A Royal Christmas Cruise (Stonewall Investigations Miami 2.50)

The rest of the room had touches of the holiday season everywhere you looked. From the employees who looked like Santa’s elves with their red-and-green uniforms and droopy hats to the flat-screen TVs that were hung on a couple of different columns, each showing a different holiday film, all of them pulling from the classics. The one that faced us was playing the stop-motion Rudolph film, which happened to be one of my absolute favorites.

“So, Shy, what happened to Mace?” The question had come from across the table, Jada smiling with her bright pink lips. “Did he get nervous about being on a ship for so long? He was always weird about the ocean.”

I took a long sip of my Coke, trying to think of some kind of excuse. Nick must have seen me mentally flailing.

“He got sick,” Nick answered.

I nod, going along with the story. “He came down with something pretty nasty.”

“Well, I should text him, then.” Jada grabbed her phone from her sunflower-yellow clutch.

“No! Uh, I mean, he’s probably sleeping. He’s been sleeping a lot.”

“You sure? I feel bad. We haven’t talked in months.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said.

This was unsustainable. I was going to have to come clean. Maybe I should just say it, rip it off like a Band-Aid? “You guys…”

I was interrupted by a loud voice, singing a beat I couldn’t recognize right away but one that rang faint bells. The dining room started to grow quiet as the singing grew louder, the original voice joined by more. And then the song started in earnest: “Deck the Halls.” I looked around and spotted the Christmas carolers. A group of eight, all different from one another, their voices harmonizing perfectly. The women wore plaid skirts that billowed around them, with deep red velvet jackets and luxurious-looking white scarves. The men wore similar outfits, swapping out the skirts of plaid slacks, the deep reds, royal blues, and emerald greens complementing each other well. They bobbed back and forth, singing and raising their hands, lifting the books they carried up to the ceiling.

And then the music switched up, a beat beginning to play from the speakers and not the carolers. They looked around, all eight of them smiling, and they tossed their caroling books to the side. All eight of them grabbed their outfits and tore their clothes off, revealing bright beach clothes underneath. They busted out into an entire modern dance choreography to a pop version of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” the crowd erupting in cheers.

As they performed, Nick and I had gravitated closer to each other. He had to crane over me a little bit to get a good view, and so that provided some cover as to why I could practically lick the inside of his ear if I wanted to.

I restrained myself, content with just smelling his cologne, feeling his warmth against me. I tried reminding myself that he technically said “no” to being boyfriends, so he might not have even wanted me in the first place, but… damn it, I couldn’t help myself. Especially not when his hand was now resting on my knee, hidden from sight by the large table that covered us. I glanced around my friend group real quick, seeing that everyone was absorbed with the dancers, who were moving around the dining room and interacting with people now, getting some to get up and dance.

Nick’s hand moved, his thumb drawing circles over my bare skin, my shorts having ridden up to about midthigh. I tried controlling my breaths but could feel them start coming in more and more jagged. He squeezed gently, causing a heat to blossom from the point of contact, rising right up to my tightening balls. My thoughts drifted back to our kiss, to his tongue against mine.

I grew harder. To the point that I started hoping none of the dancers came my way and asked to dance with me—

Oh, fuck.

A dancer—a tall guy with short blond hair—locked eyes with me and shimmied over to me, wearing a pair of Christmas tree board shorts. He motioned for me to get up.

“No, that’s okay, I’m okay,” I said, Nick’s hand coming off my knee but my dick still working on a fifteen-second delay.

“Come on!” Lou said, cheering me on from down the booth. “Do it.” His girlfriend was finally looking up from her phone, using it to take snapshots of everything happening.

Great, there’s going to be photographic evidence of my boner.

“Seriously, I’m a bad dancer,” I protested. The dancing caroler took my answer as final and shimmied over to the table next to us, pulling up a grandpa and getting him to twirl his hips to a cheering crowd. Meanwhile, I breathed out a sigh of silent relief.

The show finished shortly after. My blood pressure was still through the roof, and I could feel the sweat that beaded on the nape of my neck.