9 Chapter seven

In the moment that Emily lets us know of the situation, she screams again, and then disappears into thin air. Before I know what's going on, I'm being dragged away, out of my spot in the line, and reaching to take Lilli's hand, but our fingertips just miss each other, and she mouths to me, I'll stay.

I think I apologise to way too many unsuspecting cruise passengers as Emily pulls me back through the line.

We reach the front of the line, and she instructs, "Go look over by the desks! I'll go back through the line to see if anyone picked it up!"

I put a hand over her mouth to shut her up.

"I know you're worried, Emily, but we're in a public place. You need to be polite. If you promise to at least ask someone before you rummage through their bag, I'll let go," I say to her.

It takes her a moment of hesitation, but she nods, so I pull my hand back, and start looking.

At this point, I've looked under all the desks at least thrice, and I'm very convinced that Emily's precious keyring is lost, but I hear Emily's squeal, and my feet take me to her. In the second row of the line-up, she's standing, holding what I'm guessing to be her keyring, close to her chest.

I sigh with relief and approach her slowly, putting a hand on her shoulder. She doesn't react, but instead, starts excitedly shouting her gratitude.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I have no idea who she's talking to until I glance up.

It's him. The boy I saw in the window, with the nice clothes, bright smile, and hypnotising wavy dark hair over deep-set eyes. This time our exchange lasts longer, and we're staring. Am I lucky enough to speak to my best friend's rather handsome saviour?

"You're here too?" the blond boy next to him exclaims.

Huh? "What do you mean?" Emily and I look at each other, and then back at them, confused. "Do you know who we are?"

At the same time, Lilli bursts through the crowd and is clearly here to scold us.

"Emily, did you find your stupid keyring yet? We're at the front of the line and two out of the three passengers that are supposed to be boarding right now are M.I.A! Hurry up —" she doesn't finish because she's turned and realised the presence of three very puzzled young men.

"You guys?" she says, shocked.

"Lilli?!" the tall Asian one calls out.

I hold up my hands to signal their attention and start spouting aloud my confusion. "Okay, how come everyone recognises each other? I'm so confused."

I know I'm oblivious to a lot of things, but I didn't realise I was just as oblivious as Emily!

Lilli must've rolled her eyes, because it takes her a second longer than I expected for her to come and turn my 'I don't know's' into 'Oh, I get it's'.

She comes behind Emily and I, grabbing our shoulders and bringing us closer to her lips which tell us, "These three boys in front of us…" I glance at them, "... are boys in our class from year six. Don't you recognise them?" Lilli asks, looking at us like we're dumb or something.

Emily responds, "I only recognise Ben. Besides, he's the one who bought me this." Proudly brandishing her keyring like it's a lost artefact from the Egyptian Pyramids.

"But no one else?" Lilli questions.

Emily shakes her head before grinning at her keyring.

With a sigh, Lilli approaches me again. This time, when she whispers something, she's extra quiet about it. "Don't you recognise your crush, Taz? He's right in front of you, staring at you."

I don't reply. Instead, I look up at him, trying to recognise him. He sure as hell looks familiar. Through the window, I saw his deep-set eyes, which now, close up, are a forest green… so familiar. And his wavy chocolate-coloured hair? Even more so. I think I eye his lips a little too long because he gives me a subconscious smile, which I return with a nervous one, which he returns with a genuine one.

I'd know that smile anywhere.

I'm looking at him and he's looking at me. My cheeks are burning as if someone has been pinching them for hours on end, and I reach up to brush a few wispy hairs out of my face. I'm suddenly very nervous about the way I've dressed. I know it's normal to wear a small amount of clothing on a hot day, as well as the factor that I'm going on a cruise, but I'm starting to worry that I've shown a little bit too much cleavage, even for my liking.

I want to look away, but my eyes can't seem to follow my mental directions, piercing deep into his eyes, and I'm seeing my memories with him rushing past me and him.

Picturing how stupid I look, just standing there, a goofy grin on my face, swapping my gaze between his eyes and lips, I try to slap myself back into reality without physically slapping myself.

Beside me, Emily is whispering in Lilli's ear, who replies with a loud Huh?.

I'm about to say his name, internally checking and checking again if his name is right or not before I make a complete fool of myself. But I'm part-way through opening my mouth when Emily is butting in to say something.

"Okay, we better get going! They've been waiting for our arrival up there for ages now and we wouldn't want to lose our punctuality," she's saying, sounding too much like Lilli, and starting to tug on my off-shoulder shirt.

"But —" I start.

Lilli's nodding and pushing me away. "Yeah, Emily, Tasmin. We gotta go." Her panic seems to be pretty genuine.

For some reason, none of them seem upset to see us go, the trio with big smiles on their faces, one of them chuckling.

"Wait —" I try to tell them.

"Oh, Tasmin. Don't worry. There'll be a ton of other hot guys on-board who you'll get to mingle with. Don't rush now," Emily teases and I turn from a light peach-red to an intense tomato-red.

"I didn't —"

"Oh no, we know you didn't, hun," Lilli interrupts.

I barely manage to get one more glance at Harry and his forest green eyes before I'm wheeled away by my now ex-best friends.