It was not right. It was so far from right that she lacked the words to explain so instead stood there, eyes wide, mouth slack while around them the crew hooted and hollered. It wasn’t enough that the Captain had to indiscreetly follow the Spider’s folly with more of his own, but no Jax had to get in on it. Jax the incomparable buffoon, Jax who never failed to get under her skin. Jax the wonderful in his stupid, flamboyant gesture made everyone forget the kiss of the captain and look out. 

Bless him

Curse him.

For in doing so he accomplished something that Nicolette would have thought impossible. He made her envy Spice. The scrawny unwashed Frenchman took the national habit of ripeness to an extreme she could not countenance, and she envied him. Why? She couldn’t even bring herself to admit it, even to herself for all that it was obvious. For that brief second when Jax had looked at her, making her think he was going to lunch for her she had been filled with an excitement that embarrassed her. Why should have heart have sped up? Why should the deck have all but fallen out from underneath her. Fear had curdled in her belly that he might actually kiss her, he had before, all too briefly. For a moment time froze and she debated the proper mixture of tongue and ire to wield only to have it all dashed away. He reached not for her, but for Spice, the odious, odoriferous little man. It would have been so improper, she would have had to box his ears or flog him for it. It should have been a relief that he did not actually kiss her, but it wasn’t, not really because she was forced to take a full face full of unpleasant disappointment. A feeling that was rank and ripe as the little man and tasted so bitter she had never experienced the like. 

She envied him for all that it was a fake kiss. She felt the world rushing around her, her head light with disappointment when Luc touched her hand and thanked her. She looked down at him, her face as unguarded as it ever had been before the boy and in its ruined beauty he would see the cracks she kept hidden when she was in any sort of control. Her eyes were filled with hurt confusion and most of all the painful vulnerability of feeling more than one should for someone who was uncertain. She didn’t see the boy at first, too much was rushing through her but when she did finally see him, finally understand that for all that she wanted to sink through the deck and let the cool of the ocean soothe every ache in her until sweet oblivious took her, it was not yet her time. There were witnesses and more than that a Captain who had just opened himself up to a world of trouble. He had put not only himself on the line but that which he treasured enough to kiss in front of rough men whose loyalty could be bought. She, his loyal First Mate would have a world of behind the scenes mess to clean up so that none of this would touch the man who wanted her trust. 

The boy’s sweet smile and clear words pulled her back into her skin and into her role. For that she offered him a small, genuine smile flush with warmth and gratitude and spoke of the small rescue he had been unwittingly part of. She squeezed his shoulder again before letting go to ready herself to take Jax’s rope. He had his job after all and she had hers. 

As Luc began the countdown she found her eyes landing on Spice and narrowing. The small man who had played along so well to Jax’s little game felt eyes on him and looked to her. There must have been something in her expression because for all that he liked to be in the thick of things, something in her expression made him step back and try to vanish into the crowd pressing behind him.