The Chronicles of City Lights and Modern Love

The next morning, I woke up to a knock on the door.

"Come in," I called out groggily.

Carmine walked in and sat down on the end of my bed.

I sat up and looked at him.

"What's the plan for today?" I asked, thinking that we'd be doing more shooting or combat practice.

"Well, considering your plywood attacker is very dead and you beat me to a pulp yesterday, we decided that we could probably have the day off today."

"Oh?" I said curiously.

"Neil suggested that we all take the boat out. He needs to pay a visit to a marina in the next bay around from here, so we figured we'd spend the day out on the water and then do that this afternoon."

The idea of spending the day out on the water both excited me and confused me. I had grown up around boats and had been dearly missing the water since we moved to Manhattan, but spending the day with Neil and Carmine seemed like an odd thing to do. My need to be out on the water outweighed my apprehension, however, and we headed down to the pier where Neil's inflatable tender was waiting to take us out to his boat, although it was a tri-deck of about 140 feet long, and more accurately resembled a floating hotel than a boat.

As we got out to the boat, and I realised that Neil had a paid skipper to take us around for the day, I was nothing short of mortified, however after voicing my displeasure with this and explaining my aptitude at controlling a boat, he reluctantly awarded me the responsibility of driving.

We had been underway for about ten minutes, when I heard footsteps coming up behind me. Carmine walked up and killed himself laughing at the sight of the paid, uniformed and very disgruntled skipper sitting in the seat beside me while I sat at the wheel.

"I wondered where you'd gone," he said with a snort, finally composing himself.

"I am a woman of many talents..."

"Yes..." he said, laughing again. "You know, I think you need a skipper's cap."

He turned to the skipper and held out his hand. The man raised his eyebrows and looked offended for a moment, before sighing and removing his hat and putting it in Carmine's outstretched hand, who then put it on my head.

"There," he said, "that's better."

He then turned back to the skipper and gestured with his thumb at the lounge behind the two seats at the control board. The man rolled his eyes, before getting up and sitting on the lounge. Carmine then sat in the now vacant seat and proceeded to watch me.

I turned to look at him.

"What?" I asked.

"You look very comfortable behind the wheel," he told me. "I'm assuming I shouldn't be worried that you're controlling this boat..."

"You can swim, right?" I replied.

He laughed. "Yes."

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

"Oh good," he exclaimed, but he continued to watch me on and off for the remainder of our short trip around the headland and into the neighbouring bay, at the end of which sat the marina that we would visit later in the day.

I single-handedly anchored the boat and, just to humour him, asked the skipper if he wanted to confirm that the anchor had grabbed. I stepped out from behind the wheel and handed him back his hat, letting him take over. I didn't bother to stay to watch as he put the boat into reverse to make sure that the boat wasn't going to move. It didn't.

"Come on," Carmine said. "Let's go for a swim."

I followed him out of the flybridge and down the two sets of stairs to the lower deck, where I removed my shorts and singlet and grabbed a towel. Carmine looked me up and down briefly, which made me blush, but then his eyes settled on the large purple bruise on my side. He reached out and touched it lightly.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I hope that doesn't hurt too much."

I shook my head, looking into his eyes.

"It's not too bad," I assured him.

Goosebumps seemed to have radiated out from where he had touched me and, when he took a step towards me, so that there was about twenty centimetres between our faces, I felt my heart rate increase.

"Good," he said, bringing his other hand to the other side of my waist. "I hate that I hurt you...it will never happen again."

Instinctively, I pressed myself against him, never breaking eye contact.

"Good," I whispered.

Just as I had lifted myself up on my toes to bring my face closer to his, Freddie burst out of the saloon.

"Oh, sorry!" he said loudly. "Did I interrupt something?"

"Yes," Carmine hissed.

"Good!" Freddie replied with a loud laugh before spinning around and running down the stairs to the swimming platform off the back.

I turned on my heel and ran after him, pulling up short when I got to the bottom of the stairs, where he had stopped and was standing on the edge of the platform contemplating going in. I kicked him in the backside and he fell in with a splash.

I had started to laugh, when a pair of hands grabbed me from behind and, carefully avoiding my bruise, Carmine lifted me into the air and then tossed me into the water, before jumping in after me.

When I surfaced, I splashed him in his grinning face. He laughed and splashed back.

"Oh, stop flirting you two!" Freddie teased.

We both turned around and aimed our splashing at Freddie.

"Hey!" he yelled, before disappearing under the water.

Suddenly a whistle pierced the air.

"Lunch is served," came the voice of the skipper, who also turned out to be a chef.