The Prince of Dragons

Chapter one

"I still can't believe we're going on a cruise, Ashley" I say to my best friend Ashley as we're walking through the hallways to find our room.

"I still can't believe someone is paying for the trip." Ashley says.

(Flashback)
I was coming back home from work when my mom told me I got mail. She handed me the letter and I opened it.

"Dear T.J.,
You have been given the chance of a lifetime to take yourself  and a friend on an all expense paid cruise trip around Europe for three weeks. I know what you're thinking, 'what's the catch?'. The catch is you have to meet the one that is paying for your trip at the end of the trip. Dinner will be reserved for your and your benefactor but until then we cannot give you anymore details. A car will pick both you and your friend up at 8:00 am next Friday. Enjoy."

I looked at the back of the letter to see if it said who it was from but no luck. I was a little concerned because I don't remember entering any kind of contest and I'm pretty sure Ashley  would've told me. 

I thought it was some sort of sales person joke, so I carried on with my life. But a few days later I got a phone call confirming that I was still going on the trip. I asked the lady on the phone if this whole thing was a joke and she explained that someone was "interested" in my articles I've written for my school's news. 

I then called Ashley and told her about the cruise that I supposedly won, she started freaking out saying that we have to go. That's my friend, if it's free she'll go. 

I asked her if it was weird that I randomly won a cruise trip but she then mention that the news crew at our school had mentioned that whoever worked the best would get a recommendation from the teacher in charge. 

After she jogged that memory back to my brain, I started to feel excited. Maybe I did get the recommendation and this is someone who works at a news station. But I didn't want to get my hopes up until I was sure.

The next day English teacher had pulled me aside and told me that she forgot to mention that she sent a recommendation out for me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and I tried really hard not to start screaming but come on we've all had that internal scream once in a while.

I then told Ashley the good news and that this cruise was legit and that we were going. I've never seen her so happy to go on a boat in my entire life.

---------

Yep, that's how we got here. My mysterious benefactor had paid for all of this and I had to do was meet him at the end of the trip. Easy enough, right? But something in my gut was telling me that something was going to happen. Something bad.

We finally found our room. I hesitated on opening the door but Ashley wasn't, she busted open the door and waltzed right into the room. I just stood at the doorway with my eyes wide open in shock but I let out a laugh. 

"Oh god, Ashley. You know how to make a dramatic entrance."

"Hey, dramatic is my middle name. Besides we're sleeping in room that's like a hotel suite - A goddamn suite! Like what the hell are you doing just standing there, get your ass in here while I inspect the bathroom," Ashley says.

I laughed again. Of course, if the bathroom isn't big enough she'll have a fit. I walked towards the beds and placed my bag on one of them.

"OMG! The bathroom is perfect!" Ashley yells.

I smiled as I walked over to the nightstand that was between the beds. There was a piece of paper with my name on it, so I picked it up and started to read it. 

'Hope the room is to your liking. Can't wait to meet you.' - Benefactor

I placed the paper back down on the nightstand and walked into the bathroom. Once I walked in I was just as shocked as Ashley was. 

"Holy crap Ashley! This bathroom is perfect!" I tell her.

"I told you! It's so beautiful" Ashley says, pretending to choke up.

"Of course it's beautiful otherwise you'd ask for a different room." I said facing her.

"That's only because we deserve the best, T.J." 

I chuckled. But something was just weighting down on me.

"Hey, are you okay?" Ashley asks.

"Do you get the feeling that something bad is going to happen?" 

"Oh T.J., come on. You do this all the time, you overthink things. Can't we just enjoy a free trip without having to worry. Please." Ashley says.

I didn't say anything but Ashley was right I do overthink things and that always got the best of me. But not this time, this time I wasn't going to let myself overthink anything and just have fun on this trip.

"Yeah, you're right Ashley. I am overthinking everything. Let's go have a good time." I tell her. 

She smiles and pulls me toward our bags.

"Good, because I want to get my bikini on and go sit by the pool and scope out a new man" Ashley says while getting our bikini's out. 

"Umm, why are you grabbing mine?" I ask.

"Because you're going to be my wing woman. Besides, you need to get over Teigen. He's not going to make you happy, he never was." Ashley tells me.

Ah yes, Teigen. He was someone I used to hang out with a lot, we were really good friends and still are but I was hoping we would be more than friends. At one point he told me that he had feelings for me but I wasn't looking for a relationship at the time. We stayed friends but when I started to have feelings for him, he lost interest in me and fell in love with another girl. When I asked him about us he told me that we were nothing more than friends. He completely "friendzoned" me. After that I knew that I had to look out for myself and take care of myself. 

"Hello? You there?" Ashley asks while snapping her fingers in front of me.

"Huh?" 

"Did you hear what I said?"

Great, I zoned out again.

"No ....... I didn't"

Ashley sighed.  "I said lets hurry up and get ready so we get good spots"

"Oh, then lets go!" 

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When we finished getting dressed we headed out to the pool. Once we got to the pool we set up where we were going to sit. We sat down and just enjoyed the sun. 

2 and a half hours later I look at the time and it said 6:00 pm, we had dinner reservations at 7:00 pm. I poked Ashley's arm and she just laid there.

"Ashley, come on. we gotta go, we have dinner reservations at 7"

"alright alright, I'm up." Ashley says while getting up.

We got up and headed back to our room. On our way back I looked down to check my phone for a couples of seconds and then I suddenly hit a wall. I staggered a bit back and was about to fall when I felt someone grip my arm tight and saved me from embarrassment.

"oh, wow. Thank you, you saved me from embarrassing myself," I say.

"Not the first time you ran into someone?" a deep voice asked.

I froze at the sound of that voice, my cheeks the started to heat up. I looked up to see a tall, handsome man with chocolate brown hair and beautiful icy blue eyes.

Oh Geez. I was really hoping I had run into a girl and had to deal with her complaining about me and my eye sight.