The Summer Siren

Astrid

While Ace has pretty much had the full tour of the boat, Erik has not. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs, he just stops waiting to see where I would go next. "Right," I say, because I really am tired, "Quick tour. That's the bathroom, that's the kitchen, this is the cabinet I put towels and extra clothes in, and the last room at the end is the bedroom. I wasn't kidding when I said I only have one bed. I would prefer if we could figure out a way that we were separated in the bed, but I am also not opposed to sharing a bed with you or Ace."

I had accepted that I would have to share a bed with them, because I refuse to give up my sleep, and it had only been the matter of saying those words out loud. Erik seemed surprised when I had told them this, "I had honestly been expecting to sleep in the floor, but I'm not going to turn down sharing a bed with you."

"Don't get the wrong idea, there won't be any touching. We will put a wall of pillows up and have separate blankets," I say, starting to pull pillows out of the extra cabinet and handing to him, "There may be times where you and Ace must share the bed as well. It's not always going to be me, so don't get your hopes up thinking it is."

If he's upset, his face doesn't show it. He's still smiling when he walks over to the bed, cautiously sitting on it, "That's fine, this is the best bed I think I will ever have the privilege of sleeping on. Knowing that you're close to me will be good enough to satisfy me."

Before he can lay completely down, I shake my head, "Nuh uh, get up. You need a shower first. I don't know what you did before you got to the hotel earlier, but you were waiting on the shower and then we ran all over town. You're filthy."

"You have a shower on your ship?" he asks, his eyes glistening with awe.

"Right, I forgot, it's like I went back in time. Let me give you a more in-depth tour," I motion for him to follow me outside my room and walk into the kitchen.

Stepping to the side of the door so he's able to walk in the small kitchen and I start pointing around the room, "This is my kitchen. It has a stove, microwave, RV style refrigerator, a sink, and a decent sized pantry."

When I get to the pantry, I open my cabinet door and show him all the food sitting in there. He grabs a bag of cookies and holds it up, "Can I have one of these?"

"Yeah, you can eat anything in here as long as you help to keep it stocked when we go to port. I wouldn't recommend gorging on the food, especially the food from my world because you guys don't seem to have it here," I say, even though it's like it goes in one ear and out the other as he opens the bag and grabs a cookie.

He hands me the bag, probably because he doesn't know what to do with it, before inspecting the cookie like it's a bomb. "It's a chocolate chip cookie. Just eat it," I laugh.

He takes a small bite and goes to take another small one, but I shove the cookie in his mouth. When he starts to choke on it, I reach behind him to grab a water out of the fridge, but he finally stops coughing. Looking back at him, I see he's chewing, his cheeks puffed out because of the cookie. I watch him struggling to get the cookie down. It was a burnt butter chocolate chip cookie and a bigger than a normal chocolate chip cookie so it took him a minute to get down but when he does, he smiles, "That was delicious, I would like more."

"You can have one more, but I don't have the stuff to make any more so we should try to save some," I say, handing him one more cookie before closing the bag.

I can tell that he's trying to take his time and savor the cookie since I told him that it was going to be the last one for now. However, he ate half the cookie in one bite, and I couldn't help but laugh when he realized that his bite was so big. He didn't bother trying to savor the last little bit, shoving the rest in his mouth and gesturing to the small hallway outside the door, "Lead the way, Captain."