Exploring! Who: Jakob and Anna Where: H deck pool When: Early afternoon
It was strange for Anna to be on the ship as an employee and yet not have any work to do. She'd been given the day off - swim and dive info sessions and lessons would start tomorrow, once everyone had had a chance to settle into their rooms and the ship was underway. Like the other employees, Anna had been on board for a few days before their scheduled departure; she was unpacked and knew her way around, but checking all the dive equipment for any problems or necessary repairs had occupied big chunks of her day along with the required safety and emergency procedure training. What she hadn't had much time to do was truly explore the ship and see what it offered beyond what she could relay to guests if they asked.
She'd decided to do some of that upon waking in the morning and had dressed accordingly - simple black bikini under a black cami and pale green cotton peasant skirt that fell to just below her knees. Black flip flops on her feet and she was ready to go, cool and comfortable. It had been warm up on deck, so she'd pulled her hair back carelessly into a loose chignon from which small tendrils escaped, but she didn't care. She'd been enjoying herself, wandering around, seeing the sights and occasionally chatting with passengers as they arrived, but eventually found herself down on H deck, fresh from a brief snack of fruit from the buffet on the deck. She'd seen the pool area and been intrigued - she knew it was there, but hadn't seen it herself. It was gorgeous with its sheers that billowed with the breeze from outside the opened French doors, fabric and vine-wrapped columns and flowers everywhere, petals floating softly on the surface of the water that was an amazingly deep blue color thanks to the tiles. Balancing at the edge of the pool, she dipped one gracefully pointed toe into the water to test its temperature. Perfect, as she was finding so many other things on the ship to be.
Jakob had spent most of the morning with his band members, but after lunch, he decided to retreat to the lower pool and spend a little time alone. He was doing just that, dressed in a pair of swimming trunks, as he approached the pool close to the woman who happened to be there dipping her toe into the water. "How's the temperature?" he asked her, a little grin moving over his face. She was a cute little thing. Asian, obviously, though he wasn't sure which branch of that tree she might have been broken off of. It was just safer not to assume.
Anna turned at the sound of the voice addressing her, straightening so she wasn't in such immediate danger of falling in, and gave the man a friendly smile. "Delightful," she advised him, both feet now firmly planted on the pool's edge. He was tall - goodness, quite tall, particularly to Anna, who was used to being the tallest one in her family and only a few inches behind most of her male friends back home. He also looked rather familiar - she felt like she'd seen him before, but didn't know where from. "Of course, I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything else from a ship like this."
"Very true." he said with a little nod. He was quite used to being the tall one just about everywhere he went. Okay so not just about everywhere. It was hardly even an occurrence for someone to be even an inch taller than him. "I've been looking around for a little while now and it's really more than I imagined it would be." At least for the ship in it's entirety. He figured that his VIP suite would be up to par and yes, it was, but the rest of the ship wasn't lacking. "I'm Jakob." he smiled, offering out a hand for the woman. "Pleased to meet you." His accent, as always, was thick, but at least he could be understood.
"Same here," Anna agreed with a tiny laugh. "I've spent the last few days bouncing around in here and I still don't think I've seen it all." She was a fairly good hand with accents - they got a lot of international visitors in Key West - but couldn't quite place his. Her own, often at odds with her appearance to most who were just meeting her, was the soft twang of coastal Georgia. She reached out to shake his hand, grip confident and sure. "I'm Anna," she introduced. "Your accent... is it Norwegian?" A guess; she hadn't run into too many people from the area, but it was a memorable region.
He liked her accent, though it wasn't what he'd really expected of her when he first saw the woman. It was a country sort of twang, though not too thick. "Swedish." he told her with a little smile. "Close, I'll give you that. Not too many people know that unless they know me. Though I guess now quite a lot of people do know me." And like it usually did when he got to that comfortable spot in a conversation, Jakob's Swedish language kicked in as he finished the rest of his sentence. I would guess where you were from, right now I'm thinking the south. When the girl didn't respond to what he'd said after a brief pause he chuckled. "I'm sorry, forgive me. First languages are hard to break. I'm guessing you're from the south?"
"Ah, Sweden," Anna said, recognition lighting her eyes. She had been close, she noted, pleased. Her brows drew together in faint puzzlement when he mentioned a lot of people knowing him, not sure what to make of that, and then when he spoke in Swedish. She smiled easily when he caught himself, waving a hand. "No apologies necessary," she assured him. "I grew up with that - you never knew if my mother was going to speak in English or Korean. Except when I was in trouble," she added thoughtfully. "Then it was always Korean. And you're right, I'm from the South. Born in Georgia, though I've spent the last... oh, nine years or so in Key West." She smiled. "You're quite a ways from home, aren't you? Did you come specifically for the cruise?"
It was actually refreshing for Jakob when the girl didn't seem to know who he was and a grin played on his lips for a moment before he answered her question. "Yes, in a way." he said. "Though I suppose it's not the reason I came to America. I'm in a band." he explained. "The lead in a band. I'm Jakob Overgaard." he went on. He wasn't sure whether he'd rather her know him by name or not know him at all. Jakob supposed that either way would be quite fun. Recognition was nice, but someone not knowing him was just as good. "I'm scheduled to play on New Years." he told Anna.
The combination of his name and the mention of his New Year's gig helped Anna make the necessary connections and her face lit up in understanding. "Oh, you're in Audacity," she said. The only other act was Muse Trueblood, and she wasn't Swedish. "I've heard you on the radio." And in the staff areas on ship, where all the ladies were positively swooning over the frontman - and hadn't he been named... Well. She could certainly see now why they were so worked up. But it was rude to stare, so she was doing her best to keep her eyes on his face and not at the incredibly well-defined pecs that were directly eye-level. "Everyone's looking forward to seeing you and Muse Trueblood both."
Jakob smiled at the mention of Muse Trueblood. While she might not be in his genre of music, he liked the girl's sound and often caught himself listening to her. Or you know, staring at her on the Rolling Stone cover and thinking dirty, dirty things. But he couldn't think about all of that now, he was having a conversation, damn it. "Well I'm glad they're looking forward to it." he told Anna. "I'm quite looking forward to it myself." He did love to perform.
"So, what else do you have planned during your trip?" Anna asked. "Anything special you plan on doing in Bermuda, perhaps?" She had a few guidebooks to read; she expected she'd still be working while they were in port, but she'd have at least some free time to herself. She'd never been outside the country before; she was looking forward to being able to dive in some of the most beautiful waters on the planet. Not that Key West was small potatoes, not by a long shot. It didn't occur to her that most women would have been freaking out upon learning who he was - or that most women would have recognized him before he introduced himself; she wasn't like that. He was incredibly good-looking, but she was more interested in personality than anything else.
He liked that she didn't jump him right that second. Well, maybe he didn't like it, but he thought it was intriguing that someone didn't fall over swooning over him. He'd grown used to having a bit of attention lately and it was different for someone to not fall all over themselves for him. "I'm not sure." he said with a shrug. "Laze about and enjoy the break. Not that this isn't a break too. Shows, of course, but it's nice to have a job that doesn't feel like work." he said.
Anna's smile was relaxed and genuine in her agreement. "I know exactly how you feel," she said. Minus the piles of money and worldwide celebrity, that was. "There's no other feeling than when you can combine your passion with a career. It makes going to work every day so much fun."
"It does." he agreed with a little nod. "So, what do you do?" he questioned, tilting his head just slightly. "It's your passion if you know how I feel. So what's your passion?"
"I was an aquarist at the Key West Aquarium," Anna explained with a grin, "and a dive master for their reef tours. Right now I'm working here, swim and diving lessons so everyone's ready to have fun when we dock on the island. I don't care what I'm doing, as long as I can be near the water. I'm hoping to go back to school for my doctorate in marine biology next year."
"Well," he began with a smile as he moved to sit at the edge of the pool. "Near the water is a fine place to be if you ask me." It was a place where bikini's frolicked and anywhere that happened was a nice ass place in his opinion. Looking up at her again, Jakob motioned to the pool. "Were you going for a swim?"
"I was thinking about it," Anna confessed, helping herself to a seat beside him. She pulled her skirt up to mid-thigh to keep it from getting wet, letting her legs dangle in the water. "Don't let me keep you if you wanted to," she added. "I know staff is allowed full use of the ship's amenities in our off hours, but it still feels strange not to be working. I'm not used to just hanging around."
Jakob smiled at the girl as he slowly slid himself in the water and then turned again to face her. With the depth of the pool it put them at a better level to converse and that amused him. "You know you want to." he said. "Lovely day for a swim." Even though they weren't anywhere near where you could tell if it was a lovely day or not, it sounded good. "Come on in."
Anna laughed; in truth, it didn't take even that much to convince her. Any excuse to get her in the water would suffice. Including the one time she dove in to retrieve a friend's dropped quarter. "All right," she said, standing and peeling off her cami. She tossed it and her skirt on one of the chaise lounges near where she'd kicked off her shoes. She crossed back to the pool in two long, swift steps, diving cleanly in with only the tiniest of ripples. She surfaced in water where she could stand, slicking her hair back with both hands, and grinned over at Jakob. "It's so strange to have a roof over my head right now," she confessed.
He watched her strip her outer layer of clothing off like some sort of porn movie, but made sure not to stare too hard. When she finally surfaced after her dive, he gave her a little lopsided grin. "It is." He was used to pools in the air and the sun, but it wasn't like he was going to complain. "I would have dove like that." he said with a grin. "But I'm not really good at diving. Always think I'm going to clunk my head on the bottom or something."
"You're tall enough," Anna said with a chuckle, "you might if you're not careful." She'd been oblivious to his looks while she stripped down to her bathing suit; it was such a normal part of everyday life to her that it had ceased to hold any meaning. "I got a lot of practice, though - there wasn't much to do back home in Georgia, so basically all the kids spent every day in the summer jumping off bridges into the river. You tend to either get good fast or get used to swimming downriver after your trunks."
"Exactly my point." he said with a little laugh of his own. "I'd like to keep my skull intact if possible." He listened to her talk about back home in Georgia and thinking of a little Korean girl growing up in a small town. He pictured a lot of rednecks and tailgate parties and all the boys trailing after the little bit of exoticness that ran in their midst. "What brought your family to Georgia?" he asked.
"Sheer dumb luck, according to my grandfather," Anna said, cupping a few of the wisteria petals that floated on the water's surface in her palm before letting them float away. She didn't know it, but several had gotten caught in her hair. "He and my grandmother came to the US in the sixties; they were hitching a ride and got kicked out in Woodbine - where we're from. They didn't have any money, so they just started taking jobs wherever they could in town. They'd arranged a marriage for my mother, and my father came over from Korea to marry her. They opened what is still the only Korean restaurant in Woodbine." She grinned. "They don't do a ton of business, but enough to get by."
Jakob reached over and pulled one of the petals from the girl's hair and held it out to her. "Bet it was interesting growing up in a small town being the only Korean family there." he said. "I still feel a little bit odd here since Swedish people aren't just walking around all over the place."
Anna grinned and took the petal from him, letting it float free as she reached up to check for others. "It had its weird moments," she confessed. "My grandparents still don't speak much English, and you'd've thought we were summoning the devil when people heard us speaking Korean. And it's always funny to see their eyes but out at some of our menu items when they come in to eat." She winked over at him - an easy, friendly sort of wink without any innuendo attached. "You do sort of stand out," she joked, "even in L.A., where I imagine there's a higher concentration of tall model-types than anywhere else."
He smiled a little and nodded. "My band, we're all friends from back home." he explained. "So we tend to talk to each other like we would have back home and lots of people look all confused. It amuses me more than anything. Like we're satanists chanting spells, yes. It's hilarious." The wink was cute and it made him grin a little more and he shrugged. "Guess I do stand out a bit." he agreed. "6'4" is hard to miss."
"I'll say," Anna agreed. "I'm used to being one of the tallest of my acquaintances - or at least, I'm usually taller than all my girlfriends. Guy friends are taller, but not by quite as much. I'll bet you get a lot of basketball propositions, don't you?" He certainly had the musculature for it, too - if she didn't sense he was such a nice guy, she might have been intimidated. At least, if she'd come across him in the dark instead of in full daylight at a pool.
Jakob shrugged a bit. "Yes." he admitted. "I had a few offers but I couldn't play basketball if it would save my life." he admitted. "Don't even know what to do aside from get the ball in the hoop. Guess I could try it, but it's not that interesting. Running about in shorts and scoring goals or points or... whatever it is they're called."
"Don't ask me," Anna said, chuckling. "I'm a football girl. Basketball would be like me trying to speak Swedish - I don't think it's physically possible. Besides, you love what you do - why mess with a good thing?"
"True enough." he smiled. "A football girl though? Really?" Jakob let his eyes wander over her and then back up to her face. "I never would have pictured you a football sort of girl." he said. "I guess I shouldn't buy into stereotypes though."
"Not unless you want me to start making meatball jokes and saying 'bork' a lot," Anna joked. "I was raised in rural Georgia - people live and breathe football out there. I don't really play football," she clarified, "not unless you count the pool or beach variety - surfing is my actual favorite sport - but I love watching it. My friends and I get together every Sunday during football season to watch the games."
"Surfing? I can surf. Sort of. It's a bit difficult to balance myself on a moving on water board, but I manage. I should get extra points for that being as I've got so much extra height to have to work with." Jakob teased. Not that he was trying to score points. Really. Maybe.
"I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way," Anna said, feigning sad regret. "You're not the tallest man to ever get on a board - Aamon Goodwin is 6'5"." She sighed wistfully. "You're so lucky, though," she told him. "We'd kill for Pacific coast waves back home. The Atlantic's not bad, but it's not stellar, either. If you want anything really big, you've got to head out during the storms."
"Damn." he said, snapping his fingers in feign upset. "I'll just have to score points in other ways." Jakob shrugged a little. "I liked the beach alright. Spent so much time there I could probably tell you about every grain of sand." Which was depressingly sort of true. "But then again, I'm not as much in love with the water so you could probably spend the rest of your days out there and be content, yeah?"
"Pretty much," Anna admitted. "I love Key West - I'm right on the water, I'm out on a boat every day leading dive groups, and I love working at the aquarium. Cleaning the tanks, shark feeding shows... I think I could live there for the rest of my life and still find new things to explore in the ocean. It's incredible."
"That's kinda how I feel about music. Can sing everyday and it never gets old. Guess everyone has something they love, right?" Jakob asked. Shifting once more into Swedish without meaning to, he flashed a smile at the girl. Guess we're alike as far as things that we find incredible.
"I'd hope so," Anna said. "It would seem like a rather sad life without something as fulfilling as passion." She gave him an easy grin back but shook her head. "Sorry, you went back to the homeland on that one," she told him. "Can this poor country girl get a translation, please?"
"Sorry." he chuckled, flushing a tiny bit. "We're alike as far as like... things we find incredible." he translated. "You've got your water and I've got my music, but we're alike because we feel the way that we do about each of them. Respectively."
"United in common cause," Anna agreed, then grinned lazily. "Essentially." She stretched out, taking a few easy strokes, brushing away flower petals as they threatened to get caught in her hair again. "I'd imagine all the travel is great, too," she said. "I'd like to take some time one day and travel a bit."
"Essentially." he agreed as he watched her float along. "It is." he nodded. "I do like to see new places." Jakob said. "It's nice to learn new things. Meet new people. Like you." He smiled. "It's been nice meeting you and I probably wouldn't had it not been for my career."
"Oh, you never know," Anna said. "You might have won a contest entry, or maybe hired on as an entertainer - admittedly, one with a smaller salary, but somehow I don't think something like money would keep you from doing what you love." She smiled at the compliment all the same. "It's likewise been a pleasure meeting you," she told him.
"It wouldn't." he agreed. "I love it as much now as I did when I was dirt poor, to be honest." Even if he lost all his money tomorrow it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to Jakob and that much he could guarantee.
"I'm glad to hear it," Anna said, pleased. It provided insight into his character, and she was pleased to see her initial impressions didn't seem to be wrong. She could appreciate someone who worked hard and loved what he did. "So," she said, straightening as she trailed fingers idly through the water, "do you think you'll be taking any diving lessons on the trip? The waters down there are supposed to be unbelievable. Lots of fun shipwrecks and reefs to explore."
He thought for the briefest of moments and shrugged a little. "I dunno." he said. "Is that your way of telling me you'd be kind enough to teach me some diving skills?" Jakob questioned. He doubted he'd be opposed to being in the water with the pretty little thing. "If that's the case, I think I could get behind something like that."
"Well, it's what I'm getting paid for," Anna said with a laugh. "I'd hate to spend this whole trip with no work because no one wants to dive Bermuda's famous waters. If I get enough people, I think I'll take a group around different dive sites. I've been reading up on them since I learned I got the job. There are a couple of really good ones for novice divers."
"I think I could benefit from some diving lessons." he said with a nod. "So sign me up. Just lemme know when you need me here for lessons and I'll show. And even if you don't get a ton of people, I wouldn't mind going around to those different dive sites." Jakob smiled.
"You're too kind," Anna said with a laugh, though she was pleased. Though she'd have to keep a more professional distance when teaching group dive lessons, she liked spending time with him so far. "I think you'll be surprised at how much you end up loving it."
"Maybe I will." Jakob nodded. And perhaps he'd develop his own love for the water. Maybe. "So you got plans?" he questioned. "For after your swimming?" Why not offer some sort of fun with the girl? It couldn't hurt, after all. "I'm still doing a bit of exploring. I've been setting up and getting things situated and gotten in a little looking around, but the ship is enormous."
"Nothing solid, no," Anna said, shaking her head. "I've been on the ship for a few days, so I more or less know my way around, but I was wandering around checking things out more in-depth. There's a ton I haven't really gotten to explore; I think I'll be finding new things to do the whole way there."
"Well, I wouldn't mind some company while I do the same sort of thing." Jakob said. "If you'd be interested in joining me for a little walk about. Seeing what we can find." Looking down at himself, he chuckled a little. "In less wet clothing, perhaps."
Anna grinned. "Agreed," she said. "It wouldn't do to be dripping all over these nice floors." She smiled at him and splashed a little in his direction - not a lot, just a tiny flick of water. The kind every kid had learned and perfected to nail their friends when they weren't looking. "I'd love to do some more exploring."
Jakob chuckled at her playful little splash and gave the same sort of tiny little flick of liquid in her direction. "Sounds good to me then." he said. "Shall we meet somewhere in a bit then? Just long enough to change into something less soaking wet?"
"Say, back here in fifteen minutes?" Anna proposed. "It wouldn't normally take me that long just to change, but my room's all the way down on B - it's a bit of a hike." If she'd been thinking, she would've brought a change of clothes with her and could have used the restrooms next to the pool, but she hadn't really thought she'd hit the pool so early. Oh well; fifteen minutes wasn't that long.
"Mine's a bit of a hike too." he chuckled. "I'll meet you here though in fifteen." he agreed as he moved to the edge of the pool and lifted himself out. "Thank you." he told her with a little smile. "For accepting the invitation. It's always more fun to explore with someone else than it is to look around all alone."
"I feel the same," Anna said with a little smile as she boosted herself out of the pool, grabbing a towel and wrapping herself in it for the trek back to her room. "I'll see you in just a few minutes, then." Giving him a little wave, she headed off to her room to get changed and back in time.