Part II - The Meeting With Matt 
I was taking Joel to the kid's club after dinner when we walked past the Arcade and I saw him for the first time. He was coming out and smiled as soon as he saw me. "Hey I'm Matt, what's yer name dude?" He asked in the most adorable Long Island accent I'd ever heard. I licked my lips. Matt was one hot kid! Just looking at him standing there smiling was enough to make me want to bend him over a chair right then and there. 

"I'm Jordan," I said. Joel looked up at me and shook the hand he was holding. "This is my kid brother Joel," I continued. 

Matt smiled at Joel, who gave Matt his #1 smile and reached out his other hand to shake Matt's. "Nice to meet you Matt," he peeped. 

"It's nice to meet you too little dude," Matt said shaking Joel's hand. 

"I'm not little, you're just bigger than me," Joel answered back at being called "little dude". This sent Matt and I both laughing. 

"I gotta get him to the kid's club. You wanna hang out after?" I asked. 

"Sure thing Jordy.. Jordan I mean," he said. 

"It's okay, you can call me Jordy. That's what Joel here calls me," I said laughing it his retraction of calling me by the name my family often used and I liked. 

"Can we go now?" Joel asked looking up at me wrinkling his nose. I looked at Matt who was smiling down at him and laughed. 

"Yeah Joel, we can go now," I said starting in the direction of the kids cub room. I looked back to Matt, "you comin dude?" 

"Oh umm yeah.. yeah sure thing," he said. He had been looking down and I almost thought he was looking at my rear end, but I figured there was something on the floor that caught his eye, or maybe he was lost in thought.. who knows? We walked my brother to the room I had been told to take him to and had to write his name on a sheet of paper with all the kid's names listed as well as stating who would be picking him up (my parents). "So are you free for the night now dude?" Matt asked. 

"Yup. I'm sharing a cabin with my bro that joins to my parents cabin, and I can pretty much go in as late as I want." I said as we headed off just walking no where in particular. It just so happened that our legs lead us to the Casino.. maybe it was the flashing lights, and sounds of gambling fun, but we walked nonchalantly inside and sat down at the slot machines, immediately feeding them quarters. We sat there for about five minutes popping in quarter after quarter (sometimes three at a time when we thought we were gonna win big). Then we DID win big when Matt hit the jackpot for 1500 quarters! The only problem was that a lot of noise was coming from the machine and was drawing attention to us. "Shit dude, we're gonna get caught!" I said laughing at the situation we'd landed ourselves in. We waited about 30 seconds and grabbed all the quarters we could in the two buckets we grabbed from the machine next to us and made a run for it. 

We got away with the quarters, running past the security guard on his way over to the machine laughing our heads off. It was still a pretty good haul considering we'd only gone in with 10 quarters each. We went back to Matt's room which was empty since he was sharing a room with his 21 year old brother. We dumped our winnings on the bed and counted them finding them to be 953 quarters.. $238.25! "Holy dude that's a lotta money!" Matt said excitedly. Our hearts were still pounding as we expected some eight foot crew member to come banging on the door to take us to the brig. "So what are you gonna do with all this money?" Matt asked.

"I dunno, what are you gonna do with yers?" I asked.

"Mine?" Matt said raising an eyebrow. "They were your quarters we put in that time, so it's your money!"

"No way dude!" I laughed. "This is half yours! Where would I tell my parents I got all the money from?"

"For real man?!" Matt said, his cute voice cracking with excitement. His accent drove me nuts, I just wanted to jump him right then and there as I looked into his blue eyes with that smile crossing his face.

"Yeah man, I'm sure," I said softly. "I want you to have half of it." We counted out half ($119), and I kept the other half plus the extra quarter. (He made me keep it). After we'd split up the money, we took my half back to my cabin. It was bigger than Matt's and he thought it was very cool. Once I had my stuff safely stowed away in the room's little safe, I sat down on my bed next to Matt. "I guess we better head up to the disco now, it'll be starting soon."

"Yeah I guess.." Matt said softly looking into my eyes.

"Yeah.." I replied as we both started leaning slowly towards one another. Or maybe it was just my imagination, but before we got too close my dad knocked on the door and we heard the card-key unlock the door.

"Hey Jordan," he said walking into the room. "Oh hey, glad to see you've found a new friend already."

"My name's Matt," Matt said standing up reaching his hand out to my dad.

"Nice to meet you Matt, I'm Ross. He's polite Jordan, you should see if you can learn something from him," my dad said winking at Matt shooting me a grin. "Your mother and I are heading out for the evening, but we'll pick your brother up and bring him back to the room when his stuff is over with, so try to keep the noise low when you come in tonight okay?"

"Yup sure thing dad," I said.

"Okay thanks bud. Are you guys headed upstairs now?" He asked holding the door open looking back at  us.

"Yup," I said standing up. Matt followed me out of the room and we started jogging down the hallway towards the Centrum.

"Try not to make it too late okay Jordan?" My dad called after me.

"Sure thing!" I said, both my dad and I knowing perfectly well that I'd be in as late as I felt like. I'm not now, nor was I then a misbehaved kid, but on the ship I didn't have a curfew. We'd established that on our previous year's vacation. As long as I was in my bed in the morning when my parents woke up and came in to check on my brother and I, then I was fine.