Cruising

Adam Brenner is looking for a life change when a long-time friend and associate, Tom Hathaway, offers him a position as casino manager aboard The Maid of the Seas, a luxury cruise ship out of Port Canaveral, Florida.

Trying to leave behind haunting memories of an alcoholic boyfriend on a path to destruction, Adam succumbs to the Latin charm of Vittorio Borghese, the ship's architect. After a night of hot sex, Adam thinks he might have found the one to help him forget the misery of the past, but Adam soon discovers that life on board a floating resort has its drawbacks to go hand-in-hand with the perks.

Dismayed by the hostility shown toward him by the ship's captain, and Vittorio's seeming indifference, Adam finds comfort in the company of Brett Jarvis, a talented singer/guitarist who plays nightly in the ship's lounge bar. The two men quickly form a warm and loving relationship, and Adam starts to look forward to ‘a life on the ocean wave', thinking that it will now all be plain sailing.

However, he soon discovers that out on the vast regions of the Atlantic, sudden squalls, both natural and man-made, happen all too frequently—and some people are definitely not the great guys they appear to be.

Publisher's Note: This story has been previously released as part of the Friction anthology by Totally Bound Publishing.