Chapter Fifteen Hunter
Chapter Fifteen
Hunter
This wasn’t the best idea, choosing to sit so close to Lucky. If I’d been smart, I would have gone into one of the other seats, but I was just naturally drawn to her. Today I had made a superyacht hit a dock because I’d been thinking about her and the way that she had smiled at me over her shoulder, tossing her hair to one side ... it was like something out of a toothpaste commercial and too cheesy to ever admit to, but one second I had a fender in my hand and the next I had cut my inheritance in half.
The captain had chewed me out, as he should have, and so I told myself to put some distance between me and Lucky. I’d already screwed up royally—I didn’t need to do it again.
But then she’d held on to my arm while putting on those strappy little shoes and here I was, choosing the seat next to her.
And pressing myself close to her side to make room for everyone else.
She smiled up at me and said, “If you sit any closer to me, you’re going to have to buy me dinner.”
The air felt thick and heavy. My chest constricted too tightly for a moment and I found myself responding, “I’ll buy you dinner anytime you’d like.”
I was trying to sound casual and suspected that I’d failed miserably.
Thankfully the rest of the crew got into the van, including the chef and his parrot, who was making a ringtone noise. I wondered if the bird ever tried to escape. I wanted to joke with Lucky about it but everything felt too serious at the moment. I did want to take her to dinner.
And then back to our cabin.
I stifled a groan. I had to think about something else or things were going to get very embarrassing very quickly.
One of the stews got in the van—I was pretty sure it was Georgia—and so I turned to Lucky and said, “Georgia mentioned that you don’t usually join in on these outings.”
I wanted to know why. I wanted to understand everything about her.
“I’m worried about spending too much money because cocktails can get expensive. Living on the yacht, we get a definite taste of the high life, and suddenly purses from Walmart aren’t good enough and you want a designer bag, like the ones you see every day. And it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, you’ve got plenty of money, but then next thing you know you’re broke and you’ve got to sign up for another year to try and earn it back. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m trying really hard to save up as much money as I can.”
There was a reason. “Why—”
A bunch of hollering and whistles cut me off. I turned to see the guy from New Zealand kissing the other stew. Emma. Emilie. Something like that. They were going at it, and it annoyed me for two reasons.
The first was that the captain had been pretty clear about his rule and these two had just forced the rest of us to be their accomplices.
The second was that I was jealous as hell that I couldn’t kiss Lucky like that.
Someone closed the van door and we set off. I still wanted to know why she was trying to save up. “So is spending money the only reason you don’t like going out?”
“You know how other people have FOMO? Fear of missing out? I have the opposite. JOMO. Joy of missing out.”
That made me grin. I loved the way her mind worked.
And I definitely loved being pressed against her. She was so soft and warm.
And utterly distracting.
“I don’t know why people have to go to a bar to have fun,” she added. “Have they ever tried watching movies and eating ice cream with no pants on?”
“Most of my favorite activities don’t involve pants,” I said as seriously as I could. I was joking but also not joking.
She ignored it and answered my initial question. “But money is probably the biggest reason why.”
“You got six thousand dollars today,” I pointed out.
“Sometimes it can be feast or famine when it comes to tips. Most charters won’t be like the one we just had. The Carmines were very easy and pleasant.”
“So the tip wasn’t typical.” I hadn’t thought much about the tip, but it mattered to her and I was discovering that the things she thought were important had suddenly become important to me, too.
“It depends. Usually it ranges from about fifteen hundred to thirty-five hundred for a week. There are some that leave more. I worked with a girl on my last ship who earned her entire year’s salary in one tip from a three-week charter. But there are other guests who don’t leave tips at all.”
She still hadn’t told me why the money was important.
The stew I had decided was definitely Georgia called out, “We’re almost there!”
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked.
“Paddy’s Pub. It’s an Irish pub.”
“We’re going to an Irish pub in a French beach town?”
“The drinks are cheaper, and there’s more locals and yacht crews than tourists. Plus, Thomas likes a girl who works there, Siobhan. He’s the one who made the call. And nobody else cares where we go as long as there’s liquor. Thomas keeps waxing poetic about the joys of pub crawls. I’ve asked if we can do a bakery crawl but nobody else wants to.”
I laughed. “This is our date, so you can choose whatever you want to do and I’ll happily go along with it.”
Whoops. I hadn’t meant to say that. There was just something about her that made me want to tease her relentlessly.
With my words and ... in other ways.
“Are we back to that?” she asked and had the cutest exasperated expression on her face. Instead of discouraging me, it made me want to do it more. “I don’t think it’s a date if there’s seven other people here.”
“We haven’t defined the relationship yet. You’re free to date five other guys at the same time if you want.”
I knew it wasn’t a date. But I wanted it to be.
We pulled up to the pub and we were the last two to get out. I stretched, as it had been very cramped back there, and then I offered her my hand to help her. I was pretty sure she was going to twist her ankles on the cobblestones in those ridiculous shoes.
She hesitated for a moment and then slid her hand in mine and I felt that touch everywhere. I loved the way our hands fit. I held on to hers for a moment longer than I needed to and then turned to shut the van door. She made me feel like I was fifteen again, getting overheated from just a hand touch. I pulled my shirt away from my body several times, trying to get some air circulating.
When I saw her noticing what I was doing, I attempted to come up with a believable excuse. “It is so hot. I don’t understand why people like summer so much.”
“I have a theory about that,” she said as we walked behind the rest of the group.
“Do tell.”
“Because it was the only significant time we had off from school when we were younger. So after twelve years it was ingrained in us to like it. The actual season is terrible.”
“Another thing we agree on,” I said as I rushed over to hold open the door to the pub for her. She made me want to lay down my cloak so that she could safely cross over a mud puddle. Or slay a dragon.
Lucky had turned me into a character from a fantasy movie.
The pub was a little hole-in-the-wall, like it had been carved out of a castle dungeon. Stone walls and a ceiling so low I felt like I was going to hit my head. The crew sat at a large table. Lucky took a seat and I sat on her left.
A barmaid arrived to take our orders, and Lucky asked for a club soda. Kai, if I was remembering his name correctly, asked for several bottles of wine and told the server, “In true nautical fashion, we plan on getting wrecked.”
I couldn’t help but grin at Lucky. I enjoyed puns no matter who made them, and I saw that she was also smiling. Like we shared a private language.
The crew were all talking to and over each other, and while they all seemed like very nice people, I wished they would disappear and that Lucky and I could have the date I had teased her about.
She was thinking seriously about something—I could see it on her face. Did she daydream about me the way I did about her?
It had been a long time since I’d felt this way about a girl and not had her feel the same way. It was probably good for my ego to be on unstable ground. Things had become so predictable and routine, boring, that I had situationships instead of relationships.
I knew I shouldn’t chase Lucky, but I wanted to, and the prospect of winning her favor really, really appealed to me.
After the waitress brought our drinks, Lucky suddenly said, “Hey everyone, I thought we could go on a walking tour tomorrow morning as a bonding activity. And we can have lunch after. On me.”
The reactions were immediate and entirely negative.
“Noooo!”
“Why?”
“Not for me.”
“In the morning?”
“On purpose?”
“Don’t they have ticks here?”
Georgia said, “The world is our playground and you want us to go on a hike?”
“Not a hike,” she said defensively. “A walk.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to lay on a beach and drink until I can’t remember my own name,” Georgia responded. “The only walk I want to do here is a wine walk.”
“A what?”
“That’s where I walk the streets of Saint-Tropez at night with my glass of wine.”
Lucky frowned. “That’s called drinking in public and it’s against the law.”
“You and your rules,” the other stew muttered, reaching for her wineglass.
“That’s France’s rules. And I’m trying to unite the crew,” Lucky said, and she sounded so defeated that I wanted to hug her until she felt better.
Georgia, who had made her interest in me very obvious, took a drink and then made eyes at me. “I know how I’d like to unite with the crew.”
“Not like that. This is like, a team-building exercise,” Lucky said.
“The whole reason we work on a yacht is so that we don’t have to do that sort of garbage office team-building corporate junk. We already bond. We get pissed together every chance we get,” Georgia retorted.
“I don’t think getting drunk in yachtie bars is what the captain had in mind,” Lucky responded, and again I was struck with the urge to help her. “It’s required. Thomas, back me up here.”
The bosun was watching the bartender and ignoring Lucky. He took a deep swallow of his beer and slammed it down on the table. “She doesn’t know it yet, but that woman’s about to get Union Jacked!”
What did that mean? Thomas went over to the bartender, and when she saw him, her whole face lit up.
I again suppressed my jealousy. I nudged Lucky’s shoulder and pointed at her club soda. “Why aren’t you drinking?”
“I’m allergic.”
That was unexpected. “Really?”
“Uh-huh. When I drink I sometimes break out in handcuffs.”
I immediately started laughing and Georgia seemed determined to ruin it. “It’s because Lucky isn’t any fun.”
Ha. I knew that wasn’t true.
Lucky sat up primly in her chair. “Just because I’m choosing not to drink doesn’t automatically mean I’m not any fun. That is a separate choice that I have also made.”
I laughed again. “I think you’re a lot of fun.”
“You must not get out much.”
“Too much, unfortunately.” I had done a lot of stupid things after Harper died. Lots of regrets.
Someone across the bar was checking Lucky out, and I put my arm along the back of her chair. I wanted to send a clear signal.
While I understood that I had no claim over her, I was pretty sure that if anyone here tried to hit on her, I would knock them out.
I didn’t know what it was this woman had done to me that made me go all caveman. I hoped I would get to figure it out. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I reminded myself about the captain’s rule.
I’d never had an issue talking to women or asking them out. Rejection wasn’t really in my wheelhouse, as I didn’t have much experience with it.
But I was actually a little afraid she’d say no if I asked her on a real date, just the two of us.
I had no idea how to make this happen.