Chapter 6
six
. . .
He should have known better. Thinking he could actually go an entire week without something else in his life blowing up had set him up for a universal “I told you so,” but he’d done it anyway.
Worse, he’d said out loud that taking the honeymoon without Lucy felt right. Like a reset, a way to close the door on that chapter and start over. He just wanted a brief break from reality—as if reality had ever let him take a damn vacation.
“What is this?”
Lennox, his plane buddy from flight one, stormed up and waved something so close to his nose that Evan could feel a breeze on his eyelashes.
“I’m gonna need you to get your hand out of my face,” he said, taking a step back. The last thing his strained reputation needed was news of an arrest in Puerto Rico for assaulting an irate and possibly gay man. The socialites would have a field day.
“You need to explain yourself!”
Lennox stopped gesticulating long enough for Evan to identify the business card he’d thrown away.
“Did you dig that out of the trash?”
“I’m asking the questions here, mister.”
Evan now knew two things for certain. One, Lennox watched too many police procedurals, and two, he was batshit crazy.
“What would you like to know?” he asked calmly. If he was going to be attacked by a lunatic at the airport, he’d prefer it happen while they were still on the ground.
Lennox blinked, his mouth opening and closing several times before he stuttered, “Oh. Um. Well, I…”
Evan bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Poor guy hadn’t expected he’d actually get to live out his interrogation fantasy. He made a subtle gesture to the card and watched the processing take place in Lennox’s brain.
“You have a lot of nerve, buddy,” he finally spat.
“Why’s that?”
More processing, and Lennox turned a darker pink. “Why? What do you mean, why? You’re a heartless cad, that’s why!”
It was Evan’s turn to blink and process. “Cad? Seriously?”
“That’s what I said, yes.”
Evan cast a glance toward the little puddle jumper set to take them to the Virgin Islands and Stout Rock. They’d loaded the luggage, and the pilot was speaking with some of the other passengers, so Lennox needed to get to his point. He had a vacation to get to.
“You’re mad I threw her card away.”
“Of course I am!”
“I ask again, why?”
“Are you being deliberately obtuse?”
Lennox flushed just a little darker, his cheeks almost the shade of a ripe plum. What would it take to get him there before the flight took off? Evan considered it a personal challenge to find out.
“It’s a straightforward question, man. What does it matter to you whether I keep her info? Is she your sister? Niece? Cousin twice removed?”
Lennox stilled and stared, and it was all Evan could do to keep his face neutral. He could almost see the gears turning behind Lennox’s sky-blue eyes. There was an obvious effort going into formulating his answer.
“You took advantage,” he finally responded quietly. “Men like you always do that to people like us—her.”
“Men like me? What the hell does that mean?”
Lennox gestured broadly with a scoff. “Please. Look at you. Mister fancy clothes and expensive booze. You flatter and woo, then cast them aside and go buy yourself another Rolex.”
Evan knew he’d lost the battle the moment Lennox said woo with a straight face.
“Rolex? You wound me,” he said through the bubbling laughter. “It’s a Patek Philippe”
A guffaw escaped in a gasping snort and became increasingly unhinged at the obvious distress on Lennox’s face. Eh, he was already going to hell. Might as well book a suite.
“Height and weight?”
They turned in unison at the question, from a man with a craggy, sun-darkened face.
“Pardon?”
The guy frowned, and the exaggerated slant of his brows made his eyelids collapse near to his cheeks. “Height and weight?”
“It’s for weight distribution,” Evan explained, disappointed that his comment hadn’t been the one to achieve the coveted plum. Score one for Mr. Magoo. “They need to distribute passenger weight with the luggage to keep the plane balanced.”
“Oh, dear God.”
Lennox’s face went from indignant to deathly pale in a blink, and Evan took a quick step to the side. Whether he intended to puke or pass out, he’d be doing it on somebody else’s shoes.
“Thought you weren’t a nervous flyer.”
The thought of being trapped on a tiny island with Lennox, the nosy schoolmarm, had been bad, but he’d underestimated how much worse being trapped on a tiny plane with him could be.
Right with him, in fact. As in crushed together in the two seats on the wing, because it turned out they were almost identical in height and weight.
Evan hated small planes for myriad reasons, but having a man in desperate need of a hobby practically sitting in his lap took the current number one spot. The only consolation was that his new nemesis looked equally unhappy about it.
“Are you fidgeting on purpose?”
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“You’re shaking the plane.”
“That’s because this isn’t a plane. It’s a sardine can with wings.”
Lennox alternated between drumming his leg, shifting in his seat, and stretching his shoulders while Evan calculated the force necessary to drag him three feet and hurl him out the door.
“Just admit it. You hate flying.”
“I do not! I just—”
A gasp severed his retort as the plane dipped. Evan’s stomach went with it, and a twinge of PTSD hit him right in the groin.
“Heading up a bit to avoid this pocket,” the pilot announced, and the engine roared in complaint.
Evan had a complaint of his own, and it involved the death grip Lennox now had on his thigh.
Maybe he’d been hasty in calling bullshit on the guy’s declaration of 5’11 and 170 pounds. Sure, he was a little taller, but not a full inch. 5’10 and a half at most. Maybe.
Regardless, he’d refused to believe he’d packed that much weight into those thrift store chinos and 1990s polo shirt, but the veins popping along Lennox’s hands and forearm told a surprising story.
“Damn, dude. You work out?”
“What?”
Evan gave the hand a pointed look. “Hell of a grip you got there.”
Lennox yanked his hand away, pressing it to his chest as though scalded. “Oh. Um. Sorry.”
“I’m still not wrestling you to the ground.”
Lennox’s mouth dropped open, and his face darkened close enough to purple that Evan gave himself half a victory point. He hadn’t been first, but he’d been fastest. Not typically something he’d brag about, but this time he’d own it.
They hit more turbulence, the little aircraft shuddering and shaking, and Evan cringed as the pressure drop made his head feel like it was being juiced. They were losing altitude, which he really hoped was on purpose, but with Lennox’s hand back on his thigh, he was too distracted to ask.
Did the guy think he was grabbing the seat arm? Could he not feel the quad muscle protesting beneath his merciless grip? Was this a thinly veiled insinuation that he skipped leg day?
Before Evan could decide how insulted he should be, the landing gear scraped the runway, and he discovered physics also had a shit sense of humor.
Evan braced for impact as the plane bounced several times while seeking purchase. He’d expected some whiplash. What he’d gotten was an uptight wrecking ball straight to the ribs.
When the brakes finally caught, they jerked side to side, reminding Evan of a dog with a stuffed toy. He grunted at the impact of Lennox jabbing him in the side, then buckled as another caught him near a kidney.
Okay, fine. The bastard was absolutely somewhere in the neighborhood of 170 pounds. He also had the sharpest elbows Evan had ever had the displeasure of meeting.
“Jesus fuck,” he cursed, wrapping Lennox in a gangly side hug to stop the abuse. “Will you at least try to hold on?”
Whatever his intended rebuttal, Lennox instead squawked like a chicken as the plane gave one final jerk and shudder before finally sticking the landing.
After a short taxi and zero apologies, the plane came to a stop next to a small building teeming with people, luggage, and chickens.
Led by a scrappy rooster, the small flock marched through the grass alongside the runway, pecking and kicking at the ground while the rest of the passengers deplaned. No matter where in the world he went, there was always some scrawny cock marching around full of self-importance.
“Friends of yours?” he asked, earning a glare.
“Westin?”
A mountain of a man stood just inside the building’s entrance, holding a sign for the resort. He greeted them with a gleaming smile as two other men swarmed the luggage cart and raced their bags out to a waiting van.
“That would be me.”
The man’s mouth twisted downward as he looked at his phone, then back at the two of them. “I was expecting… Ah, no matter. Please, follow me.”
Lennox took two steps, then paused. “Wait, both of us?”
The representative gave them a strange look. “Yes?”
“You only called him.”
“Ah, yes. Sorry. For some reason, the passenger list has you under the one name. I’ll ask Marta to update your info when we arrive.”
Lennox grumbled something about Christians that Evan refused to even try to make sense of and followed their keeper outside.
A shiny, clean transport van sat idling with their luggage neatly stacked inside. Whether impeccable service or a highly intricate kidnapping, it was still more appealing than the little plane.
They traveled a series of narrow, winding roads riddled with potholes and pedestrians with questionable survival instincts to a small marina. Accustomed to Boston cab drivers, Evan took it in stride, but Lennox was a disturbing shade of green by the time they’d arrived.
“Perfect weather for a honeymoon, eh?” the jovial giant announced as they settled onto a well-equipped forty-foot powerboat. He offered them each cold beers from a cooler next to his feet as they got underway.
Evan winced and quickly cracked and quaffed half the beer. “Uh, yeah.”
Lennox turned to him with comically wide eyes and mouthed, honeymoon?
“Yes, but no,” he muttered, snagging the beer Heath didn’t want before he could place it back into the cooler. This wasn’t the sort of small talk he wanted to be having with the world’s judgiest bastard.
“It’s one or the other, Westin.”
Evan lifted a brow. Westin? Could it be that Lennox had declared him a nemesis in turn? The idea pleased him.
“The wedding didn’t happen.”
Lennox snorted. “Came to her senses, did she?”
The anger roared back, and Evan frowned, chugging the rest of his beer and half of the other. He should actually thank Lennox for his intrusive needling. He’d been a solid distraction for the past few hours.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
Fucking Lucy.
“This is your first time with us?” their captain shouted over the roar of the boat’s quad-engine. His eyes were on the horizon, and Evan wondered if he was oblivious to their conversation or tacitly ignoring their glaring.
The question had at least sidetracked Lennox, who scratched at his chest and chuckled awkwardly.
“Yes. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he shouted back, parroting one of the brochure’s many catchphrases.
The captain’s laugh was deep and rich. “The marketing doesn’t lie. I guarantee you will remember this trip for the rest of your days.”
Lennox shot him some very strong side-eye, muttering, “I don’t doubt it.”
Evan flashed his toothiest smile in response.
There’d been a bout of grumbling when they’d figured out they were the only two passengers from The Flight of Doom who were continuing on to the island.
Evan was certain karma was rounding on him early, because that was the best explanation for why he’d been blessed with additional quality time with Lennox the Uptight.
“Oh, it’s beautiful.”
Finally, something he and Lennox could agree on.
“Welcome to Stout Rock, my friends.”
All his tension and annoyance magically disappeared at the first glimpse of the island. Endless green, with glimpses of craggy cliffs and blinding white sand dotting the shore.
The boat swung toward the tiny footprint of the actual resort, white stucco and bright clay roofs amid dense palms and torrid tropical blooms. Small, exclusive, and private. That was the promise, and that was exactly what he needed right now.
Two weeks of sun, sand, and crystal-clear water. He’d reset, put the wedding catastrophe behind him, and work on Plan B. Revenge was still the plan; he’d just need to be more creative in getting it.