Bad Cruz(33)

“I believe you,” I said, because it was the right thing to say.

“No, you don’t.” She tossed herself over the bed with a heavy sigh, even though she was coated with sunscreen and sweat and a day full of sun. “I can see it in your face. You think I did it on purpose.”

“Nope.”

Maybe.

She groaned into the pillow. “The look on your face was unbearable.”

“You do seem to find my face generally punchable.”

“I thought it was yours. I did. There were no other suitcases in the hallway. Someone must’ve taken yours. I thought it was a no-brainer. You have to believe me.”

“I do,” I said, and because I wanted this awkward conversation to be over, I added, “You’re Messy Nessy. Things like that happen to you all the time.”

She looked up from the pillow, and immediately, I knew I’d screwed it up. She looked so dejected, so goddamn unhappy, I wanted to…wanted to…

Don’t complete that sentence, Dr. Costello. Not even in your head. She is not your problem. She doesn’t want to be your problem.

“Tennessee…” I said instead.

“Shotgun on the shower,” she said flatly, unplastering herself from the bed and making her way to the bathroom. “Make sure your valuables are out of sight by the time I get back. Wouldn’t want my sticky fingers all over them.”





By the time my roommate got out of the bathroom (why did she have to turn on all three faucets? Weren’t there more practical ways to drown oneself on a cruise?), one of the representatives came into our room with my suitcase, explaining that it had been in the lost and found cabin.

I tipped him well, wheeled it in, and decided that despite my sliver of doubt, stemming from Tennessee’s general unfounded bad reputation in Fairhope, I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt.

We had a good thing going today, and by ‘good’, I mean no one had threatened to physically harm the other, and I wanted to keep it that way (although now I thought about it, I had told her I was going to bathe her in her own blood and throw her to the sharks if she locked me out again this morning).

She got out of the bathroom looking like something out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog. Mrs. Warren was dead wrong. If Tennessee were a hooker, she would cost at least two grand a night.

A lacy black mini dress clung to her curves with a pink satin ribbon crisscrossed diagonally on her back, tying the whole garment into place. Her big Marilyn Monroe hair looked impeccable, and her heels were tall enough for her to see the Empire State Building on a sunny day.

She didn’t have any makeup on yet, and I had to admit, natural-looking Tennessee made my stomach flip like a teenage boy finding his father’s Playboy stash for the first time.

She glanced at my suitcase without comment, passing by me over to what I assumed she claimed as her nightstand, producing a makeup bag from the drawer.

“They found it,” I said, referring to the suitcase.

She unzipped her makeup bag, flushing under the weight of my stare. “Oh, well, that’s good. Maybe if you manscape regularly, your penis won’t be so hard to locate next time.”

We were back to being enemies.

“I said I believe you.”

“Oh, but I don’t believe you believe me,” she countered. “Anyway, it’s fine. You didn’t look like you were up to getting us a double portion of meat, anyhow.”

We weren’t going to dinner together now?

That was bull, but I wasn’t going to chase her. I had never chased a woman in my life, and I wasn’t about to start with Ms. Sulky Pants.

I took out some clean clothes and trudged into the shower. What kind of water temperature did she shower with? The place looked like a sauna.

When I got out, she was flung over the bed—our bed—FaceTiming with her family. A cheerful smile marred her face—I could tell she was faking it.

There were a million things I wanted to say to her. Somewhere within them was also an apology for being a shithead. But before I could do any of those things, my own cell phone rang. It was Wyatt, my brother.

I picked it up.

“Hey.”

“How’s it going over there?” Wyatt sounded like he was eating something crunchy. “Is the bimbo giving you trouble? You’re sharing a room with her, aren’t you?”

I ground my teeth together. I didn’t like how Wyatt talked about Tennessee, but it wasn’t much different from how anyone else spoke about her.

For years, I’d quietly accepted the verbal assaults because they were not directed at me or my close ones, but the truth of the matter was, Tennessee was a human being, and no human being should be subjected to this kind of treatment. Just because she was an adult didn’t make it right.

I glanced at my roommate from my spot by the vanity, my phone pinned to my ear so she couldn’t hear anything. She was still lying on the bed, looking like a call girl.

Why couldn’t she dress like a normal person?

She’d have attracted so many suiters without all the crap covering her face. I was sure Tennessee thought the prejudice toward her was because of Bear.

Matter of fact, from what I’d heard, Bear was a good kid. He never got into trouble and never found himself on my doctor’s bed with a fracture or broken bone he couldn’t explain.