Seven

Cory

Of course, the guy who was one of the more obnoxious at the beach restaurant, had to find me on the ship. I had hoped he was staying at the hotel on the island, but it looked like I was wrong. They were all a mess. Sloppy drunk, loud and rude while we were trying to get cleaned up. Not that they cared one little bit. But he was with the same two guys he'd been dancing with at the restaurant, and I would have sworn they were all together. Not that I cared in the least, but I wondered why he wasn't with them now.

"I must be ready for some time off," I said to myself as I hurried back to the bar for one more round of drinks.

"Did you see what happened?" Johnny walked up to place an order at the same time.

"No, what happened?" I asked and glanced around at the dance floor that was still going strong.

"One of the guys from the restaurant that came in last minute snuck on board." He said it like he was telling me something super-secret and waited for me to respond.

"Can that really happen?" With all the security I never gave a second thought to someone sneaking on, and why would they want to? Once you were here, you weren't going anywhere other than the next stop.

"I guess so. What do you think they'll do with him?" Johnny's eyes widened either in anticipation or excitement. Either way he was really enjoying the fact someone was going to be in some sort of trouble. "I'll let you know as soon as I find out," he said, before rushing away from the bar with a full tray of drinks.

"Did he really sneak on board?" I asked the bartender who was barely staying ahead of all the drink orders.

"Looks like. I noticed him earlier, but he hadn't tried to pay yet so I wasn't aware of anything out of the ordinary until he passed out into his plate. Seems like they should have caught it when he boarded. He might not be the only one that's dumped off at the next island." He smirked before passing me the last of my drinks. "By the way I'm Liam," he said.

"I'm Cory, I'm surprised I haven't worked with you yet."

"Oh, I noticed you." He winked and immediately moved to the next guest to get their order.

"Hm." When I first arrived to serve on the lido deck instead of cleaning afterward, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. But it was nice to work with different crew members and once I caught onto the routine it was going okay. The foam machines were cut off as they started preparing to close down. This wasn't the main party tonight, just the one that kept the party going from the beach.

They'd have a few hours before dinner was served and then each bar would have a different party based on that bar's theme, but there would be another whole ship party at midnight on this same deck. I had no clue what tonight's theme would be, but I was looking forward to seeing what everyone would wear.

Being a gay man working on a gay cruise was not a bad place to be. Today I'd done more with service than I had so far, but I liked it. Some people were assholes, but for the most part they were all happy to be on vacation and happy to see me when I brought their order to them.

"Cory, last call," the bartender said as I walked up with another order. Since they turned off the foam most of the partiers had slowly moved off to another part of the ship, and when the DJ announced the last dance, some stayed around for one more drink, but the area cleared out very fast.

After delivering the last tray of drinks I returned to the bar. The bartender, Liam, was now cleaning up as a few more of the tables and barstools had cleared out. "I'll take that," he said, and I handed him the tray of glasses I'd gathered on the way back from delivering my last order.

"You can go ahead and take your dinner break now if you want. I know it hasn't been that long since you ate, but if you wait until later, you may not get to eat," he said as he loaded more glasses into a tote for the cleaning crew to take to the kitchen. "Your manager will be in the crew mess in thirty to give you your next assignment."

"Thanks, Liam, nice meeting you," I said, before walking over to where Johnny was waiting.

"Are you eating now too? I asked.

"Yes, and this evening we're both working the party at midnight. We'll help with clearing tables after dinner service and come back here to set up," Johnny said.

"Is there a theme tonight?" We walked down the railing until we got to the door that led downstairs to the crew quarters.

"Yep, Rio. Get ready, it's going to be wild," Johnny said and turned to grin at me.

We were about to walk into the mess hall when I noticed the guy from earlier at the end of the hall. Two security guards were standing nearby as he spoke to someone that I knew was almost as high up as the captain. His eyes met mine and for a split-second I felt bad for him. His eyes were red-rimmed, and it was even more obvious what a mess he was.

I couldn't hear what was being said, but from the way his shoulders sagged, and the way his head dropped forward, it didn't look like a pleasant conversation.

"Cory, what are you waiting for?" Johnny said from behind me.

"Sorry, just wondering what's going on there," I said as I walked through the doorway.

"Doesn't look like anything good," he said with a glance in that direction. "Now tell me what you think of serving instead of clearing?"

"So far so good." We chatted with a few other crew members as we stood in line to get our food, and the guest who had annoyed me more than once was completely forgotten. Little did I know that before long he'd be a constant problem for me.