Chapter Fourteen #2
I set my phone on the nightstand and turned to face the wall.
If he texted me back, I didn’t want to read it.
Now I could see everything I’d gotten wrong.
And not just about his feelings for me, but mine for him.
They couldn’t be real. They were only another distraction, like finishing the list. A distraction that had backfired in spectacular fashion.
I closed my eyes, pushing away thoughts of him, and Mia, and Kitty, and Samson, and Beth.
Instead, I thought my way into stillness from my toes up to my scalp, until finally, I fell asleep.
—
As soon as Nina arrived on deck the next morning, I dragged her into the master suite and collapsed onto the bed, covering my face with my hands.
“If you’re trying to seduce me, it’s working, but you could at least give me a heads-up first,” she said.
I peeked between my fingers to glare at her.
Nina sank onto the bed beside me. “What’s going on, babe?”
What wasn’t going on? I’d gone from having one of the best nights of my life to one of the worst in a single hour.
The confrontation with Mia . . . I couldn’t tell Nina about that.
If I did, I wouldn’t make it through the day.
But I had a more immediate situation to take care of, and Nina was the only one who could help.
“I have to quit.”
Nina snorted. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t show my face here ever again.” I rolled away from her and crossed my arms over my chest. “And it’s your fault, by the way.”
Nina stretched out beside me on the bed. “I’m guessing this has something to do with Alex. Excuse me, Ocean.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded.
“All right, what happened? Which body part of his am I chopping off?”
I looked up at the ceiling, trying to get the image of Alex pulling away from me out of my head.
“Last night after you left, I may have . . . tried to kiss him.” Nina didn’t need to know about everything that had happened: Samson’s YouTube channel, the crying.
That would open an entire part of me I couldn’t deal with right now.
“You tried to kiss him?”
“And he rejected me.”
“What?” The bed shook as Nina bolted upright. She paced the room with her hands on her hips, then halted, her unicorn earrings swinging against her cheeks as she faced me. “He did what?”
“Don’t make me say it again.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. He’s clearly in love with you.”
“He’s clearly not.”
Nina sighed and sat at the foot of the bed.
“Well, I hate him again. And you aren’t quitting the boat.
The obvious solution here is to duct tape him to a table covered in plastic wrap, stab him in the heart, stuff his body into a heavy-duty biodegradable trash bag, and dump it into the oceanic trench off the coast of the Bay Harbor Islands. ”
I stared at her. “That is oddly specific.”
“I’ve watched a lot of Dexter,” she said. I laughed, and the flicker of a smile appeared on Nina’s face. “I know he’s a chef and is good with knives, but I’m chief stew, and I’m good with party supplies.”
“Stop trying to make me laugh.”
“I’m serious! Curling ribbons isn’t the only thing I can do with scissors.” She mimed opening and closing a pair, then jabbed them at an invisible Alex.
I thought of all we had to do that day. Preparing the boat for the guests, greeting them, making drinks, ferrying food from the kitchen to the table, and cleaning, a lot of cleaning. “Don’t be too hard on him. It isn’t his fault.”
Nina raised an eyebrow at me. “Uh, if he can’t see what a catch you are, then yeah, it’s his fault. If you weren’t already filling the role of best friend, I’d be all over that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please, I’m totally not your type.”
“Chop that beautiful blond hair of yours into a layered bob and maybe you would be.”
“Just play nice. He told us he didn’t date. I let you, and Mia, and Kitty, and pheromones get in my head. I’ll be fine. It was only a teeny, tiny, totally not serious crush. A distraction.”
Nina raised both eyebrows at me then. “If you say so.” She took my hand, beaming at me like a proud parent. “I’m glad you took my advice, putting yourself out there and all.”
“A lot of good that did me.” I thought about our fight in CVS and how Nina had said I didn’t really want to be alone. “I stand by what I said before.”
“Which was?”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m not alone. I’ve got you.”
Nina gave me one of her rare full-mouthed smiles. The boat was quiet, especially here on the main deck, and we sat together in silence, both aware the quiet wouldn’t last for long.
“I can handle service on my own today,” Nina said.
I didn’t bother arguing with her. The last thing I needed was to be in another kitchen with Alex. “Don’t be a jerk to him, okay?”
Nina stood from the bed and straightened her polo. “I can’t make any promises.”
—
Even on a 150-foot superyacht, it was hard to avoid Alex. As soon as I stepped into the crew mess, there he was, preference sheets spread out in front of him on the counter.
I took a deep breath and walked over to the coffee maker. I needed to act like everything was fine between us. Like nothing had happened. We were coworkers, and neighbors, and, hopefully, still friends.
I pulled a mug from the cabinet, and Alex perked his head up at the sound of it clinking against the counter.
“Oh, hey, Jo,” he said. He tapped a preference sheet with a finger.
“Captain says we’ve got picky eaters today.
The devil’s triangle: gluten-free, dairy-free, meat-free, and”—he glanced at the preference sheet again—“at least thirty-three grams of protein in each meal. Why thirty-three? Why not thirty or thirty-five?”
“You should season their food with protein powder,” I said. I leaned against the counter and sipped my coffee, hoping I looked casual and not at all like someone whose heart was aching in her chest right this very minute. Distraction, my ass. Why was I constantly lying to myself?
Alex let out a laugh, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him. His hair, instead of stylishly messy, was an actual mess. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and there was no trace of that almost smile.
He drummed his fingers across the counter. “Can we talk?”
I watched as steam curled from my mug and pressed up toward the ceiling, then gave him my stew smile.
I didn’t want him thinking I was angry or hurt, even though I was a little bit of both.
I’d told Nina not to be hard on him because it wasn’t his fault.
But I hadn’t imagined everything, had I?
Had I imagined the lingering gazes and flirty banter?
“Alex,” I said, forcing myself to look at him. “There’s nothing to talk about. It was a mistake. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was in a weird place last night. I needed a distraction, and you were just . . . there. Too many drinks, I guess. Can we please forget it ever happened?”
Alex looked down at the preference sheets again. “That’s what you want?”
I thought of how immediate the hurt and embarrassment had been when he pulled away last night. “Yes. That’s what I want.”
He rubbed a hand over his cheek, then met my gaze with a nod. “Okay, yeah. Let’s forget it ever happened.”
I stretched out my hand, like he had at Mitch’s on the night we met, when he hadn’t pulled back from my kiss. “Friends?”
Alex didn’t say anything at first. He stared at my hand, as if weighing his options. Had I made things so awkward we couldn’t even be friends? But then he put his hand in mine, that barely there, nearly imperceptible almost smile on his lips.
“Yeah,” he said. “Friends.”