On the first day, Will kept his head in the toilet. She sat on the bed in her underwear, playing solitaire with a deck of cards from the concierge desk. Nibbling on the saltines from the gift shop he had refused to eat, she winced periodically as his strangled hacking bounced off the walls of their sardine can of a suite.
On the second day, his stomach and balance moderately acclimated to the motion of the ship, they ventured into the port town, pausing occasionally to take goofy pictures with plastic-coated pirate statues or an ancient-looking donkey. By noon he was shifting his legs uncomfortably in the hot sun, sighing a little too dramatically as she sorted and picked through unending piles of brightly colored beads, and shells, and fabrics to find a gift for his mother. He snapped, and she snapped back, so she went to bed early with a headache while he aimlessly dropped quarters into the slot machines.
On the third day, she sat reading under a giant red umbrella, pretending not to hear him as he coaxed her from the water. Five minutes later, she was watching her pale toes sink into the wet sand as he snuck up behind her. By the end of the afternoon, a little swallowed seawater and a very big jellyfish sighting found her in tears in the back of a cab. He mumbled sympathies into her hair while she shook the sand out of her canvas bag.
At dinner that night, they both reached for the drink menu. He thought she had taken too long to order, and she thought his head had swiveled when a painfully short hemline had strolled by. She picked at her fish while he sawed into his steak.
"I told you this was a horrible idea," he ventured, his silence slipping away with the fourth glass their waiter had brought him.
"Well what were we supposed to do?" she asked, popping the pineapple from yet another overpriced fruity concoction into her mouth, staring at the dessert cart which had started to sway unnaturally. "It was a gift. Should we have just told your parents no thanks, can you buy us a toaster?"
"Well we do need a toaster," he admitted.
"You're damn right we do."
"Oh, so suddenly that's my fault?"
"Well you broke it, so I don't see why not." She planted her elbows onto the table, leaning forward awkwardly as her tongue missed the straw by about three inches. He let out a laugh before his temper could swallow it, suddenly grinning as she blinked at him in surprise.
"What?"
"Nothing."
She kept his stare as she sucked in determination at the frozen remnants of her drink. He bit his lip in fascination as she swatted her bangs back from her forehead.
"Tell me," she insisted.
"You're just. Really pretty."
"Thank you," she smiled.
Thirty minutes and three drinks later, he slammed her against the elevator wall, his tongue struggling to find her neck as the buttons to six different floors lit up her behind her back. She sighed into his touch, reaching blindly for his belt as the canned saxophone music blared through the overhead speaker.
When the gold doors shot open, she pushed his lips off of her collarbone, struggling unsuccessfully to pull her bra straps back up her shoulders as a woman and two small children stepped on. Emma's hand shot to her mouth, stifling a laugh when she realized that his pants were unzipped and her lipstick dotted his face. Three floors down she pulled at his hand. They stumbled into their hallway, tumbling over one another onto the bold patterned carpet. She felt his hand rest protectively on her behind as she looked up to see the elevator doors close and the passengers' eyes widen.
"I've never made love on a boat before," she grinned, wrapping her legs around his waist as he stood. His feet zigzagged down the corridor while they explored each other, kissing, and nipping, and petting imprecisely as her shoes and his jacket and belt marked the trail of their progress like breadcrumbs in the forest. She slid down his chest and groaned at his arousal as he fumbled for the keycard in his back pocket.
"Isn't there a book about that?" he mumbled, reaching for the zipper of her dress as they fell backwards onto the bed. "I will love you on a boat," he recited, quite loudly as she giggled, shifting it over her head.
"I will love you in the rain, on a train," he assured her. She buried her bottom lip in concentration as her fingers worked the buttons of his shirt while he struggled to unhook her bra.
"In the dark, at the park," he breathed, his fingers trailing from her shoulders to her knees as she felt her body shiver in response. They smiled at each other, suddenly both feeling shy. She watched him stand, wrestling his body out of the rest of his clothes, bumping into the lamp, and the wall, and their Godzilla-sized suitcase before he joined her.
"In a car, at the bar," he grinned, sprinkling her face with kisses as she scrunched her legs to slip off her panties.
"At the bar?" Her eyebrows jumped. "Adult version," he explained, aiming his lips on the peak of her breast as she scratched at his soft curls in approval.
Their laughter seeped under the doorway and into the hallway, alternating between whimpers and pants, and culminating with a few very satisfied moans. He nuzzled his face underneath her chin as she curled her body into his, rubbing the soles of her feet on his kneecaps in apology for the week's events.
"Happy first anniversary," he mumbled into her neck, feeling her pulse slow from the tug of sleep.
"Happy first anniversary," she smiled as she pulled his sunburned arms around her.