Sweet (15 page)

“Dumb question. I'm sorry,” I apologize.

“No, it's okay.”

He leans away from me, onto the bureau behind him.

“I don't know,” he begins. “It's fun. And it's a pain in the ass. You feel like you never have enough. And sometimes you wish you were just a regular guy … but not for very long.” He sighs and my heart wrenches in my chest.

“You get used to it,” he says.

“Can I ask you one other thing?” I say.

The darkness is helping me feel brave. I know I'd never ask him this, not in a million years, in the light of day.

“Do you wish I was thinner?”

“No!” he says immediately with a gentle scoff in his voice. “No.”

“Because I know I don't look like girls in Hollywood and I don't even want to be like them, to tell you the truth—”

“Your body is … it's … it's luscious and soft and, I don't know, real.”

I am experiencing a whole-body blush.

“And reality's okay?” I ask.

“Reality's … hot,” he says.

His hands slide around my hips and up my back.

“Reality
is
hot,” I say.

I put my hands on his neck. I run them up, over his stubbly jaw, over the cleft in his chin. He makes a low sound in his throat that makes me weak in the knees.

I touch his cheeks, his eyebrows, his ears.

“I really like reality,” he says.

His thumbs rub down my hipbones. Right near my belly and I don't draw back.

I lean up and kiss him on the mouth, pressing my mouth into his. Pressing my body into his.

“When you touch me I feel like … uhm, like I've never felt this way before. Not with any other girl.”

“Not even that famous one?”

“Nope. What we had … I think I get it now. She was right. It was no fun. There was no juice. No spark.”

I kiss him and he kisses me back.

(There's a spark, all right.)

“Okay,” I say after a while. “We can leave the closet.”

“It is getting a little hot in here,” he says.

“Steamy,” I add.

He laughs and I push open the doors.

We step out of the closet, out of the room, and into the hall.

It's really, really weird to be out in the light. We're both squinting and I shield my eyes against the light.

“I liked it better in the closet,” he says. “Do you want to go get a drink or something? Some milk?”

“No. I think I'd better go to bed,” I say.

It's a lot to take in, frankly.

And I don't want to rush anything. It would be easy, very, deliciously easy, to go too far with this guy. I don't want to do that. (I like him too much.)

“We're in Belize tomorrow,” I say. “Any chance you can get free to do some yodeling with me?”

He smiles.

“I doubt it. Tamara's got me working all day. But I have my night free.”

“Okay,” I say.

He pulls out his iPhone. “I should get your phone number. I'll text you when I'm free.”

I'm about to explain that I'm not allowed to use my phone on board—that it's too expensive, when he frowns. “This is weird. I have no bars at all. I had five just before dinner.”

“The ship has its own hotspot thing, doesn't it?” I ask.

“Tamara told me we'd probably lose connectivity,” he says. “I guess she was right.”

He frowns at his phone, trying to refresh the screen.

It's still easier to look at him when he's not looking right at me. I can't help it.

He looks like he did when he was a boy, as he's working the phone. It's something about the way he is concentrating.

It's weird that I know what he looked like as a boy.

And also weird that his real personality is nothing like the goofy rascal he played on
The Magnificent Andersons.
He's more restrained and serious.

Maybe more ambitious. I get the feeling he doesn't goof around, much. Focused is a better word.

“What?” he says, looking up and seeing my expression.

“I was just thinking how much better you are in person,” I say.

He pulls me into an embrace.

“You're a real surprise, Laurel Willard,” he tells me.

“You, too, Tom Fiorelli … Hey, how'd you know my last name?” I ask.

“I made the concierge give it to me. Didn't you get my messages last night?”

I shake my head.

“Well, do yourself a favor and erase them!” he says.

“Are you kidding? I'm going to listen to them right now.”

“Oh, jeez. That's just … whatever.”

He's grinning and embarrassed. He's beautiful.

“Good night,” I say.

“Good night.”

“Laurel, hi, this is Tom Fiorelli. Look, the thing with Sabbi. I don't know if you even care, but listen, that's something our publicists cooked up. It's not real. I don't like her at all. Please. My suite is number 1041. Just call me back if you get this, okay?”

“Hi there, it's Tom Fiorelli again. Well, I
really
hope this is the right room. Laurel, I looked everywhere for you and I realized on the last message I left that I didn't say sorry. Well, I am sorry. Sometimes I'm a jerk. That's the truth. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't give me another chance because everyone acts like a jerk sometimes. Right? I mean, I think they do. Anyway I did and I'm sorry and I'd better hang up now before I say something even more stupid … God, please don't sell this to
TMZ
, okay? My publicist would kill me. I hope I get to talk to you again soon. Find me, okay?”

I am grinning and spinning with joy as I lie on the bed next to my konked-out best friend and listen to Tom Fiorelli's sweet run-on apologies.

My Tom Fiorelli, who feels for me what I feel for him.

Viv was right—this cruise is changing everything! It
has
changed everything.

 

TOM

DAY FIVE

I'M DRESSING
in the day's wardrobe—fresh from my workout. It felt great to hit the gym hard. Exercising when you're pissed feels good 'cause you can work it out. But exercising when you're actually excited about something in your life—it's like going to church.

The only thing I feel bad about is that I didn't get to talk to Derek yesterday and now there's no signal. The message I left him was pretty crabby.

He'll probably figure out that we are out of range when he calls me back and it goes straight to voice mail.

I want to tell him that everything's okay now.

Better than okay.

Laurel's amazing. She's unlike anyone I've ever met. She's so surprising. I have no idea what she'll do next, and when she does it, it's thrilling and odd and so frickin' charming.

I can't wait to see her again.

Before I start taping, I'm going to see if I can buy some flowers to send her somehow. That's exactly what I'm going to do.

I have the idea to get some for Viv, too. A get-well kind of thing.

Or I guess I could order them some room service. That would be pretty cool.

There's a knock at the door.

My heart actually jumps—like it might be Laurel.

But it's just Tamara, who barges in without even a greeting. Par for the course. But she looks horrible. Stressed and strung out.

“Just spoke to the captain. Internet, phone, everything's down. Aren't you glad we prerecorded all those segments?!”

“Hey,” I say. “Good morning.”

Her face is gaunt and her suit is hanging off her. Even her shoes look too big. She starts to pace and I honestly think she's going to lose a loafer.

She's toying with the clippy thing on the top of her clipboard and she won't meet my eyes.

“I'm going to give you the morning off. We'll do some more recording in the afternoon and just stockpile it until we get back into a service area. But I think it would be really good for you to go find Sabbi and make nice to her.”

“Tamara—”

“You don't need to kiss her like a madman, like you did the other night, just be polite to her. Her people are very, very upset.”

“Tamara!”

“What?!” she snaps.

She stops and I see her hands are shaking.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Yes! I'm fine, for God's sake. That Solu makes you a little jittery, I think. At least, it makes me jittery.”

“You need to stop taking it.”

“Oh, I could stop if I wanted to. But you know, it's free on board and back when it's released stateside, it's going for seventy-five dollars a box! For twenty packets. I mean, it's a huge story. Rich is ecstatic. The demand is so high they're actually raising prices before the launch. Not that we'll be talking about that in our segments, of course.”

She's talking so fast I have trouble making out all of her words.

“So, listen, call time is pushed to one p.m. I'm going to go ashore and contact the production office. We may do the afternoon segments on the mainland, where we'll have service. In the meantime, talk to Sabbi, be sweet. Let Rich take some photos. We have to follow up the big kiss with some other stuff so it looks like you're boyfriend/girlfriend, not just a one-night thing. She doesn't want that. If you're going to go onshore this morning, just leave a message on my room phone. Those phones are still working at least!”

She's headed toward the door.

“Tamara, wait! Hold on!”

And as psyched as I am to have the morning off, I am really worried.

“Can we talk for a moment?”

“Sure, yes, what?”

“I want to talk about Sabbi but, also, I think we need to rethink how we're covering this cruise.”

“Oh? Really? In what way?”

She's literally tapping her foot with impatience.

I take a big breath.

“Solu is addictive,” I say. “People are acting really weird. To me, it looks like people are losing too much weight, too fast.”

“Great! I'm so glad to hear your expert opinion,” she snips.

“I think we should be exploring some of the downsides to the drug in our coverage,” I say.

“It's not a drug, it's a supplement,” she snaps.

“Whatever. It's addictive.”

Her arms are crossed.

“You think we should ‘blow the cover' on this?” she asks.

“These are some major side effects,” I say.

“You think you should do, like, an undercover reporter thing?”

The sarcasm is so overstated it brings up bile in the back of my throat.

“Solu is seriously addictive. You don't see it because you're taking the stuff yourself!” I say. “Look at yourself, you're acting like a classic junkie!”

“Oooh, investigative reporter Baby Tom-Tom!” she snaps. “He's so desperate to be taken seriously that he will tank the best gig he's had in years, just to shoot himself in the foot!”

“That's not fair!”

She grabs me by the front of my shirt.

Her eyes are bloodshot and wild.

I am, just for a second, actually scared by my forty-five-year-old, female, hundred-twenty-pound producer.

“Do your job, you effin' clown,” she spits.

 

LAUREL

DAY FIVE

LORNA KRIEGER'S VOICE
wakes me up: “Good morning, passengers, please excuse the interruption. Code Ingrid, suite 910, Code Ingrid, suite 910.”

I wake up, and oh my God, it wasn't a dream. The stuff with Tom.

My mind is flooded with pure happiness—it wasn't a dream.

Viv is not in bed with me.

“Viv?” I say. “I have to tell you—”

Vivika's wearing the size-6 dress she was so excited about, over her smallest bikini. She's sitting against the wall, near the window, and she's sobbing as she eats her bag of Oreos.

“Sweetie, what are you doing?”

She's got tears running down her face and she's jamming one cookie after another into her mouth.

“I snuck these in, in my luggage, did you know that? I brought two bags of Oreos because I wasn't sure I could get them on board and I knew I'd never make it without them.”

I walk over and slide down the wall to sit next to her.

“And then, for days, I didn't even think about them.”

She offers the bag to me and I take one.

“When I eat Oreos, I feel better. I eat a whole bag, this whole bag, and then, by the end I feel full. I feel numb. I feel disgusted with myself. I feel comforted.”

She throws the bag at the wall and the black crumbs go everywhere, skittering over the plush carpet.

Housekeeping will not be pleased.

“They're not working. They don't make me feel
anything
now. I can't even get a rush.”

I put my arms around her and she cries into my hair.

“All I want is Solu.”

I hold her and she's so thin in my arms. It feels like I'm hugging some other person. Not even my Viv.

“I think that I've been getting high on sugar my whole life, trying to make myself feel better. And now, now that sugar doesn't work anymore, I can see how stupid it is.”

“You're being too hard on yourself, Vivvy,” I say, smoothing down her hair. Her skin is kind of waxy. Her face shiny with tears.

“No, I'm just telling the truth. I'm a binge eater and I've never told anyone and somehow I thought I could hide it my whole life, but I want you to know.”

“Okay, now I know,” I say. “And I love you just the same.”

She buries her head in her hands.

“Solu is bad, Laurel,” she says. “You were right. It's really bad. And I still want it.”

“Let's get you in the shower. We'll go ashore in Belize. Maybe we should call your dad.” It kills me to even suggest this, but Viv's well-being has to trump my romance. “Maybe he should send us some tickets home.”