✯ North Star ✯

1 - No Prospects

I'm half asleep, that soft warm place just under the surface of consciousness, when I feel his breath against the back of my neck, warm and slow, stirring the small hairs there.

"Stella," he whispers.

"Hmm?" The word comes out as barely a sound, my whole body still heavy with sleep.

"Do you wanna get married?"

Something in me smiles before I'm even fully awake, a warmth spreading slow through my chest before my mind has caught up to the question. "No," I mutter.

"No?" He sounds genuinely surprised, like this wasn't the expected outcome.

"No."

"Well — how come?"

"You don't have any prospects."

"You don't have any prospects either," he fires back.

I consider this with my eyes still closed, a laugh already building somewhere behind my ribs. "Fair."

He laughs, quiet and warm, the kind of laugh that belongs to early mornings and nowhere in particular. "Well, not anymore."

"So it's not about the money?"

"I guess not. You're pretty good-looking."

"Stop." I laugh despite myself, finally opening my eyes. The light is soft and gold through the porthole and John B is looking at me like I'm the best thing in any particular room, which is the kind of look that does something irreversible to a person, something in my chest tightening and unfurling all at once.

"I'm serious. Now come here."

"I'm trying to sleep."

"You wanna be a Pogue for life?"

"I already am a Pogue for life." I turn into him, settling my head against his shoulder, feeling the steady beat of him underneath, warm and solid and completely mine. "But if I say yes, you're not allowed to die."

He doesn't answer that. He just holds me, and I listen to his breathing even out, and somewhere outside the water moves against the hull like it's got nowhere to be.

I fall back toward sleep with the word yes already living somewhere under my ribs, waiting.

Then footsteps. Heavy. Getting closer, and my whole body snapped instantly alert.

"JB — someone's coming."

He moves immediately, tucking the gold bar back into the bag with the practiced efficiency of someone who had gotten good at hiding things fast. Captain Terrance stepped in right on the other side of that motion.

"Morning, lovebirds. Coming into port. Best not be onboard without a passport, if you know what I'm saying."

"Yeah, we hear you," John B said.