4. Teddy

The only way to deal with finding out your relaxing cruise isn't what you thought, is to get drunk. At least according to Jamie. My head hurts as sunlight penetrates my eyelids, and I flash back to our spring break trips to Mexico. If I thought Jamie would be more grown up in grad school, I was wrong.

At least at home we have blackout curtains.

"What time is it?" I groan and throw my arm over my eyes.

"A quarter to seven," Jamie calls out, far too awake and too loud. "We're arriving in the Bahamas in a few minutes. Get dressed."

"Six forty-five is too early to get up," I grumble. The itinerary said we would arrive at Great Harbor Cay at 7, but we had all day there. "What's the rush?"

Instead of answering, Jamie pulls the pillow out from under my head and bops me on the face with it until I sit up and take it from him.

"Fine, I'm up," I throw my covers back and take in the fact that Jamie is already showered and dressed in swim trunks. "Why am I up before seven with how much we drank last night?"

"Okay, lightweight," Jamie chuckles and dodges my attempt to hit him with the pillow. "I want to rent jet skis and swim with the piggies. If we don't get there early, we might miss out."

Having no clue what he's talking about, I stumble towards the bathroom and take a piss before opening the door to ask, "Is that a euphemism? Like sleeping with the fishes?"

"Ha, like I'd kill you?" Jamie leans against the doorframe while I get toothpaste on my brush and smirks at me, "How would I survive a gay cruise without my Sugar-dick?"

My brush halfway to my mouth, I turn a sour look on my best friend. "I still don't know how you missed the entire theme of a cruise while booking it. You said you did extensive research."

Jamie nudges me aside to grab his own brush while I start scrubbing the nasty post-drinking taste from my mouth. The room isn't big, barely enough space for us to stand side-by-side, but we're used to sharing a bathroom. Brushing our teeth at the same time isn't usual, though. Normally he's off to the gym before I'm fully awake.

He spits and rinses before leaning against the open doorway to look at me in the mirror, "I did research on locations, cost, amenities, and excursions. Not the expected relationships of the guests."

Sighing, I guess I can't be too surprised. He once made me help him cram for a test the night before because he didn't notice it was on the entire semester, not only the recent unit. Thankfully, we had the same classes that year and I took extensive notes.

"Do I at least have time to shower?"

"Five minutes," Jamie tells me with a slap on my ass, sliding the door half closed and exiting the bathroom. Such a jock.

After a quick scrub with the tropical smelling body wash already in the stall, because I was too hungover to grab mine, I exit to find Jamie left a change of clothes on the counter. I hang my towel up and see he pulled out my outfit, which I always organize so I have all the pieces together: shirt, underwear, shorts, and socks if needed.

"Thanks," I call through the opening and he tosses the door open to find me naked. I cover my bits with a tiny hand towel, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"You're welcome." He smirks and turns around, "Make sure you put on sunblock, pasty-boy."

Pulling my trunks on without underwear, since they'll get wet based on Jamie's plans, I grumble, "Sugar-dick to pasty-boy. People are going to think you're an abusive boyfriend."

"Fair point," I see Jamie's head bobbing as I pull on my T-shirt and grab the sun block, like he's thinking. "What are you calling me in turn? Maybe teasing each other is our thing?"

"I think I called you tight-ass, at the restaurant," I twist the towel at the edge of the sink and snap it at his ass, which is sticking out at me, making him jump and turn around. When I have his attention, I point out the obvious, "We're not actually boyfriends, Jamie."

"We're guys," he ticks off on one finger and then a second, "and we're friends. We even live together. Why not call us boyfriends for the trip to fit in?"

"Because it's fucked up to pretend we're gay on a Pride cruise. We don't have the right to claim that pride when we're both cis-gendered and heterosexual."

"Easier than trying to rebuff their advances," Jamie shrugs and steps back so I can leave the bathroom and slip on sandals.

"Rich of you to assume," I raise an eyebrow and follow him out into the hall. "It's not like every gay guy is attracted to all men."

"But I've got all of this," Jamie gestures to his fit body in shorts and a tank top with arm-holes so big you can peek at a nipple on either side. He gets waxed, because he's naturally hairy, and has a tan I'll never achieve. His dark hair is trimmed shorter on the sides and he always seems to have a five-o-clock shadow.

Objectively, my friend is hot.

"Still," I shrug back as we round a corner and take the stairs toward the main deck. "I'm not attracted to most women, and even then I don't want to hit on them..."

"Me either, honey," a random man replies to my words as if I was talking to him.

All I can do is try not to laugh or blurt out apologies before Jamie is steering me to the line of people watching us dock on a tropical island. He laughs and I roll my eyes at my friend. We're in a section of cruise ships, ours being on the medium size next to a few with more than ten decks. Ours only has five and I thought that was a lot. Jamie considered those but took my dislike of crowds into consideration.

He could be a real brat sometimes, pushing my boundaries to get me out of my comfort zone, but he does care about me.

We grab some fruit and bacon from an on deck buffet and hang out by the railing as the crew works below us.

"So, jet skis and pigs?" I ask again while we eat and the sky turns from pink to bright blue.

Jamie takes my empty plate with his to a nearby waiter before returning to pull his phone out to show me the options. "Jet skis can be for an hour or three, depending on availability. I'm hoping we get three hours so we can go around the whole island."

"Might need to go back and get my sunscreen if we're going to be on the water for hours."

"I've got chu," Jamie pulls a travel sunscreen spray with spf 90 on the label out of his pocket. He must have grabbed it when I wasn't looking, because it wasn't the one I packed. "The pigs are a maybe, and seem more for the pictures. We could also swim with nurse sharks."

Jamie scrolls to a page with sharks and I shake my head immediately. He switches to another page and I see adorable pigs swimming in shallow water by a palm-tree lined beach. Some are pink and fuzzy, others have spots, and they're honestly the cutest things I've ever seen.

"No way? They're friendly?"

"Says they're docile and most common to find swimming around mornings or evenings. In the daytime they lounge in the shade by a restaurant down the beach from here," Jamie reads from the cruise line"s information page. "You'd be into that?"

"Do you not see the cuteness?"

"Fine," Jamie chuckles and puts his phone away. "Jet skis, lunch, then see if we can find the pigs before the boat leaves at five?"

"Sounds like a plan," I smile back and see a host starting to let the line of guests disembark. "I'm actually excited."

"Finally," Jamie gives me an exaggerated sigh and tugs me to his side. "Let's have some fun, Sugar-dick."

All I can do is laugh along with him, like usual. "Sure thing, Tight-ass."