Chapter Seventeen Lucky
Chapter Seventeen
Lucky
As I made my way back to the cabin, my arms laden, I had convinced myself that I had imagined the whole thing. I was definitely conjecturing.
This was another situation where we probably should have gone into the crew mess to watch the movie, but the captain was still on board, and if he saw us sitting in there alone together, he might come to some incorrect conclusions. Not to mention that everyone would return wasted at some point and I didn’t want to deal with them.
When I got back to our room, I heard the shower still going. I dumped the snacks onto my bed, pushing them down toward the foot so that he wouldn’t crunch them when he joined me.
This entire evening might have turned out differently if I weren’t weighed down by my past, if I hadn’t loved and lost so many times. I would have been excited by the opportunity to get to know Hunter better. To see if we could become something more.
It wasn’t only the captain’s rules that made me keep Hunter at arm’s length. My own screwed-up past played a very big part.
I was setting up the movie when he came out of the bathroom with only a towel on.
Again.
My stomach clenched. Did he not understand the way that he pushed my willpower to its absolute breaking point?
He went over to the closet to grab some clothes. A still-working part of my brain noted that he could have initially brought the clothes in with him so that he could get changed in the bathroom, but he didn’t.
I always took my things with me into the bathroom so that I could change after I showered.
Was he just so comfortable with himself and with me that it didn’t matter if he paraded around in a towel in front of me? That was a foreign concept to me.
Did the man not realize the potential danger he was placing himself in?
This was why I couldn’t consume alcohol around him. When he’d asked me earlier why I wasn’t drinking, the words the better to keep my hands to myself, my dear had popped into my head. And I still wanted to go a little Big Bad Wolf on him.
He got his clothes and went back into the bathroom. I let out a very deep breath because I’d apparently stopped breathing the minute he’d walked into the cabin. I was relieved he was changing in there.
And not out here, where I was pretty sure I would have watched even though I knew I shouldn’t.
My phone beeped and I had a message.
From Francois. I frowned.
Lucky????
What do you want, Francois?
This is Georgia! Where R uuuuuuuu????
Why do you have Francois’s phone?
It took a bit before she could respond and I wondered if she was having a hard time hitting the buttons correctly, as she had most likely drunk more than her fair share already.
I dropped my mobile in the harbor so I had to borrow Francois’s which probably means I have HPV now.
Not able to help myself, I laughed.
She asked again:
Where R U?
On the ship watching a movie with Hunter.
Are you having, as the French say, ze sexytimes?
Yes, we are having all the sex.
I added some laughing emojis so that she would know I was joking. Then I added:
I told you I was going to leave early.
Right. Okay. Have fun and I will see you later. Or not.
That made me feel worried, given her earlier statement regarding desperation and dating apps.
Be careful. Stay safe.
I am in my garden implement phase of life and can make no such promises.
“What’s got you smiling?” Hunter asked as he returned to the room with damp hair, his clothes slightly sticking to him.
Perfectly outlining everything that I was missing out on.
“Georgia just texted me from Francois’s phone. She lost hers in the ocean, apparently.”
He got into the bed next to me and I realized that he had put on his cologne. The scent filled my senses and I had to make my entire body go rigid so that I wouldn’t reach for him.
“The crew really have a ‘work hard, play hard’ thing going on, don’t they?” he asked.
“More like ‘work hard, then destroy your liver.’”
He rewarded me with a laugh, and that warmth from earlier spread through me again.
“The hangovers they’re going to have tomorrow will not be pretty,” I said.
“You know the trick to curing a hangover, don’t you? Don’t stop drinking.”
Now it was my turn to laugh, but the sound died when he pulled a length of rope out of his pocket.
“Why do you have that?”
“Thomas and Francois have said my knots aren’t up to par. I’m supposed to practice.”
“I can help you with that. I have good knot-how.”
“Lucky Salerno, was that a pun?”
“No, that’s what yachties call it,” I told him, taking the rope. I showed him the bowline, the most important one; the eight knot, which was the easiest; the clove hitch; the square knot; and the cleat hitch. I completed the knot first, explaining what I was doing, and then handed him the rope so that he could try it for himself.
And I got to see why Kai had told me that Hunter had to step up his game. Knowing how to do those five basic knots was highly important in sailing. I moved his fingers and the rope to make sure he was getting it properly. It was not easy to concentrate on the task at hand because every time we touched, which was frequently, zaps of electric energy surged through me until my whole body felt like one giant buzz.
“How do you know all of this?” he asked, exasperated after his bowline came apart for the fourth time. He handed it back to have me demonstrate again.
“You pick things up being on the yacht. Although this is a skill that has no real-world application.”
“Depends on what you’re into.”
It was clearly a joke, but that didn’t stop my mouth from going dry, my core from clenching.
I had to change the subject right away. “Just practice and you’ll get it. It does make me worried about you because you’re terrible at this. Is there anything you’re good at?”
“I’m not allowed to show you what I’m good at.”
That made all the air completely leave our cabin. My lungs stilled in my chest, my heart vibrated with tension and want, my stomach heated. I handed the rope back to him, no longer trusting myself.
“Let’s start the movie,” I said. My voice sounded strangled and weird.
“Sure. You can feel free to take your pants off, if you’d like.”
For one completely panicked moment, I didn’t understand why he’d said that to me. Then I remembered earlier, when I’d told him my idea of a good time involved watching a movie with no pants.
“Ha ha,” I said back, setting my laptop on both of our legs so that we could see it.
“You never did tell me why you like musicals so much,” he said.
“They make me happy. I don’t understand why Hollywood thinks everything has to be some depressing, dramatic story about a dysfunctional family.”
“Why do they make you happy?”
“Because they make me think of my nonna. After my stepfather took off, my mom had to work like, three jobs to try and make ends meet and my younger sisters and I spent a lot of time with our paternal grandmother.”
“Do you still get to see her as often as you’d like?”
Pain lanced my gut. Despite believing that certain wounds had finally healed over, all it took was one question like that to open them back up again. “A couple of years ago, she died from pneumonia.”
“Lucky, I’m so sorry. Your mom and your grandma. That’s rough. Where was your dad through this?”
This wave of pain didn’t feel quite as fresh or intense, probably because it had been so much longer. “He had an aortic dissection right after my twin sisters were born. He was driving with his dad at the time and crashed the car and they both died.”
He was silent for a moment, and I was sure he was tallying up all the people in my life that I’d lost.
Then he did what I’d wanted to do when he talked about his sister. He took my hand in his and held it.
It wasn’t a romantic gesture, but a soothing and affectionate one. “I’m so sorry for all the loss that you’ve experienced.”
“Thank you.” My words were little more than a whisper.
“How do you ...” His voice trailed off, as if he didn’t want to finish his question.
“How do I deal with it?” He nodded, letting me know that I’d guessed correctly. “I don’t know. You just put one foot in front of the other and you keep going. You keep living and do the best you can with the circumstances you’ve been given.”
I also kept my heart locked up so that no one else could hurt it. Because with as kind and gentle as he was being right now ... it felt like I could fall for him. I was so grateful for the nonfraternization rule. I didn’t want any more heartache.
“I know how hard that can be to do,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed. “It makes me cling to the things that I want, the things that I care about. And the anxiety probably comes from the loss.”
I’d never seen a therapist, but it was as good an explanation as any other.
“Have you dealt with depression? Anxiety is often comorbid with depression.”
“I don’t have time to be depressed.” Realizing how that sounded I hurried to explain. “I’m not trying to make light of it or sound flippant, and I know how debilitating it can be for so many people, but I’ve had to work multiple jobs since I was fourteen to help my family. Like I said, I had to keep putting one foot in front of the other because there wasn’t another choice.”
He was quiet for a long time. So quiet that it made me wonder if I’d said something that had offended him.
Just when I was about to apologize, he turned his head toward me. “You’re a really strong person.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong. I don’t feel very strong.” Hot tears welled up in my eyes, surprising me. “I really don’t want to cry right now.”
“It would be okay if you did.”
Another reaction I was unused to. Most of the guys I’d dated got upset if I cried. One had even accused me of using it as a manipulation tactic. I nodded and closed my eyelids and felt two tears quickly falling down my cheeks.
“Would it be all right if I hugged you?” he asked.
“Yes.” I desperately needed to be held.
He turned his body toward mine and took me in his arms. I pressed my face against his shoulder. Everything about him exuded not only strength, like he could protect me from anything, but a sense that things were going to be okay.
It had been a very long time since I had felt as safe as I did in his embrace.
Definitely dangerous.
His cheek settled on the top of my head, and when he spoke, his words seemed to echo inside my skull. “My sister Harper used to say she had sharp edges because she had been broken and then tried to put herself back together. She was worried it made her rough with other people, so she kept them at a distance.”
“That’s how I feel.” I related so much to that statement. In pushing people away and in feeling irretrievably broken. “I’ve tried to dull some of my edges.”
“I hope you don’t. I like your sharp edges.”
This felt like more than a friendship. It felt like the beginning of something. Like there could be a romantic relationship between us if we both let it.
But I had to remind myself that he was a genuinely nice guy who responded to people in need. Probably because of his own loss—it had made him a more compassionate and aware person. He was kind.
I needed to remember that.
And why I had been avoiding romantic entanglements for so long.
He started rubbing his hand up and down my back. It was meant to be in a soothing way, but it wasn’t soothing me. It was getting me riled up.
I had to put those barriers in place. Erect the protective walls.
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re my friend.” I said it more for myself than for him.
His arms tightened around me. “Me too.”
There. He had just confirmed it. Only friends. He wasn’t interested and only saw us as friends.
Which was what I wanted. What I needed.
So why did it feel like my heart was breaking all over again?