Play Along

Maybe I am the one who is fucked up.

I don’t even know anymore.

My thoughts are interrupted by him coming back to the cabin. He walks into the bathroom and gets into the shower, not saying anything. Does he honestly think I’m asleep?

Ten minutes later he gets into bed beside me.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he replies quietly.

I frown into the darkness.

“Was Stucco there?”

“Nope.”

Why is he lying?

We stay silent as my mind begins to spin.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He rolls over and takes me in his arms. “I am now that I am next to you.” He kisses my shoulder gently.

A lie and a truth in the same sentence. My pleasure and my pain.

* * *

“Remember that time in Mexico when the border control had to be bribed?” one man says and the table all laugh out loud.

We are at dinner and the men are all swapping Vikinos stories. He arrives tomorrow and the ship has been in overdrive to prepare. Apparently this is the first time he has been on the ship in over eight months and he is flying in for the day to check out operations. From what I can tell, Stace is the only one who knows him personally. The other men just don’t know how personally.

I have questions myself.

When he said he went on to work for him, was that as one of his hit men or have I just watched too many movies?

The way he lied to me about fighting Stucco the other night has only planted the seed of doubt in my mind. Was he telling me the truth about his past or what he wishes were the truth? Has he really been innocently blindsided into this life, or is he a lifelong criminal, as I first thought?

I don’t know what’s going on with him this week, but he is getting more and more agitated at Vikinos’s impending arrival. He must have told me a thousand times that I am not allowed out of the cabin while Vikinos is on the ship. He even sat me down this afternoon and told me that if he leaves the ship suddenly, I am to stay with Angela and the boys until we get to dock and they will keep me safe.

Is he thinking he is going to leave with Vikinos?

I’m confused, but I’m not bothering asking questions because they will be met with lies. It was only a white lie, I keep telling myself, and he was probably trying to stop me from worrying about him.

But a white lie is a black lie to me. They all hurt the same.

I am brought back to the moment with the conversation going on around me.

“Oh, and he hates cops,” one guy chips in.

“Yeah,” someone else says. “Remember that warehouse he had?”

“The Pig Fryer, they call it,” says another.

The men all erupt into laughter and Stace drops his head and clenches his jaw in anger.

I frown as I watch him. He is visibly rattled by this conversation.