Chapter Twenty Hunter
Chapter Twenty
Hunter
An internal alarm had been sounding inside me ever since Lucky had told me she hated rich people. Tell her, tell her, tell her, it said, over and over again.
I didn’t say anything and I probably should have. She was going to be pissed when she found out.
But I had never gone out with a woman where I hadn’t wondered whether she was really interested in me or my parents’ money. This was a golden opportunity to see if Lucky could like me without my background overshadowing that.
She had to get to know me first, and she would lose all interest in doing that if I told her the truth. And my parents had already told me I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone who I was, so that made it easier for me to rationalize.
I would tell her eventually. Just ... after.
When we got back to Old Town, I asked, “Is there somewhere we can grab breakfast? That’s hopefully French this time?”
“You’re in luck,” she told me with a teasing smile. “Almost every restaurant here is French.”
I laughed and we found a café that had tables set up on the sidewalk. It felt quintessentially French, and we found a table and sat.
The waiter came over and greeted us in English, immediately pinning us as tourists. He handed us menus and said he would be back.
“Is it that obvious that we’re American?” she asked.
“Maybe it’s obvious that you are. I’m an international man of mystery,” I said with a smile as I glanced at the menu. “Although I don’t even know what part of America you’re from.”
“Connecticut. What about you?”
“New York.” A different server came over and left us glasses of water while I was busy internally grinning at the fact that we didn’t live too far apart.
“It’s too bad we don’t have Andre here. I think he speaks some French,” she said.
“Or Francois, who is fluent.”
“Ugh. No thanks,” she said, scrunching up her face.
I laughed again. “Not a fan?”
“He’s gross. I don’t like men who treat their commitments as something negotiable. He’s the reason I don’t want to learn the language—I don’t want to know what he’s been saying to me. I only know one phrase in French, and I would never repeat it around him because my understanding is that it’s an invitation to my bed and I would never, ever let that happen.”
My skin suddenly felt too tight for my body. I wanted her to French phrase me more than I had wanted anything in my life. “Just with Francois?”
She’d let me into her bed. In a platonic, harmless way that had nothing to do with French phrasing.
But before she could answer, the waiter returned to ask if we had any questions about the menu. I internally cursed at him for interrupting us. “We haven’t really had a chance to look at it yet.”
The waiter gave us an imperious, annoyed look and said he’d return.
“Let’s hurry up and choose,” she suggested. She didn’t like to rock the boat and it didn’t surprise me that she didn’t want the waiter to be annoyed with her. I wanted to explain to her that his reaction was also very French but instead looked for something to eat. Maybe I could sublimate my desire with food.
When the waiter came a third time, she ordered the crepes and I got the same thing. Because I wanted to taste whatever it was that she was putting into her mouth and I recognized this was a very strange desire and so stayed quiet.
“Copying me again?” she teased as we handed our menus back to the waiter.
“I’d already decided on it after all your talk about sugar and chocolate this morning.” If she wanted to put herself on the menu, I’d much rather order her. I guessed she would be even sweeter.
“Do you speak any foreign languages?” she asked.
How could I explain what I knew without sounding like a total dirtbag? “Just some phrases in a few different ones. Like ‘where is the club’ and whether a woman wants to ...”
French phrase me.
Her cheeks colored slightly, another interesting reaction. “What kind of women do you date?”
Hope bloomed in my chest. There could only be one reason for her to ask me that question. I considered being honest with her and just telling her that I was attracted to her.
But she seemed so skittish, so scared. I didn’t want to push things, so I did what I always did when I was uncomfortable. I made a joke. “It depends. I have very Pacific taste.”
She let out a small groan and I laughed.
“What about you?” I asked, even though I knew I shouldn’t. “What kind of men do you date?”
“Cheating jerks, mostly,” she said with a shake of her head.
“That sounds like there’s a story there.”
“Not a very interesting one. The story is both of the men I dated for a few months cheated on me. The last one, Robb, with two B s by the way, which should have been a giant red flag, ended our relationship by impregnating my best friend. That was the last time I’d had a panic attack. It’s the other reason why I got into yachting. I needed to escape my hometown.”
This poor woman. “That must have been hard, to lose your boyfriend and your best friend at the exact same time.”
I saw tears well up in her eyes and it took everything in me not to shove this tiny table aside and hold her close. When she cried it tore me apart. I wanted to make everything okay for her.
“It wasn’t fun,” she said, and I could see how she was fighting to keep it together. “I’ve given up on dating. I’m tired of being hurt, tired of being cheated on, tired of losing people I love. I’m just going to concentrate on my sisters and my bakery and not worry about romantic things.”
I would never do that to you.
The words popped into my head and I wanted to say them to her.
Before I could, the waiter returned with a basket of croissants. He set it down and she grabbed one. “Do you know how much I love bread?”
Had she sensed what I was about to say? It felt like she was trying to lighten the mood and so I played along. “As much as you love pasta?”
“Hmm. If I’m in a relationship with pasta, then bread is my mistress.”
I laughed and got my own croissant. I took a bite and might have moaned slightly. I tried to stay away from carbs but this had me rethinking things. “You’re right. These are amazing.”
“Stick with me. I’ll never steer you wrong.”
I grinned. “Another nautical pun, Lucky Salerno. I’m so glad I’m being a good influence on you.” I knew I should keep things light and easy but I still had unanswered questions. “Earlier you mentioned your mom being in debt. Can I ask what happened?”
If my abrupt subject change surprised her, she didn’t show it. “I told you how my dad and nonno died right after my twin sisters were born. My dad didn’t have a life insurance policy because he didn’t see the need for one, given that he was so young. My mom was raised in foster care and didn’t have any family. She worked to support us, with my nonna helping. A year after my dad died, she met my stepdad.”
The waiter interrupted us, bringing us our crepes. We both thanked him and I dug in. I’d never had crepes this good before. “You were saying?”
She took a deep breath. “Long story short, my stepdad left when I was fourteen. I think he’d met someone else. My mother had been a stay-at-home mom while they were together but they’d never married, so when he took off, she didn’t have any rights to alimony. She worked a bunch of jobs to take care of us and I pitched in. She ran up credit card debt and could only make minimal payments. Things never got better because of it.”
Her stepfather abandoning them was another major loss for her. I had to put my fork down. If Lucky had been beautiful to me before, she was even more so now. Harper’s death had nearly destroyed me. I couldn’t imagine what Lucky had gone through—continually losing the most important people in her life but persevering in spite of it. I admired her so much. She was incredibly strong.
It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for her. I needed to try harder and be better. Maybe I could become the man she deserved.
Instead of giving any indication of where my thoughts had gone, I went back to her story. “And I’m guessing you helped out a lot with taking care of your sisters.”
“I did. And I was glad to do it. I liked that I could do something to make my mom’s life a little easier.”
I could have guessed that she had done whatever she could to help her mom. I wanted to tell her how much I liked her and how incredible she was. She was being so honest with me. Maybe I should do the same. Tell her about my family and my situation. Ease her into it. “Did I tell you that I have two younger sisters, too? Not twins, though. They’re eighteen and sixteen.”
Her phone buzzed and she glanced down at it. Her face fell.
“What is it?” I was ready to slay dragons again.
“One of my sisters needing money. They only ever text me when they need something. It’s six thousand dollars this time to fix their car.”
That was our entire tip from the Carmines. Did they know that? My gut told me that they were taking advantage of her. She had dreams and needed money for it. I told myself that I didn’t have enough information and needed to back off.
I wanted to protect her. But she hadn’t asked for my help or my advice. I couldn’t rush in and try to rescue her. Harper had often teased me about my white-knight syndrome and told me that I couldn’t save everyone.
If Lucky wanted my perspective, she would ask for it. That didn’t mean I couldn’t point out what was happening. “Do they do that a lot? Ask you for money?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I’m the only family they have left.”
“But you’re saving your money for your bakery.”
“It might delay me a little bit, but they need my help. Plus, now that I’m chief stew, my base pay is higher, so I’ll be able to save up faster. I have a three-year plan.”
A plan that would never happen if she kept bailing her family out. “How old are your sisters?”
“Twenty-two.” I heard the defensiveness in her voice.
I needed to tread carefully. “I understand wanting to help, but sometimes it stops being help and starts being taken advantage of. Especially someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” The defensiveness had turned into anger.
I held up both of my hands, not wanting her to misunderstand. “Someone who is generous and thoughtful. I understand why you want to help them. I’m overprotective of my younger sisters, too.”
She stayed quiet and I was hit by a wave of tiredness and frustration that I couldn’t help her out of her situation. I covered up a yawn.
“Am I boring you already?” she asked.
“No, somebody kept me up late last night.”
“Me?”
“You talk in your sleep,” I told her.
“What do I say?”
“It would be ungentlemanly of me to repeat. But it works out well for me because I like to listen in my sleep.”
“I don’t know how it would be possible for you to hear anything, Mr. Kettle. You snore like you swallowed a chain saw.”
Before I could tease her back, a wasp darted directly at her and she gasped, standing up and knocking her chair over. This I could help her with. I grabbed a napkin and swatted it away from her.
Not a dragon, but close enough.
“Maybe this is why I always think the worst is going to happen. A wasp just tried to take me out!”
“My mom always says that who you are when a wasp gets close to you is the real you.”
She picked up her chair and sat back down. “You haven’t really mentioned your parents before. What do they do?”
I hadn’t mentioned them deliberately. They were worried that I would use their name to try to get out of my responsibilities, but I had no intention of doing so. And despite my earlier resolution, I couldn’t tell Lucky yet. I needed more time. “I’m a disappointment to my parents.”
True but not too much information.
“Are they upset that you are a deckhand?”
“No, they’re not upset about that.” It had, in fact, been their idea.
The server came by to fill our water glasses back up to the top. We couldn’t keep talking about my parents. So when the waiter left, I said, “Lightning round.”
“What?”
“You said we don’t know each other well, so let’s do a lightning round so we can get to know each other better. Favorite color?”
“Pink. You?”
“Black,” I said, looking at her hair. “Favorite holiday?”
“Duh, Christmas. What’s yours?”
“Easter. It’s a big deal in my family. Favorite season?”
“Winter.”
“Spring,” I said. “Hobbies?”
“Musicals and eating.”
“Same,” I said with a grin.
I found out her favorite type of sports (none), her favorite type of music (pop), her favorite kind of book (romance), the name of her high school boyfriend (some tool named Wesley), her favorite animal (cat), her favorite dinosaur (stegosaurus), and a hundred other things that it probably would have taken me months to learn about her if we were actually dating.
The waiter returned with our bill and she grabbed it. I was not going to let her pay. Especially not if she was sending her sisters thousands of dollars. She insisted and I recognized that it would hurt her pride if I refused, so I swallowed and nodded.
“Should we head back?” It wasn’t what I wanted. I would happily stay out here all day with her but we did have things to do on the ship.
She stood. “I kind of don’t want to. This has been like a movie date montage.”
“What do you mean?”
“This wasn’t a date because I don’t see myself doing that again anytime soon. You and I are just friends.” It felt a little like she had just headbutted me with that friends thing. “But I always wanted to have that date-like situation with a guy that’s something from a movie. Where it’s just easy and fun. In real life my dates are usually awkward, awful, and full of dread.”
“It sounds like you’ve been dating the wrong guys.”
“That’s for sure.”
If she would just give me a chance ... I put my arm on her so that she would stop walking. “Maybe you should try dating the right ones.”