Vanilla

Fifteen

[Vanilla]

"That won't be necessary," I stepped back, shying away from his touch. The last I remembered, hair follicles did not contain sensory nerves and yet, here I was—completely shaken and oddly embarrassed by someone else touching my hair and, well, invading my personal space. "There's no reason why I should be showering again when I've done so less than ten minutes ago. U-unless you're saying I smell strange."

I brought the back of my hand up to my nose, and then the collar of my shirt. Nothing out of the ordinary, I mean... it all smells like soap to me. But this act, however harmless, seemed to provoke quite the reaction out of my companion, who laughed shortly and had his eyes fixed on the collar of my shirt.

"Shut up and follow me," he grabbed the arm of my sleeve and tugged it towards him, starting towards the stairs as soon as he ensured that I was directly behind him.

The hallway was narrow and uncomfortably intimate despite the luxurious spaces I'd seen so far on deck. I figured that maximising the interior space of bedrooms was higher up their priority list than spacious corridors were but admittedly preferred walking alongside someone to walking behind them. Of course, I was more uncomfortable with the idea of bumping shoulders and elbows with Leroy than walking behind him, so. The logical solution was to go with the latter.

The solarium turned out to be an open observation area on the uppermost deck, shaded by a series of tall, collapsible parasols and, farther aft, featured an outdoor pool and sun loungers on the same teak-lined flooring. Towards the bow was an indoor salon, which I assumed was the one Leroy had been referring to (that served coffee round the clock) and adjacent to that, the gym and—a spa room. Again, unnecessary luxuries.

We entered the salon and were, at once, spoilt for choice. There were almost four completely different kinds of seating in the empty salon and we had the privilege to choose among canvas sofa seats, individual working pods, four-by-four restaurant seating and a row of bar stools overlooking the bow of the yacht.

Naturally, I was drawn to the view.

"Do you mind if we sit over there?" I pointed towards the bar stools as soon as Leroy headed for the sofa seats. He paused, seemingly amused.

"You're a romantic."

I denied this at once, fixing my glasses to hide the embarrassment bubbling in my head and coming up with a reasonable excuse regardless. It was hard to tell the difference between him pointing things out and asking questions.

"Not as much as I am an intellect. Curiosity is a good—dangerous too, yes—trait to have and I'm merely trying out something I would otherwise never have had the chance to. Like observing the view of the river from a river cruise at night."

Leroy snorted, laughing. "Whatever you say. Need anything warm?" He nodded towards the drink station that apparently served cookies and local biscuit treats as sides. It was tempting but admittedly, I wasn't as shivering cold as I was before so I eventually decided against it.

Lo and behold, he had the gall to ignore me.

"Chamomile tea and a coke," he said to the staff behind the counter, who got to work at once. I stayed in my seat, glaring at him from afar. Not only did Leroy remain unfortunately unfazed, he presented his indecent finger with a smirk.

Clearly, I was shocked and confused. It being the second time he'd ever done so towards me, I could now confirm my suspicions of the gesture being deliberate and not an accidental, habitual slip. At this point, there was no telling what sort of relationship we had since Leroy didn't particularly seem to like cooking for any of his friends whom he'd flipped off but neither was I any familiar with the teenaged version of him before me now.