead. “So you are trying to flirt with me.”

“Yeah.” How he hadn’t realized that before now floored Josh.

“So this is the holiday romance scenario, I suppose.”

“Not intentionally...”

Chris looked reproachful; Josh felt like a scolded child.

“I’m realistic, though.” He wanted to mitigate the depth of the situation. “And I’m not asking for anything. I just... wanted you to know.”

“You do realize that saying you aren’t asking for anything is a little incongruous in the face of the flirting?”

Josh couldn’t read anything from Chris. “‘Expecting’ might have been a better word.”

Chris hummed. “I suppose my next line should be ‘let’s go to bed’.”

“W-what? No. You mean more to me than that.”

Chris’s eyebrows went up. “Isn’t the point of a holiday romance to have as much sex as humanly possible before flying home these days?”

Josh wanted to shake Chris. He didn’t understand. “I want to spend more than just this holiday with you.”

“We live on opposite sides of the planet.”

“I didn’t say it’d be easy. Look, honestly, I’m just happy to spend time with you. I don’t want to jump straight into bed.”

“If you’re happy just to spend time with me, I don’t entirely see why you felt the need to start the flirting.”

Josh didn’t run his hands through his hair, even though he wanted to. “Because I don’t want things to go away. Am I alone in feeling attracted to you?”

Chris sighed explosively, and Josh knew the attraction was mutual. Even if Chris didn’t want to admit it out loud.

“I just want us to have a fair chance. If it’s possible.” Josh looked across the table; Chris still hadn’t taken his eyes off his drink.

“I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”

“Okay, this isn’t going to come out right, I don’t think. Bear with me.”

Chris waited, only glancing up. Josh tried, but he wasn’t sure how to explain what he was feeling. He wasn’t used to saying this stuff. Definitely not used to trying to convince someone he wanted more than just sex over a cruise. This relationship stuff wasn’t easy. “I could see a future with you. Even though we live on opposite sides of the world.” Chris froze; Josh’s chest tightened. “But I know it’s unrealistic, at least right now. I suppose I just want to be with you while I can. No sex to complicate things.” Heat rushed to his cheeks. “Not that I don’t want to be with you.”

“It may take me a while to untangle that.”

Josh cleared his throat. He was going down faster than a sinking rock. “Can I get you anything from the bar?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’ll be right back. I want a snack.” If he couldn’t have a cigarette, at least he could have a snack. Something to keep his mouth busy, and fingers moving before he cracked. Even though he hadn’t wanted to feel, or become attached to someone—definitely not someone who lived half a world away from him. And damn if he didn’t want a cigarette. Things had become complicated and even though Chris seemed to reciprocate his feelings, there was still a barrier between them. It seemed to keep growing, no matter what he did or said. He ordered a shot and downed it. Lungs, throat—everything burned and he coughed. God, why are relationships so complicated?

Josh returned to the table. “Chris, I can tell you’re uncomfortable. I’m nervous, too. I would kill for a cigarette right now.”

Disgust marred Chris’s handsome face. ”The hours I spend browbeating pupils and singers about that...”

“I quit a few years ago.”

“Which is a bigger achievement than most people seem to want to believe.”

“It is. It’s hard.”

“It’s an addiction just as much as alcoholism.”

Another deflection in the conversation—great. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have had one the other night. Thankfully, I don’t have any.” The chip bag crackled open. “I’m not smoking any more. I’m done with it.”

Chris smiled warmly. “Good.”

“Just a nervous thing.”

Chris nodded and drank from his glass.

If he could get inside Chris’s mind and find out what he was thinking or feeling about the possibility of them he’d be happy. A blank page sat across from him; or a page in another language Josh couldn’t read. “So, what are you going to do tomorrow? Since you aren’t performing.” Having a private performance would be nice. Josh hadn’t actually got to hear him play properly yet.

“I thought I might sleep late and then read on the sky deck.”

“Sounds like fun. I hope you like that.” He pointed at the present Chris hadn’t opened. “I don’t know if we’ll run into each other or not.”

“We usually do, don’t we?” That was true, and Josh couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing. Chris seemed happy that they did, but it couldn’t bode well that he didn’t seem to want to arrange something. “What are your plans?”

“I don’t know. I might have to sleep off the embarrassment of tonight.”

Chris put his drink down on the table carefully and met Josh’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I really don’t know to react to this situation.”

He was being unusually direct; Josh felt his pulse leap. “It’s okay. Me, either. Usually I just jump in and think about it later.”

Mouth quirked, Chris looked at him. “I’ve never done that in my life.”

Of course not, Josh thought and took a deep drink from his beer. “I just wanted to tell you how I feel. I thought I owed you that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because for the first time I think I did it right.”

“I don’t follow your reasoning.”

Taking another drink, Josh thought about how to explain himself. “Maybe I needed to hear it for myself. Either way. I want to make the best of the time we have together.”

Chris set his glass down again very deliberately. “Would you go back to the part where you owe me something, please? I really do not understand.”

Keep it simple, stupid, he told himself. “You’re not just a fling to me. Or a holiday romance.” Chris’s lack of response or reaction wasn’t reassuring. “I can stop talking.”

“I think I’d rather you didn’t.” It was said so quietly Josh wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “If you’re still talking, the world isn’t spinning off its axis.” But Josh wasn’t fast enough to say anything else. Chris pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s rather a lot to process.”

“Yeah, I know. Believe me.”

“Is this how you normally make important announcements? There’s such a thing as leading into things gently.”

Josh put his hand on top of Chris’s. “I thought I had.” That Chris couldn’t seem to focus showed how much his world was spinning off its axis.

“It can result in people being less...” He waved his hand. “This is...” He waved his other hand, taking Josh’s with him this time.

“Okay, take a deep breath.” This wasn’t what Josh had expected. A rejection outright or gentle apology, maybe, but not this unfocused rambling.

“I had thought it was just me.”

Josh blinked, his mouth open. “Just you?” He furrowed his brow and looked at Chris.

“Oh, dear. How much have I had to drink?”

“Not much. Maybe two drinks.”

“I don’t deal very well with shocks. I tend to go to pieces. LMF, my mother would say. And my headmaster, come to that.”

“What’s LMF?”

“And yet I put out a fire in my classroom without turning a hair. Of course, that was George Richardson and one sort of expects these things from him...”

“Chris.”

The rambling went on—more about the unfortunate George Richardson and his misadventures; it would probably have been funny under other circumstances. It was the moment in the films when one person slapped the other to bring them to their senses, Josh realized, but he was not going to do that.

Josh slid forward in his chair, closing the distance between himself and Chris. Their knees touched under the table, a thrill running up Josh’s spine. He reached out and took hold of Chris’s face, then leaned in and brushed his lip under Chris’s.

Their mouths met and Chris finally stopped talking; for a moment, tongue moved against tongue. Then it ended like running into a wall. Josh blinked, his brow furrowed. Chris’s face was red.

“We’re in the middle of the lounge bar!” The only thing missing from his bearing was his hand over his mouth and standing up so fast his legs hit the table.

Josh couldn’t remember ever being hissed at before. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re the only ones here. Everyone else is doing other things or at the dance.”

“Even so.” Chris looked like he was searching for words, but incoherent sounds accompanied his lips moving. His face was even redder. “One doesn’t! There’s a time and a place!”

“You weren’t making any sense.”

Fingers clamped around his arm and pulled Josh up. He didn’t want to say anything, in case Chris stopped or got angry. The unknown of whatever wherever this was going on with them was exciting, and he loved it. He let Chris drag him along like an anchor hoisted from the ocean, through the hallways and stairs without paying attention to where they were going. When they stopped, he realized they were at Chris’s room. For a moment, Chris struggled to get his key to work. Once he did, he pushed the door open, yanking Josh along. He hit the back of the door with a thud, then felt the unmistakable pressure of Chris’s weight against him, warm down the front of his body, and barely more yielding than the door. There was no time to think. Their mouths were together again, and Josh wrapped his arms around Chris. Their kiss was sloppy, like two teenage boys trying it out for the first time, afraid of being caught. In the jostling for position, Chris’s thigh found its way between Josh’s legs, pressing tantalizingly against the front of his pants. Josh shifted against the pressure, only dimly aware of his cock thickening and stirring, wholly absorbed in the developing rhythm of the kiss. Chris tasted of sharp, dry alcohol and his fingers moved expertly over the back of Josh’s head, guiding and positioning and holding him in place. He felt as if he was drowning in it, losing his awareness of anything but the slick sounds of mouths moving together and fevered breathing, a knowing hand at the back of his neck and another grasping his hip, that solid muscle moving against his cock, and, he realized with a shudder, Chris’s own erection pressed snugly to his pelvis. Mounting desire plummeted into hard need. Chris leaned against Josh, bringing his weight to bear, plastering them together from knee to chest, but he wasn’t pushing; they needed that. Needed the pressure, the heat, the friction. Josh panted and moved his hands down Chris’s sides to his firm ass, dragging the man impossibly closer, tighter, twisting his body to drive their cocks together and smothering his moan in Chris’s mouth. It wasn’t going to last long. Josh didn’t care; he wanted Chris, and Chris wanted him: it was more than he’d hoped for, and Chris was really, really into it. Every sound he made, stifled as it was Josh’s mouth, went straight to Josh’s balls. He could almost smell Chris’s arousal, dark and heavy and perfect. Digging his shoulders back against the wood, he used the door for leverage to thrust higher and harder. Damp cotton scraped the sensitive skin of his cock and made his eyes roll back in his head, but the discomfort was lost in the rush of so damn good; Chris growled, seriously growled, and moved harder, faster, pulling a deep moan of response from somewhere in Josh’s core. He couldn’t breathe and his lungs burned, but oxygen was less important than grinding into Chris and that maddening, wonderful, solid heat. Chris moved with him, in an inexorable roll that sent shudders of pleasure through him. Crackling heat pooled in his belly, sparking to the base of his spine, his balls, his hair. The pace quickened and their movements grew more forceful; Josh jerked, hearing Chris muffled against his collar.

Chris shuddered against him, a deep, satisfied moan racing across Josh’s neck. Josh’s head thumped back against the door and he rode through Chris’s orgasm. Josh would’ve given anything to feel the wet heat of come between them. All of the waiting, the desire, hit him like a punch. He panted, moaned, lost all thought. He heard his own voice as if from miles away babbling a nonsense of praise and obscenity as the pleasure tore through him, and he held on, riding the wave of pleasure as high as it went. He didn’t want to let go. He rubbed against Chris, feeling him flinch. Josh knew. He was sensitive, too.

They held each other up for a moment while heartbeats slowed and breathing came back under control.

Josh clasped Chris against him, aware of the sticky mess in his underwear. Chris was red-faced and looked like he wanted to hide. Josh tilted Chris’s chin up and kissed him. He leaned his forehead against Chris’s and slid their skin together, rolling his face to soak up as much of Chris as he could while he had him. “Can I stay the night?”

“Here?” He sounded almost dazed.

Josh almost chuckled. “Mm. With you.”

“If you like. Is it the done thing? I’m afraid I must be guided by you.”

Josh didn’t sigh. If he didn’t want to be with Chris, he wouldn’t have asked. He kissed Chris again. “It’s whatever you want, Chris. If you don’t want me to stay, I’ll go to my room. I’d like to stay with you, though.”

“I’m perfectly happy for you to stay.”

Relief crashed through him like water bursting a dam. “Probably should clean up.”

“Yes, of course. Please.” Chris gestured toward the bathroom.

Chuckling, Josh shook his head. “I meant you. I need to go across the hall to get a change of clothes. I won’t be long.”

Chris inclined his head and disappeared into the bathroom. Josh couldn’t keep from smiling on the way to his bedroom to clean up and change.

***