Sweet (21 page)

“Do you guys really want to hear our anthem?” Laurel asks. “I mean, don't you sort of hate America at this point?”

But Kiniana puts her hand on Laurels and says, “We are singing these songs as a prayer. A prayer to get to go home. That's what I think. So you should sing, too.”

Laurel stands up and, ugh, I join her.

I'm not a good singer.

I'm actually verifiably horrible.

I'm the guy they have to voice-over in post if there's a singing scene.

Laurel starts in, her voice sweet and round, just like you'd think it would be.

“O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hail—”

All eyes are on me. They're waiting for me to chime in.

I try just nodding along, like I'm so digging Laurel's singing that I've decided just to listen.

“Sing!” Milo shouts. “Sing, Baby Tom-Tom!”

“Sing! Sing!” they chant.

“And the rocket's red glare
…,” I start as quietly as I can.

“Louder!” Jaideep demands.

Fine. Let them have it.

“The bombs bursting in air…”

They all look at me, eyes round. I see Milo's chin start to quiver.

“Gave proof through the night…”

He breaks into a guffaw.

“That our flag was still there…”

All the others laugh, too.

“Oh my Lord, you sound like a whale singing,” Jaideep says.

“A tone-deaf whale,” Kiniana adds.

“A dying, tone-deaf whale,” Milo corrects.

Laurel stops singing. She puts a hand over her mouth.

“You like it, huh?” I say to her. I nudge her under the arm. She giggles. “You haven't even heard me do Katy Perry.”

Half of them are begging me to sing Katy Perry, the other half are covering their ears and protesting.

“Roar! Roar! Roar, roaaaaaaar! I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, a mover, a shaker.”

I can't quite remember the words, but I keep singing “roar” and I start b-boying. Pop and lock.
“Roar!”
Pop and lock.
“Roar!”
Pop and lock.
“Roar!”

“My ears! My ears!” Jaideep wails.

Kiniana and Anna are screaming with laughter.

Laurel throws herself on the bed and puts a pillow over her head.

“Oh no, you don't!” I say and I dive next to her, prying the pillow out of her hands.

“You're completely tone-deaf,” she says.

“Now you know my secret,” I say.

I pull her to me. I see her eyes flicker to the others. I know she won't kiss me, not with all these people around, but I'm still hoping maybe—

When there's a pounding on the door.

“Who the hell is in there making all that racket?! Come out! Come out now and share what you have! Everyone has to share! You guys have a stash and that's not fair. No fair!”

The person pounds, one-two, on the door. One-two. One-two.

Other voices join, fists beating the door, demanding we share.

Laurel and I are frozen. Everyone is frozen.

We look to the door.

Anna puts a finger up to her lips. Her eyes are wide, scared.

“Shhh!” she tells us.

 

LAUREL

DAY FIVE

ANNA SEPARATED TOM'S KING BED
into two twins. (She knew how, because she's from housekeeping.) She also made up the pull-out couch. So now, Kiniana and Anna are asleep on one of the two twin beds and Vihaan is sleeping on the couch. Milo crawled off to sleep in the closet a while back.

Which leaves one twin bed for me and Tom.

I've only ever slept in a bed with a guy two times, not counting my cousin Zach, who I used to bunk with when we were little.

Number one was Toby Brennan, my boyfriend in sophomore year. His parents went out of town and we all ended up crashing at his house. (Toby has since come out to me, which explains why we did a whole lot of talking that night and not much of anything else.)

The second time was at a major party at Letitia Leblanc's stepfather's beachfront condo. I slept in a bed with Keith Steele along with Vivika and another girl named Bree. I woke up in the middle of the night with Keith's hands moving under my shirt and spent the rest of the night on the floor, furious and somehow ashamed. (But that's another story.)

This is completely, celestially different.

Sleeping in Tom's arms.

Well, not sleeping in them. Lying in them. Actually, laying my head on one of them.

It's wonderful.

There's this feeling of safety and comfort that radiates out from him. When he touches me it's like my body is hearing the bottom tones of a cello—soothing, calming, low and reassuring.

I'm a jerk to feel this happiness. I am the scum of the earth. I know it. I mean, my best friend is in terrible danger. I'm in the midst of a catastrophe unlike any other in recorded history (that I'm aware of). But I've never felt like this before.

Tom Fiorelli was some face on a magazine cover and now he's realer than real. I'm looking at his face now, in the moonlight, in a room where people are snoring and breathing deeply. He's mine alone right now.

He's flat on his back. My head is lying on his arm and my body is curled a little. My knees touch him. My neck, where it lies on his arm. My left foot is on top of his left shin.

His eyes are closed and I'm just looking at him. At how beautiful he is.

There's no way I can sleep.

I touch his hair. Just a little. It's shiny and thick. I like how the waves feel under the tips of my fingers.

“Laurel,” he whispers without opening his eyes, “go to sleep.”

(His breath
still
smells like nutmeg. How does he do that?)

“I'm trying,” I say. “It's not that easy.”

“Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?”

I stifle a giggle.

“Please, anything but that.”

I close my eyes, but it's no good. His body is just too electric. I'm distinctly aware of every inch of my body that is touching his.

I turn my face slightly down and quietly (I hope) I inhale. I love how he smells.

How can someone smell like warmth itself?

“Are you smelling me?” he whispers.

Thank God it's so dark in the cabin. My blush would stand out like a flare.

“Maybe,” I say softly.

“You're making it very, very hard for me to sleep,” he tells me.

“Same to you,” I answer.

“We should sleep because we might … who knows what will happen when the rescue ships come. It could get ugly.”

“I know.”

“Should I sleep on the floor?” he asks. “Maybe that would be best.”

“No, don't,” I say. I put my hand on his arm. “I like this too much. I'll go to sleep.”

I turn my back to him.

Now my butt is pressed against his leg.

This is much worse.

His body is long. His weight makes a dip in the mattress and my body just naturally rolls into his. Feels like magnetism, but I know it's just gravity.

I stretch my leg out, so it's pressed against his.

His body is delicious. Long, lean muscles. The bulk of him. He's so frickin' manly. There's no other word for it.

He's a man.

“Remember when you fell on top of me on the dance floor?” I say quietly.

“How could I forget? I was mortified,” he says. I can hear the smile in his voice.

I whisper, “I liked it.”

There's a beat. Then Tom lets out a little groan and shifts toward me, gathering me to his body. He rolls me toward him, face-to-face, and he kisses me.

Which is what I wanted him to do.

He kisses me with urgency. His body slightly on top of mine.

Oh. There are other people in the room. I won't let us go too far. That would be tacky and gross, and oh God, his mouth on mine is so heavenly sweet.

A sudden rustling sound from the living room area makes us both freeze.

Milo stumbles out of the closet and blunders toward the bathroom.

Then I hear a splashy heave as he pukes in the toilet.

My heart is hammering. Stopping is the very last thing I want to do, but—

“Laurel, you know I'm crazy about you, right?” Tom says. His voice is husky and low.

“I think so,” I say.

He slides out of bed.

“I gotta sleep on the floor.”

*   *   *

I wake up in the early morning, not sure of why I'm awake. Everything is quiet. Peach-colored light is chasing away the blue of night. I look at Tom, curled up on the floor next to the bed on an extra comforter, sleeping on his forearm.

I don't realize it at the time, but what has awakened me is the stillness. The boat has stopped moving in the night.

I guess I fall asleep again.

*   *   *

The second time I wake up it's because voices are arguing.

“Why, why, why would they shut off the engine this way?” Vihaan is saying. “And where are the backup generators?”

There is no engine sound. I didn't realize how used to its hum I had gotten until now—it's gone. We are not moving in the water at all.

I see that everyone looks as weary and gross as I feel.

“We should get back to the crew deck,” Anna says. “Maybe there is word down there…”

“What do you think's happening up on the bridge?” Tom asks.

“I worry they've been overrun with crazed passengers,” Jaideep says.

“No, they have security doors. They have protocols!” Kiniana says.

“But why aren't we getting messages from the captain!” Jaideep moans. “What has happened to Captain Hammonds?”

“What has happened to the coast guard?” Vihaan asks. “That's the question!”

“We've got to get to the bridge and find out what's going on,” Tom says. “We have to know that the mainland has been warned about Solu. And we have to know if rescue is coming—”

“And if it's not,” I interrupt, “we have to rescue ourselves.”

Tom looks up at me and smiles. As tired as I am and as scared as I feel, his grin makes my heart beat double-time.

“Exactly,” Tom says.

“All right,” Jaideep says as he takes the floor. “There's a satellite phone in the crew quarters. Steward Jim told me about it once. It's in the first mate's cabin. We should go find it.”

“No,” Kiniana says. “We should go to the bridge. We have to try that first.”

As they argue, Milo groans, emerging from the closet. His hair looks like he combed it with a salad spinner and he's got some brown dribble on his white button-down shirt. (Upchuck, I suspect.)

“What's happening, my people?” he asks.

“That's what we're about to find out,” Kiniana answers.

I'm terrified, but I try not to look like it. I try to look brave.

 

TOM

DAY SIX

LAUREL LOOKS AS SCARED AS
I feel, but she's trying not to show it so I try not to even feel it.

Jaideep and Vihaan are going to try to find the phone. It makes sense for them to go—they're fast and strong and will have an easier time getting in and out if it's only the two of them.

The rest of us are headed to the bridge.

But, honestly, as I see it, my job at this point is just to try to get Laurel and me off this ship alive. That seems doable.

Yes, we're going to find out what's happening on the ship. And, yes, we're going to make sure that our country's been warned about Solu.

But if we can't get onto the bridge, if we can't find out what's going on, I'm just going to evacuate the two of us in a lifeboat. Period.

Jaideep told me some of them are just rafts but some are motorized so we could actually take off and try to make it to Honduras or wherever the hell we are.

Obviously that's a last resort. I know nothing about navigating a lifeboat. But it's an option.

There's a smell of sewage in the hallway. And we can hear a woman screeching in the distance, and someone laughing.

It's eerie, with the engine dead quiet like this.

“It stinks out here,” Milo says.

“Toilets backing up,” Kiniana notes. “Do we know how long the engine's been cut for?”

“No,” I tell her. “It was out when we all woke up.”

Me, Laurel, Kiniana, Milo, and Anna. Not much of a team, here. Milo is built solidly, but he's still losing his fight with a hangover. Kiniana is strong and angry. That's good. Anna is a little hummingbird of a thing. Laurel is … tough. Tougher than I thought. And I wouldn't care if she was weak, anyway.

Laurel is my girl and I'm going to keep her safe.

Milo, ahead of us, groans and squats down unsteadily.

“Come on, Milo,” Kiniana snaps. “We don't have time for this nonsense.”

“I need a toilet,” he says.

“Aaugh!” Kiniana grumbles.

“Hey,” I say to Laurel. “Do you want to go check on Viv?”

“God, yes!” Laurel says. “That would make me feel so much better.”

I walk up to Kiniana and Anna. I press my key card into Kiniana's hand.

“Would you two take Milo back to my room? Laurel and I are going to check on her friend and we'll meet you up on Deck Eleven.”

“Fine,” Kiniana says. She nudges Milo's thigh with her sneaker. “Come on, party boy.”

“Milo, you should drink a Pipop,” Laurel says. “My friend Viv swears by them for hangovers.”

*   *   *

We head quickly to Laurel and Viv's room. We haven't seen anyone yet, any addicts, and it's starting to freak me out.

There's some weird stuff in the hallway—suitcases dragged out into the hall. A torn and bloodied tuxedo shirt. A brass plaque that seems to have been ripped off a wall. A lady's shoe with a gold stiletto heel that's got a crust of dried blood on it. Creepy.