On board

Setting sail

"Where is it you're heading to first?" Zoe questioned from her position in the doorway. Her shoulder lent on the frame with her arms crossed before her. The green t-shirt she wore riding up a little as she slouched, her right foot tapping gently on the beige carpeted floor.

"Well we start in Valencia tomorrow afternoon, then from there we go up to Barcelona, across to Marseille, a quick stop off at Monaco for the day, then on to Pisa, Naples, and finishing off in Palermo in Southern Italy. Essentially its a two week tour of the European boarder onto the Mediterranean." Joe explained as he began compulsively packing and re-packing his suitcase. Lining up folded pairs of white, black, blue, and grey socks into the sides of his two cases. One for work, the other for play, as he liked to put it.

"Right." Zoe responded, scratching her head for a second as she tried to envision the route he would be taking. "Can you send me your invento-"

"Already emailed it to you." Joe responded, prompting the brunette to grab her phone out of the pocket of her shorts and check her emails. Only to find the email second from the top to bare her brothers name, an attached file showing the details of the journey he had just reeled of to her.

"Ah... Thank you." She nodded in appreciation before sliding her phone away once again before looking back at her baby brother and the look of concentration on his face as he moved away from sock organisation and onto his beloved collection of ten white shirts that all looked exactly the same. "Haven't you already done a tour like this one?"

"Yeah, I did three Mediterranean tours last year in between May and October, and I've already been to Barcelona about four times in the last eight months." Joe shrugged as he scratched a small black mark off of the shoulder of one of his T-shirts.

"Right... Do you not get bored of seeing the same places over and over again?" The older of the two asked, insistent on keeping the rather forced conversation alive.

Sighing softly, Joe looked up from the suitcases laid out on his bed for the first time in nearly half an hour. The organisation of his luggage was something which Joe had learnt the importance of very early on in his cruise ship career, knowing all to well that when you lost something for more than twenty minutes, it was likely lost forever. And so, from the moment you sign up to do a tour, to the moment you get home, Joe found it imperative that he knew where every single thing of his was.

Standing up straight from his bent over position Joe felt the strain in his spine. The tangible blue of his irises settling on the questionable look on his older sisters features. Running a hand through his hair, Joe allowed another breath of air to fall past his lips in an audible sigh.

"I do... Sometimes." He agreed with a gentle nod of his head. "But every time I go back to these places I get to see something I hadn't seen before, or I get to meet people who are just as lovely, if not lovelier than the ones I met last time I went. Sometimes I feel the same sense of dread I get whenever I look at the Spanish customs board, but hey... It's my job and I love it."

Zoe smiled fondly up at her brother. A real sense of honesty in his voice which made her heart warm.

Ever since they were little Zoe had always been known as the outgoing one. She had always been the one who enjoyed the spotlight more than her shy little brother who would go off into the woods and play with nothing more than a couple of sticks and his imagination. Yet whenever Zoe heard Joe talk about his job as a head lining singer on a cruise ship, she could physically see the change in his demeanour. His eyes became brighter, his smile would grow wider, and his entire body just seemed to become amped up with excitement at the idea of heading back to work. Something which at the times when he was back home made his personality bloody intolerable. His urge to get back to sea seeming to not be dealt with from their home in Brighton.