When they finished with their dinner, the students moved to a ballroom space in the ship to amuse themselves. They quickly found an audio outlet to play music on, and some of them, the bold ones, grabbed the hands of whoever they could reach and dragged them off to the dance floor.
They stomped their feet around, jumped, and screamed to their heart's content, knowing they were only allowed to be this willful until they reached the island.
Jesse, leaning against the wall in one corner of the room, watching the students as they frolicked with each other, quickly grew bored of their spectacle and sort for peace and quietness above the deck.
Blaise, itching to show off his stunning girlfriend, turns to the white-haired girl standing beside him with a twinkle in his eyes. "Would you do me the honor, my Princess," he says with a gentleman's bow, peering up at the princess with a sly smirk pulling at one corner of his lips.
The princess levels him a frosty look. You have got to be kidding me, her look says. Instead of saying anything to Blaise, she walks off, leaving the blonde prostrating like a fool.
Rishi finds humor in the Princess's dismissal of Blaise's attempt at gallantry and openly laughs at him; the others join him, and shortly, Denzel moves to Sasha.
"Would you do me the honor, my Princess," he says, bowing just as Blaise did while adding sauce to it to make it more hilarious.
This sends the others into a laughing frenzy, while Blaise glares at them. He quickly attacks Denzel and tries to put him in a cuckold, while the light-skinned boy tries to evade his efforts.
"When are you going to get it that Victoria isn't one for this kind of shenanigans?" Sasha says to the blonde, looking at him like it is his fault for not knowing his girlfriend.
Blaise stops scruffling around with Denzel to reply to Sasha, his expression resigned as he mutters, "I wish she would loosen up a bit. She is always so serious, like she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders."
Sasha rolls her eyes at the blonde's cluelessness. "I hate to break it to you, Blaise, but she is. You know what everyone expects from her. She can't afford to loosen her guard."
Blaise, looking like a child who got his candy snatched from his hand, replies in a grumbling tone. "I am only asking her to dance, not do drugs or dance naked around the school front yard."
That I would pay to see, Rishi comments, with a lewd expression on his face, while licking the lollipop in his mouth in a sexual manner.
"Ew!" Sasha comments, making a face at the boy's insinuation. She wasn't the only one who found the dark hair brown insinuation disgusting.
The others looked at Rishi like he was nasty, except Cat, who looked lost.
"What!" He demands unapologetically. "She is hot, and any man with a pulse would want to see her naked."
"Dude, that is my girlfriend. A little respect," Blaise warns, while Ariana scolds Rishi with a look of disgust on her face.
"Is sex the only thing you think about?"
Rishi turns around to focus on the blonde, his brown eyes seizing her up, making the blonde shudder with a look of revulsion, which didn't escape the brown eyes watching her. Rishi's expression hardens as he mutters. "Don't worry, doll, when it comes to you, sex is the farthest thing from my mind."
Ariana glares at the boy while Denzel mutters, "Snap!" With an exaggerated expression.
"Are you saying I am not attractive?" Ariana challenged, edging toward Rishi with fire in her eyes, while their friends looked on with an amused expression.
Only Cat seemed ignorant of the underlying chemistry between the duo, and sincerely worried that the situation would escalate.
"Guys, please stop," she says, moving in between Rishi and Ariana.
Sasha rolls her eyes at her friend's naivety and quickly pulls her away from Rishi and Ariana. "Come let dance," she says, dragging the redhead away, who protested as she was led off.
Not acknowledging Cat's departure, Rishi and Ariana continue where they left off as if they weren't interrupted.
"I call it as I see it, doll,' Rishi mocks with fire in his eyes.
Ariana glowers at him, her deadly stare burying him six feet under. "Ditto to you, too," she snaps and storms off, leaving Rishi staring after her.
"Dude, I think you should ask her out, rather than the neanderthal act," Denzel mutters softly to Rishi. He snapped his eyes in his direction and exclaimed. "What!" With a confused expression.
Blaise, not knowing what to do with himself and with friends dwindling to a group of two, decided to go in search of his girlfriend.
On the upper deck, Jesse leans against the rail and stares off into the sea. He takes his cigarette from his pocket, takes out a stick, and places it between his lips.
He goes to light it when a voice interrupts him.
"You know it is against the school rules to smoke."
The deep alto voice snaps Jesse's attention, and he turns around to find the princess standing a few feet behind him.
His heart skipped in his chest as he beheld her beautiful lavender eyes. The ability to speak deserted him, and he could only stare.
The girl looked ethereal under the night sky.
Smirking at the boy's entranced expression, Victoria smirks, not with arrogance, but with humor as she closes down the gap between them. She didn't find the boy's staring offensive, like she found the others.
"Cat got your tongue," she teased, leaning against the rail beside Jesse.
Jesse blushes, but doesn't speak. He takes the cigarette off his lips and turns to face the river.
They stand beside each other in a comfortable silence, staring into the water, as the ship sways slowly under its gentle current. Neither of them felt the need to break the silence, which amazed Victoria.
She always found silence disturbing, especially when she was in the company of another, but with the boy beside her, she not only felt calm but safe.
It was as if they didn't need words to communicate.
The tranquility between them shatters when another invades their private space.