A Royal Christmas Cruise (Stonewall Investigations Miami 2.50)

Shiro’s eyes locked with mine, his brows lifting. “What kind of dog is Eli?”

“A golden retriever,” I said, pulling out my phone. It was an unwritten law that whenever one brings up their dog to an interested party, they must be followed up with one of the thousands of cute photos stored in their phone.

I pulled up the most recent. A picture of me and Eli with Patreeka, a little girl who called herself Eli’s biggest stan. She had an arm thrown over Eli, her face buried in the side of his fur, his red bandana covering the top of her head. My smile matched Eli’s in the photo.

“Oh my freaking God,” Shiro exclaimed, grabbing the phone from my hand. “Eli looks like the absolute best dog there is. Literally who the phrase ‘good boy’ was made for.” He smiled a genuine smile, one that spread to me.

“I take it you’re a dog person?”

“I am. I’m an animal person. Except for spiders. Or bugs. Any kind of bugs. Then I’m a ‘oh fuck no’ kind of person.”

“Same here,” I said, taking back my phone and finding another photo of Eli. This one was of him sitting at the edge of Lake Biscay, directly behind our palace. It was a photo only of Eli, looking back with his tongue lolling out, the lake glowing orange from the light of the setting sun. I showed Shiro, eliciting another high-pitched sound.

“Wow, you have literally the best dog ever. This looks like an ad for organic dog food and blissful retirement all rolled into one cute, fluffy package.”

I took back my phone, laughing. Shiro’s friends joined us, Ace coming up behind Shiro and nudging him with a shoulder. I noticed his eyes lingered on me for a moment longer than normal, resurrecting the thoughts of him possibly knowing me. He was distracted by his boyfriend, who pointed out at the bay. Lou and his girlfriend, Elle—or as I secretly named her, Elvira, Mistress of the Text—went over to the railing and took a peek over the deck. I was surprised Elle managed to take her eyes off her phone screen long enough to admire the view. When we had been introduced, I wasn’t even sure if I’d get her to look up at me, her shiny black hair almost creating a curtain around her face.

“Oh, look,” Shiro said, tapping me with an elbow and pointing up with his chin. I looked up at the ship’s towering exhaust stack, a Christmas tree painted onto the front of it, giving the illusion that we would be cruising with a twenty-foot tree on the boat. But that wasn’t what had caught Shiro’s attention. He was pointing at the white puffs of fake snow that were beginning to fall, propelled out from hidden pipes coming from behind the exhaust stack. The snow filled the air, landing on our foreheads and instantly dissolving. The ship gave a loud and prolonged blast of its horn and started to push forward.

The momentum must have caught Shiro off guard. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him tip over, falling into my arms. I instinctively opened to catch him, his head landing square on my chest. He looked up at me, saying a soft “thanks,” his amber pools catching me as off guard as his trip.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed in that position. Most likely seconds, although it felt like years passed us by.

He regained his footing. I peeled my eyes off him, scared of what I’d do if I kept looking. Scared I would be pushed into reaching out, holding him again. It had felt so natural. A flash of a moment that sealed everything for me. Made me realize exactly what I wanted.

Who I wanted.

“Snow in Miami,” Shiro said, speaking so he could be heard over the excited crowd and the wind now beginning to stir around us, whipping the fake snow into swirls as the cruise ship left the bay. “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

I watched him move his hand through the air, eyes turned to the sky, smile spreading across his face, and I had to agree wholeheartedly with him.

“It sure is.”

6 Shiro Brooks

The dining room had been transformed into a winter paradise. After sitting at a booth tucked inside a snow globe for close to an hour, I almost forgot we were cruising through the tropics, with the sun beaming bright on people getting tans by the pool. And our booth wasn’t the only snow globe you could sit in. They were found at all corners of the dining room, each one painted a little differently. Ours had a gold-and-blue base, and the glass that semi-surrounded us was frosted with snowflakes painted onto the sides, making it seem like we were the ornaments locked inside.