Moonlight Waves

Storms

I took Sí's old hammock and Roman took mine, which was originally his.
Around me the crew sleeps and snores around me, and outside the ship, the sky wages war on the sea. Thunder continues to rattle the ship and every now and then there'll be flashes of lighting that light up the night that I can see through the boards over my head.
I keep thinking I can't be the only one who can't sleep, but the slow and steady breathing around me tells me otherwise.
Something makes a sound to the left of me and I turn onto my side to look over. Roman is turned over in his hammock and facing me and it takes me a second to see his arm and hand stretched out towards me.
I grab my blanket and climb out of my hammock, my sock feet getting slightly wet from the damp floor. Roman wraps his arm around my waist as I climb in next to him. I snuggle down into his side and he tucks the blanket in around us, warding the cold off. I lay my head on his chest and he buries his face in my hair.
"Amadrya would kill me if she caught us like this." I whisper and I hear Roman let out a breathy laugh.
"We'll just be sure to keep our hands to ourselves." He whispers back, "Then Amadrya won't have to know."
  "I answered all of your letters." I say, changing the subject after a moment of silence.
  "All of them?"
I nod my head slightly beneath his chin. "It helped make the distance between us not seem so far."
  Roman buries his face further into my hair before raising his chin and kissing my forehead.
  "I missed you more and more with every breath I took and I was terrified of the thought of not living long enough to protect you."
I turn my face up towards him and our noses are mere inches apart. He reaches up his hand and caresses the side of my face, his thumb gently rubbing the skin in front of my ear.
  "I prayed to God he'd bring the man I love," I pause and change my wording, "the man I want to marry, back to me. And he did."
  "You found the ring then?" He asks me.
"It's beautiful."
   "Should be. It costs enough." He whispers and I can see his lips spread into a sly grin in front of me. I raise my own hand up to his face and trace my thumb along his eyebrows, cheekbones, and jawline. I'm careful not to put pressure on his black eye.
"You'll marry me then?" He asks, and I can hear the nervousness in his voice even though I said a mere a second ago that I wanted to marry him.
  I lean in closer to him so our lips are just barely touching and I breathe out the word, "Yes", Roman closes the distance and kisses me softly. But I pull away just far enough to murmur "Yes" against his lips and kiss him slowly again. I pull away one last time to whisper the word "Yes" once more, just to be sure he knows how much I want to marry him, and then press my lips to his and let myself get lost in the security and warmth of his arms and lips.
  We finally pull away from each other to breathe again, but I continue to trace my fingers along his facial features, memorizing every aspect of this moment.
  "We'll buy our own ship." He tells me. "We'll sail
the seas as Mr. and Mrs. Matheson."
"We'll be treasure hunters," I add, "hunting down the buried treasure of pirates."
Roman moves his face and makes a path of his kisses along my jawline to my ear. "We'll have eight kids." He murmurs.
  "Ha, no thank you."'I answer, my hand buried in his hair. "We'll have one child and then adopt a child from Crescent's orphanage."
  "That's a much better plan." He agrees, moving his lips to the lids of my eyes.
  I can't get my brain to focus on anything more as he continues to map out my face with his lips. I get that sensational feeling that over comes my body and makes my breathing quick as he slowly and gently kisses my neck. I'm warmed to the core and my skin tingles in every place his hand and lips touch, my face feeling like it's a flame.
  I move my face away from him and in turn kiss his temple and jawline. I very carefully kiss the outline of his bruise, trying to magically make it feel better.
  "How'd you get the black eye?" I asks, letting up on my kisses for only a second.
  "I tried to deck Captain Nico." He says.
I pull back to look in his eyes. "You were bound. Why would you do that?"
  "He said some inappropriate remarks about the girl I love."
  "You were defending my honor?" I ask.
"Forever and always." He reminds me. Mentioning the day long ago when I was barely eleven and there was a new family to Crescent Island who had a boy a year or two older than me and who relentlessly tormented me every chance he got. He was throwing rocks at my feet one day as I walked through town with Ama, and calling me all sorts of names that only an eleven year old could come up with. Out of nowhere here comes the boys and at the front of them stood my hero: Roman. The two got into a brawl in the middle of the street and the shopkeeper had to come running out and pull the two boys apart. Roman got into a lot of trouble with the headmaster of the orphanage and as Ama and I bandaged his scrapes and bruises in our parlor, I'd asked him why he did it. "Because he's a jerk." He'd answered, before adding, "And someone needed to defend your honor."
  "You'd do that for me?" I'd 'innocently' asked him at the pure age of eleven.
"Forever and always." He'd said, and Ama didn't let me live that moment down for months.
  Now, that phrase means much more to both of us. Now, it means that we're both willing to go to the ends of the earth for each other. An unbreakable promise to one another.
Roman buries his face in my neck and his breath stirs the hair at the base of it.
"We should try and sleep shouldn't we?" He asks.
"Probably, but I've been trying to for the last two hours and I can't turn my mind off."
He tightens his arms around me and I burrow in closer to his chest.
"I'd sing to you, but I'm too scared to get jumped by an angry crew." Roman says.
  I laugh quietly, but my laugh quickly turns into sniffling. Tears starting to fill my eyes.
  "Hey, hey, don't cry." Roman comforts, rubbing my back.
  "I'm so happy you're here." I sob into his shirt.
He continues to rub my back in circles and I try to slow the tears down, but I can't get control of them.
  Roman was the only person I ever felt comfortable showing my true emotions to, I always felt as though everyone else would judge me by my emotions. So I'd keep them locked up and wait till I was alone to sort them out. But when Roman and I grew closer and closer together, I was never scared of him judging me. So, with him finally here I feel as though I can show my emotions to him and he'll understand what I've felt these last months and I'll come to know what he felt. It's like our emotions and feelings have a silent conversation of their own without us ever having to utter a word out loud.
   Outside, thunder roars and lighting clashes. I instantly tense up and Roman notices.
  "It wasn't as close as you think." He tells me.
"It sounded pretty close." I respond.
  I feel the Moonlighter's bow rise out of the water before crashing back down into the waves. I cling onto Roman's arms and I see a few people sit up in their hammocks a bit.
  "The waves are getting rougher." I hear someone whisper.
  Someone comes running down the stairs to the crew's quarters, but I can't see who it is in the dark.
  "Abram, Henri, Weldon, Oscar," the voice barks into the dark and I recognize it to be Tommi's. "Report on deck!"
Immediately four forms jump from their hammocks and I hear them hurriedly pull their boots and jackets on before running up the stairs after Tommi.
"Everything's fine." Roman reassures me, "They just need a few more hands on deck with the storm. Try to get some sleep."
I nod my head, but I can't quell the rising anxiety inside of me.