Chapter Twenty-Seven Lucky
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lucky
“Lucky?”
I jerked awake. The cabin door was open, light spilling in from the hallway.
“Yeah?” I responded, not really knowing what was going on.
“I need you,” Georgia said. “In the galley.”
“What time is it?” I mumbled.
“Three in the morning,” she said. “Please hurry.”
She left, closing the door behind her. My first thought was that something had to be seriously wrong for Georgia to come in and wake me up in the middle of the night.
My second thought was that I had not actually been making out with Hunter. It had been a dream. A very vivid one that had felt way too real.
My third was that Hunter was still snoring away next to me, shirtless.
A fact my second stew couldn’t have failed to notice.
Letting out a soft groan, I tried to climb over him as carefully as I could, but some bodily contact was inevitable if I didn’t want to fall onto the floor. He made a sound and then rolled to his left, into the spot I’d just vacated.
Like he was searching for me.
Had I made any sounds in my sleep? If I had, my second stew was never going to let me hear the end of it.
I came out into the galley, bleary-eyed and not feeling at all prepared for whatever Georgia was about to do.
“What’s going on?” I asked, blinking against the bright lights of the galley.
“That was my question for you. What is going on? Why is Hunter half-naked and sleeping in your bunk? Are you two ...” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Becoming one?”
I was too tired to figure out what that meant. “What?”
She let out a sound of exasperation. “I was trying to say it in whatever flowery romance language you use. Are you having sex with the man?”
Other than in my dreams? “No!”
“Ugh. Such a waste.”
My hormones and overactive imagination agreed with her. “Nothing is going on. We do sometimes sleep together but in the most platonic sense of the word. Just sleeping. We don’t cuddle or anything. We haven’t even kissed.”
Other than that smooch I’d laid on him a few hours ago.
But I knew she wouldn’t count that.
Or maybe she would. And she might count my feverish dream. Which was reason enough not to tell her.
“That’s very disappointing,” she said.
“Why did you wake me up? It wasn’t to grill me about Hunter.” Even though that was something she would absolutely do.
“Rodney wants homemade chocolate chip cookies.”
I blinked several times, not sure I’d heard her correctly. “What?”
“He hasn’t gone to bed yet and he’s up in the main salon looking very sad. I asked him if there was anything I could bring him and he asked if someone could make him chocolate chip cookies.”
We’d certainly had weirder requests in the middle of the night, but until today Rodney hadn’t been that kind of guest.
“And I was afraid that if I tried to wake Andre up he would shank me and then Preacher would ring loudly enough to wake everybody up,” she added. She wasn’t wrong on either count. The captain had complained on more than one occasion about the parrot. I didn’t want him to have a reason to get rid of Preacher. Andre would leave and we needed him. Talented yacht chefs were hard to come by.
“Good call,” I said. “I’ll make them.”
“I figured.”
Pieter came into the galley and went over to Georgia, putting his arm around her waist and squeezing her once before he went over to grab a cup of coffee. He was whistling a merry tune as he filled his mug up and then left the galley.
“What was that about?” I asked.
She waved her hand nonchalantly. “Oh, we might have hooked up a couple of hours ago.”
“Georgia!”
“What?”
“You’re on shift!” I reminded her. How was I supposed to respond to this? What would Marika have done? Honestly, she probably would have laughed about it and asked Georgia for details.
“Trust me, it didn’t take long. Although he surprised me a couple of times. Especially when he—”
I held up one hand before I went over and turned on the espresso machine. I needed more caffeine than mere coffee could provide. “I don’t need to know more. Why now?”
She shrugged. “I was bored, it was dark, and my ovaries were desperate.” She watched as I took eggs and butter out of the walk-in refrigerator. I was going to have to write down everything I used for when Andre had to restock.
“That’s not really a good reason.”
“I think you should make a move on Hunter,” she announced, and I nearly dropped the eggs I was carrying.
“You also think Vegemite tastes good, so forgive me if I don’t make decisions based on your opinions.” I was teasing her to get away from what felt like a very serious subject matter, but she wasn’t interested in letting it go.
“I wouldn’t push you in that direction if there were other options. Normally I’d tell you that there’s plenty of fish in the sea, but you and I know better since we work here. The ocean is overfished and full of garbage.”
I laughed.
“And this ship?” she went on. “Is a shallow pond and not at all suitable for fishing.”
“Yet you seemed to have landed one.” I was going through a cabinet filled with baking supplies, hoping that Andre had some chocolate chips.
“A little one that I’ll have to throw back.”
“Your call,” I said, triumphantly finding some semisweet chips on the bottom shelf. “But Pieter is nice to you. I know you’re not used to that, but it is okay to let a man be nice to you.”
“He does kind of worship me, doesn’t he?”
I liked how nice Hunter was to me. I was also unused to it.
As I tossed the chocolate chip bag onto the counter, Georgia’s phone rang.
“Who is calling you this time of night?” I asked as she glanced at the screen.
“My grandmother, who does not understand the concept of time zones no matter how many times I explain it to her. She also keeps sending me all-caps texts about how I’m going to hell for ‘fornicating.’ I told her that I’m never getting married, so technically I’m not having premarital sex, but I don’t think she was amused.”
“Go to bed,” I said with a laugh. “I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, get some rest. Once I’m up, I’m up.” I couldn’t have gone back to sleep even if I’d wanted to.
Although it would have been nice to just lie awake next to Hunter and listen to him snore.
“Okay, I’m off. See you tomorrow. Or, later today.”
“Good night,” I called after her and then finished gathering up the ingredients I needed. I turned on the oven to preheat it and searched for the silicone mats and the baking half-sheets.
I fell into an easy rhythm. I missed baking like this. I had never dared infringe on the sanctity of Andre’s galley before. I would have to clean up really well so that I wouldn’t have him yelling at me when he woke up. Things fell apart completely on a yacht when the chief stew and chef didn’t get along.
It was then that I noticed it was raining. If I’d been on an upper deck, I would have realized it sooner, but the rain must have shifted direction and was falling sideways and hitting the porthole in the galley.
It didn’t take me long to finish mixing the wet ingredients. I added the dry, stirred, and then put in the chocolate chips. I rolled dough into balls and put them on one of the trays. I got the first batch in the oven, and only then did I grab myself a cup of espresso. I stared out into the inky blackness just beyond the porthole. It was a cozy moment and I found myself wanting to share it with Hunter.
Then he came into the galley, like I’d accidentally summoned him.
“What are you doing up?” I asked, shocked.
Not only because he was awake but because I still had burning, detailed images in my head of him kissing and undressing me.
Just like I had, he blinked against the harshness of the galley lights. “You got up. And I can’t sleep when you’re not there.”
He casually lobbed that emotional nuclear bomb at me and I had nothing shored up to protect myself against the cuteness and depth of it. What did that mean? It felt like my legs had been disconnected from my spinal column, and I had to lean against the counter to stay upright.
“You’re making cookies?” He phrased it as a question even though it was pretty obvious what I was doing.
“Y-yes.” I did not need to start stumbling over my words now.
“Do you need help?” he asked. He reached over and took a bunch of cookie dough and popped it into his mouth.
I pointed my wooden spoon at him. “What are you doing? That’s not for you!”
He licked some of the dough from his finger. “You can’t tease a man with the smell of baking cookies and not let him have one.”
I moved the bowl away from him. “You should have enough willpower to refrain.”
“You have no idea how much willpower I have,” he grumbled more to himself than to me.
Not willing to let my brain make another dangerous leap to an illogical conclusion, I said, “It’s also bad to eat cookie dough.”
“I like to live dangerously. Bring on the raw eggs.”
“Salmonella’s not pretty.”
“Given what I’d just tasted, it would be worth it.” Then he reached for my cup of espresso and took a drink. “Decided to have a little bit of coffee with your caffeine, did you?”
“Ha ha.”
“Someday soon we’re going to have to discuss your chemical dependence on coffee. You might have a problem,” he teased.
“I don’t have a problem with coffee. I have a problem without coffee.” I turned around and got a clean mug. “Speaking of, do you want one?”
“Yes, please.”
Not that I’d minded that he’d taken a sip from mine. I liked sharing things with him. “How strong do you want it?”
“Strong enough to show up on a drug test.”
“Double shot of espresso, coming up.”
When I handed the mug to him, he thanked me and then asked, “Are you coming back to bed?”
How he said it—like we were a real couple—knocked my breath clean out of my lungs. The way his words made me want things I couldn’t have ...
My knees were weak all over again.
For a moment my throat felt too tight, like it was going to prevent me from being able to speak at all. I coughed. “I can’t. I have to stay here until the batter end.”
He grinned at my pun, the way I knew he would. It helped to lighten that heavy, thick tension I’d been feeling.
But only a little bit.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” he asked right before he snitched another piece of dough.
“I’m good. Chocolate chip cookies are easy. If it had been macarons, you would have found me in a ball on the floor, crying.”
“Why are you making cookies?”
“The guest requested it.” The bell dinged and I took out the batch in the oven and set it on the stove to cool. I put in the next tray and reset the timer.
Hunter frowned slightly. “Did he say why?”
“No,” I said, flicking a bit of dough at him.
He looked at me in mock outrage. “Don’t start something you’re not willing to finish.”
I laughed and then immediately modulated my tone, remembering that nearly all our fellow crewmembers were currently sleeping in their cabins nearby. “Do you cook?” I asked.
“I have the repertoire of a diner chef, but not the skill.”
“Honestly, I’m not that great at cooking regular food, either. But I love baking. The precision of it, the science involved. It has to be done correctly, all the ingredients interacting perfectly, and the end result will always be the same.”
“So you like it because there are strict rules.”
That made me pause. “I guess so. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“If it’s basically science, does it turn out perfectly every time?”
“No! So many things can go wrong. Even if you do everything exactly right, it might not turn out.”
He studied me and then said, “I would think that would upset you.”
Fair point. “Even less-than-perfect chocolate chip cookies taste pretty good. And if I need to start over again and hope things turn out better the second time, I can.” I put a couple of cookies on a plate, sprinkled on some sea salt, poured a glass of milk and then a glass of wine.
“Wine this late?” he asked.
“It’s raining outside. The yachtie motto is ‘when it rains, we pour.’ I’m hoping it will make him sleepy.”
So that I could go back to bed with Hunter. The idea sent warm tingles racing along my nerve endings.
I set the tray for Rodney off to the side so that I could put the final batch of cookies in the oven.
“You should hand those extras over,” Hunter said. “So I can test them and make sure they’re not terrible.”
I grabbed a handful of flour and chucked it at him. It hit him square in the chest.
His mouth opened to an O and then he looked up at me in surprise.
“You’re not allowed to question my baking abilities. I’m willing to finish this,” I said, getting another handful.
Mischief filled his eyes and he set his mug down. “Oh, you think so?”
“Not the eggs!” I screeched, seeing what he was reaching for. “Do you know how hard that is to clean? They harden like cement!”
Since I had the container of flour, he grabbed the sugar and flung a bunch of it at me. I immediately tossed white, powdery flour back at him and we started pelting each other, giggling and laughing while trying not to wake everyone up.
He looked like a ghost, his hair completely coated in flour. He moved closer and closer to me, backing me into a corner. Then he dropped the sugar and lunged, grabbing my arms and putting them behind me, pinning me against the counter. He pressed his body against mine.
“Got you!” he said.
The laughter died in both of our throats at the same time as we realized the situation we were in. Our chests were heaving against one another, and while my heart had already been pumping hard during our food fight, now it was jackhammering against my ribs. His gaze dropped down to my lips and I ached for him in a way I didn’t know was possible.
I saw the lines in his neck, the tension in his jawline, the heat in his eyes.
“Lucky . . .” He breathed my name out. “I want . . .”