Page 13 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)
Chapter
Five
After breakfast I might push Eli overboard and then this afternoon I’m going to macramé myself a new nurse
A FEW DAYS LATER
Gideon
I hear his footsteps outside the bedroom door and grimace at the fact that my heart rate has just picked up. I hope he’s not expecting to take my pulse because that could be embarrassing.
There’s the customary soft tap on the door and then I hear his Welsh lilt. “Good morning. It’s a lovely morning.” He pauses. “Oh, you’re awake already.”
I’m sure I’m not imagining the note of disappointment in his voice.
He appears to enjoy winding me up just as much as I enjoy him doing it.
He crosses the room, and I shoot my gaze quickly down his body.
He’s dressed in three-quarter-length grey cuffed leggings with a white stripe down the sides and a white vest which shows off his golden skin and the bulge of his biceps.
His hair has been pulled back into a stubby topknot that highlights those clear olive-coloured eyes and high cheekbones.
He looks over at me, and I immediately fold my arms. “I couldn’t possibly sleep with the anticipation coursing through my body. What joys have you decided on today for my delectation? More line dancing or maybe some more of that lovely class in napkin decoration?”
He grins, going over to the blinds and raising them. “You can’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”
“Eli, I have never folded a fucking napkin in my life and I never will. My dates don’t get dinner. I fuck them and send them home.”
He pauses in opening my wardrobe door, his brow creased in thought. “I’m sure there’s a napkin fold that’s been created with that message.”
I shake my head. “So what’s in store for the middle of the night?”
“It’s six o’clock in the morning,” he scoffs.
“The only way I see six o’clock in the morning is when I’m coming home to go to bed.”
“Well, Mick Jagger, that wild way of life is over for the moment, so instead we’ve got wake-the-day meditation.”
“Did you just compare me to a rock star who looks like a raisin on a pair of legs?” I blink. “Wake-the-day meditation ,” I say in a tone of absolute disgust. “What the fuck is that? Am I to be responsible for the sun coming up on this ship too?”
Eli tosses a bundle of clothes at me. “I’m sorry to interrupt your messianic leanings,” he says, not at all apologetically. “Put those on and hurry up. We’ll have breakfast afterwards.”
I look down at the tight, grey marl, full-length leggings and black vest in dismay. “Surely there must be something else we can do?” I say, and I can hear the desperation in my voice. “My brother’s the spiritual yoga person in our family.”
He stops and looks at me curiously. “Is he? Is he any good?”
“Very,” I say, hearing the pride in my voice. “He teaches a class in the village now.”
“That’s an accomplishment for him, I think.”
I peer at him. “He had a stutter,” I say. “You could probably hear a trace of it in the way he speaks now.”
He nods. “It must have been nice having you as a brother.”
I wince. “Not really,” I mutter, feeling his interest sharpen, but he doesn’t ask me any questions.
His infuriating lack of pushing for answers always makes me want to knock him over the fucking head with them.
“I was a terrible brother,” I admit. “I was away at boarding school anyway, but when I was at home I was impatient with him and distant. I’m trying now, though,” I finish earnestly. “I want a relationship with him.”
“You must be doing something right,” Eli says in a mellow voice. “He obviously loves you.”
“That’s family. You can’t help that,” I scoff. Nevertheless, I feel a relaxing in the tenseness that always surrounds me when I think of the mess I made of the relationship with my brother.
“Not always,” he says, and there’s a finality in his voice that makes me drop the conversation.
Even though it’s early in the morning, there’s still a bustle to the ship as staff hose down the outside decks and sort out the bars to the accompaniment of a multitude of languages spoken in bright, eager voices.
I follow Eli up the steps towards the top deck, trying not to stare at his arse in those leggings. It’s actually impossible, as if my eyes are magnetized and he’s got an iron backside. Nevertheless, I manage to wrench my gaze away from the magnet’s pull and that’s when I spot it.
“Is that a tattoo on your back?” I ask, looking at the grey lines I can see as his vest shifts.
He looks back, smiling slightly. “It might be. Why?”
“No reason,” I immediately say, trying for an air of studied disinterest. By the quirk of his mouth I’m guessing I’m not hitting any acting strides today, so I give up. “I like tattoos,” I say instead.
“It is a tattoo,” he says. “It’s a dragon, which is very stereotypical for a Welsh man. And also stupid because it fucking hurt having something that big over my back.” He looks at me. “Have you got any?”
I shake my head. “Nope. It’s not really good for an actor.”
He comes to a stop, the breeze blowing strands of hair around his clear, unlined forehead. “But loads of actors have got them.”
“Now they have. When I started in the business it wasn’t encouraged.”
He nods seriously. “I guess they were too concerned with introducing sound into films at that point.”
For a beat I stare at him and then, to my amazement, laughter bubbles out and I give a disgusting snort. “Yes, damn those pesky talkies.”
Eli grins at me happily before turning round and mounting the stairs in his characteristic long-legged strides.
I’ve noticed that he never seems to rush anywhere, but somehow he seems to get to places quicker than anyone else.
I follow a bit more slowly, and when I round the deck, I look around curiously.
The sky is a clear, pale blue and there’s every sign that it’s going to be a scorching-hot day.
However, the breeze blowing across the deck has ensured that it’s still cool at the moment.
Set along the deck are padded mats in bright colours, and a group of people dressed in colourful yoga gear chat happily amongst themselves.
As Eli comes onto the deck, a slender dark-haired woman detaches herself from the group and comes over with a huge smile. “Eli, you came,” she exclaims with as much enthusiasm as if Eli were her long-lost brother. “I’m so pleased.”
My eyes narrow. When did he meet this woman ?
He grins lazily at her, oblivious to the fact that she’s currently eye-fucking him so hard I’ll need a cigarette when she finally looks away. “I said I would,” he says happily, the Welsh lilt very evident in his early-morning voice.
I shoot him a look of total incomprehension. As far as I know, he’s been ensconced in the suite with me for the last few days, insisting that I sleep and relax. Yet every time we’ve left the cabin since then, people have hailed him left, right, and centre. How is this possible?
I come back to the conversation as Eli pats my arm. “This is Gideon.”
I bite my lip because his tone of voice and gestures are currently suggesting that rather than being a famous actor, I am, in fact, a raggedy old sheepdog. She gives me a cursory glance and smiles before returning to eye-fucking my nurse.
I can actually feel my mouth drop open. I’m not being conceited but…
Oh, okay, I am being conceited but goddammit, there aren’t many people that overlook me.
I’m too famous . I pause. Or infamous . I shrug.
Either fucking way, I’m bloody memorable .
Apart from on this fucking ship where my nurse appears to be the headline act.
I wonder whether I should be annoyed, but I’m far too amused to bother with that, so I stand, trying not to smile as she engages Eli in a very animated conversation while he shoots me occasional glances to check whether I’m okay or if I’ve died from boredom.
Finally, when the group starts shifting about like sheep getting bored, she breaks away from the conversation and heads back to the front of the deck.
I turn to face Eli, leaning my elbows on the rail. “She seems very…” I pause, searching for words. “Very awake.”
He starts to laugh. “It’s usually better for the back and forth of conversation that both parties are conscious.”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure about that. Sometimes I think it would be better for people if they were asleep when I spoke to them. Less chance of them taking offence.”
He nods solemnly. “You might be right. Either that or dead.” He dodges laughing as I elbow him and mouth “twat” at him.
After he’s stopped laughing, I look at him. “She seems keen, though.”
He shakes his head. “She’s barking up the wrong tree with me.”
There’s a short pause as he looks at me and I feel my heart start to pound heavily. I swallow. “Why?”
“Because I’m gay,” he says calmly. “Hope that isn’t a problem.”
I marvel at the coolness with which he says that. I wish I could be like him. “Why would it be a problem?” I finally say through a dry throat. Shit! He’s gay, which makes him potentially available if it weren’t for the small matter of my being his patient and me being, well, me.
“Well, your manager seems to have some rather homophobic views.”
“Please don’t paint me in the same colours as Frankie. He’s only slightly left of Mussolini.”
He looks at me and gestures with his hand and I stare at him for an overlong second, wondering for a mad moment whether he’s guessed about me and is waiting for me to reciprocate with confession hour.
Then he says, “After you,” and I realise that the group is all on their mats and waiting for us to sit.
“Sorry,” I say to everyone and scoot to the back where two mats are waiting as if they’ve got our names on them. I settle down and look over at Eli as he sits down on his own.
“What do we do?” I hiss.
He grins at me. “Can you sit cross-legged?”
“If I had a gun to my head.”
He snorts. “Well, try pretending.” He winks. “Try and act. If you can.”