Chapter 2

There was a thread of panic in his voice he couldn't quite hide.

"Hettie, what made you suddenly want to come out here?"

"You get seasick, and the food and lodging on the ship are terrible. If you came, I'd have to take care of you on top of everything."

"Be good. If you like fireworks, how about on our wedding day I put on a show just for you, all your own?"

But we aren't going to get married now.

And I don't get seasick.

The year we graduated, he took me out on the water. The speedboat driver, showing off, started rocking the boat back and forth, and I threw up all over Job.

After that he stubbornly decided I got seasick and never brought me to the coast again.

I gave a soft "Mm."

After I hung up, the tears I'd held back all night fell without my say-so.

I scrolled back through our old chats. The cabin photos Job had sent me were all fake.

The Voyager had sixteen decks, with bars and entertainment for everyone aboard, a whole city moving across the water, nothing like the grim, bare-bones ship he'd described.

I looked it up on the cruise line's website too. As captain of The Voyager, he not only had his own large suite, his meals matched the passengers' standard.

He'd been lying to me for five years.

The sky was just turning gray, most passengers still deep in sleep, only a handful of people on deck. I walked from the first floor up to the sixteenth.

The sun came up, and the horizon turned orange-red.

Job knew I loved watching the sunrise. He often set up his camera to capture the most beautiful ones and send them to me, five hundred and seventy-six of them in all, every one saved in my album.

I don't know how long I watched. The sun was already high over the bow when I turned around and came face to face with two familiar people.

"Hettie?"

"Oh my, it really is you. I just told my husband it was you and he didn't believe me. What a small world!"

I stared blankly at the two of them, an absurd guess rising in my chest.

"It's you two. What are you doing here?"

Michelle's mother's eyes crinkled into slits when she smiled. "It's all thanks to Micky's boyfriend. He's the captain of this ship. He says family can ride the cruise for free twice a year. Otherwise how could we ever bring ourselves to spend that kind of money?"

Huh.

Of course.

After my parents retired, their biggest wish was to go out and see the ocean.

I remembered Job's company had a perk for family members, so I brought it up with him, thinking he could look after them while they were aboard.

What did he say at the time?

Job had looked so troubled. "Hettie, the company already spends a lot every year just to keep running. I don't want to take up company resources for personal things. Besides, there are too many eyes on a ship like that, it's not much fun anyway."

I said nothing. I turned around and booked my parents a luxury cruise myself.

But when it came to Michelle, all those principles and limits of his went straight out the window.

Michelle's mother was still chattering on.

"That Job is such a thoughtful boy. Wouldn't let us spend a cent, even arranged a guide for us, worried we wouldn't enjoy ourselves."

"If it weren't for him, how would her father and I ever have such luck, coming out to enjoy a trip or two like this every year?"

"Oh, that's right, Hettie, you and Micky are friends, so you must have met Job? Micky says plenty of girls are after him, and he only ever had eyes for our Micky."

Her voice was full of pride she couldn't hide.

I was about to say I didn't know him when she grabbed my wrist.

She seemed to spot something, and before I could react she was pulling me toward Job and Michelle a little ways off.

"Micky, Micky——"

They were surrounded by passengers taking photos. At the sound they both looked up.

Their faces changed in an instant.