The Shippers

Chapter Twenty-One

Twenty-One

ASHLEY REALLY WAS a force of nature.

Arguably a more noble pursuit.

She zipped over to me as soon as I walked into the little side theater. “Finn’s not here yet,” she said, “but we’ve got time. The slow-dance contest isn’t until the very end.” She looked me up and down. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay enough,” I said, looking around. “I’m wearing two full layers of aloe.”

“I had you signed up for the piggyback race and the wheelbarrow,” Ashley said, “but I found a replacement.”

“Thank you.”

“So that really just leaves the slow dancing for you,” she said, checking her clipboard. “Unless you’d like to do the beach ball pass, or the cancan line, or the group pyramid?”

All of these elements were scientifically engineered—by Ashley—to create love connections between the participants. But I wasn’t sure how much participating I could handle.

“I think the slow-dance contest is plenty,” I said.

“Got it,” Ashley said, giving me a wink. “I hope you win.”

THE VARIETY SHOW was pure torture.

Ashley had decided to go hard on the Cooper/Bridesmaid Two pairing.

So even though Cooper did show up in the side theater a little after I did—now in proper attire—almost as soon as he found me, and took the seat beside me, and leaned right up against my ear to say, “I need to talk to you,” Ashley showed up and snapped her fingers at him.

“I need Cooper on the stage. Right now,” she said, holding her clipboard like a threat.

Things could have gone differently, of course. Another person—one who hadn’t been conditioned into obedience by a lifetime of Ashley being the bossy mom of our little street gang—might have politely declined.

But Cooper just gave me a strangled look and then rose to follow her—turning back to me as he went and saying, again, “I really need to talk to you.”

I guess we both thought that he’d be back at some point.

But he never was.

Ashley included him in almost every scene of the show.

Him—and Bridesmaid Two.

Hadn’t Ashley and I talked about this? She wasn’t supposed to matchmake them until the Finn thing was settled!

But she must’ve thought it was as good as settled, because she made Cooper and Bridesmaid Two do it all.

And I had to sit there and watch.

Eventually, Finn showed up and took the empty seat next to me—which Ashley had reserved for him by writing his name in thick black marker on a five-by-seven card.

“How’s the sunburn?” he asked as he sat down.

“Much better, thanks,” I said.

And then we ran out of things to say.

Which means the next two hours were just Finn and me sitting silently side by side, with Cooper’s declaration that Finn was a frog bobbing around in my brain.

In fact, in the wake of all the mean things Cooper had just said about Finn, I found myself looking at him differently.

Was he prematurely middle-aged? Did he care only about status? Was he boring as hell?

The more I glanced at him in the light of the stage, the more I wondered if Cooper was right.

He did seem more like a man in his fifties than a guy our age.

I wouldn’t say he was balding, exactly—but that hairline wasn’t gonna win any awards, either.

He’d added a little doughiness around the jawline, too.

And were those long hours reviewing legal briefs preventing him from getting enough sun?

Because maybe it was just the stage lights, but I’m not going to lie: He looked a little pasty.

Fine. You want me to say it? I’ll say it.

Cooper had called out the lens I’d been seeing Finn through—and made it disappear.

And now I found myself considering the very possible possibility that I’d been seeing the Finn Turner I wanted to see all this time.

That I’d amplified all the good and erased all the bad.

That Finn wasn’t a living legend, after all …

but just an ordinary person. One who, perhaps, if I was truly honest with myself, might, indeed, have peaked in high school.

At that thought, I put my hand over my mouth.

Who was Finn if he wasn’t a total stud? Did he even exist?

Once the thought came into my head, it sat down and refused to leave.

Finn Turner: Not a god. Just an ordinary guy whose hairline wasn’t what it used to be.

Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. I didn’t need peak Finn Turner to break this curse.

I just needed any Finn Turner. If he was the person I’d imprinted on, then he was the person I’d imprinted on.

I’d made my choice long ago.

Besides, I was hardly in danger of getting talent-spotted as a supermodel myself. Maybe we were better matched now. And it could never have been easy to just force a man to fall in love with me. Maybe that hairline was my new best friend.

It should be a relief that he was past his prime, I thought as we watched all the single people—but especially Cooper and Bridesmaid Two—run the highly abnormal obstacle course of variety-show activities that Ashley had constructed for them down on the stage.

What’s a normal variety show, you ask? It’s talented people doing talent-based things. Singing. Juggling. Tap dancing.

This was none of that.

This was more like a field day.

Ashley made them do egg tosses, and piggyback races, and trust falls.

And despite the fact that none of it made any sense at all, everybody in the audience loved it.

Everybody except one.

As I watched Cooper and Bridesmaid Two pair up over and over—him carrying her and her climbing on him, and the two of them back-to-backing each other—I got crankier and crankier.

Had I just been insisting my sunburn was all better?

Maybe I was relapsing.

My skin felt raw and hot. The silky material of Ashley’s dress felt rough and burlap-y. I spent the whole handstand contest looking so thoroughly through my purse for some painkillers that I didn’t even notice that Cooper and Bridesmaid Two had won.

What was it about her that was so irritating to watch?

I left to “go to the bathroom” not once or twice, but three separate times, though really I was just popping out to the ship’s deck to gaze out at the ocean and wonder what I was doing with my life.

The last time was just before the slow-dance contest, and Finn was already on the stage waiting for me by the time I made it back.

Ashley emceed at the mic, explaining that this was the grand finale of the evening, a slow-dance contest that would be judged by a panel of experts.

Contestants would be evaluated on their moves, their musicality, and their ability to embody romantic essence.

“Teams,” Ashley said, gesturing at the stage like we were at the Indy 500. “Start your engines.”

“I don’t understand what we’re supposed to do,” Finn said as I stood in front of him.

I was looking around for Cooper and Bridesmaid Two. And—yep: Ashley was making them do this one together, too. “We’re supposed to slow dance,” I answered, like Weren’t you listening?

“But—that’s it?” Finn said. “We just sway like we’re in seventh grade?”

And then I got it. Finn wanted to win.

He wanted to win this like he wanted to win everything—but he wasn’t clear on how. Plus, he didn’t know it was rigged.

“She just gave us the criteria,” I said, trying to sound helpful. “Moves, musicality, and romantic essence.”

Finn put his arms around my waist—a little stiffly, if I’m honest—as he thought about it.

And then Ashley fired up the music—the Ed Sheeran classic “Thinking Out Loud.” And it was time to do this. I reached my arms up around Finn’s neck as we started to sway back and forth.

“How is this a contest?” Finn kept complaining. “There’s nothing to do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

But I’ll tell you something. It’s a good thing this contest was rigged—because as much as I knew I should look up into Finn’s face and gaze at him, just oozing romantic essence, instead, my gaze just kept wandering over to settle on Cooper and Bridesmaid Two.

God, she was just attached to him like Velcro.

Were they gazing into each other’s eyes?

As Finn and I rocked stiffly back and forth with plenty of air between our bodies, I felt overtaken by an appalling idea. Could Cooper have actually become interested in Bridesmaid Two?

Impossible.

But then, as I watched her tug his shoulders down a little closer to her mouth so she could whisper something in his ear, and as I watched the way his forearms were draped over her hips, it seemed … less impossible.

And I felt myself wanting to march right over and cut in. And then spend the rest of the dance trying to talk Cooper out of falling for Bridesmaid Two in exactly the same way he’d just tried to talk me out of falling for Finn.

I wouldn’t do it, of course. I’d stick to the plan. Like always.

I was just recommitting, in fact, to sticking to the plan when I felt something buzz under my forearm. And it turned out to be Finn’s cell phone—in his breast pocket.

“Sorry,” he said, fully stopping moving to reach in and pull it out.

I watched him read the screen.

“Do you need to check that right now?” I asked.

“It’s for work,” Finn said, continuing to check it.

“Could it wait five minutes?” I asked.

But Finn wasn’t listening. “I’m sorry,” he said next. “I have to take this.”

And then, with that, he walked off the stage with his phone and left me standing there.

Alone.

For a second, I stood frozen, like What just happened?

Then I turned to make eye contact with Ashley, like Did you see that?

But all she could do was stare back at me, baffled, with the same question.

Finn just left the dance floor?

He couldn’t do that, could he?

I mean, let’s just set aside for a minute the nonzero amount of humiliation you get from being abandoned in the middle of a slow dance …

The real problem was: Finn walking out meant that we couldn’t win.

Right? I mean, no matter how rigged a rigged contest might be, there was no winning a couples’ dance contest if there was no couple.

Which meant that someone else would be getting my kiss tonight.

And it also meant, I realized with horror, that the actual best slow dancers would win. And there could be no doubt about who the real winners would be.

Cooper and Bridesmaid Two.

As all those realizations came avalanching down into my head, I felt a funny panic. I actually didn’t know what to do. I found myself just standing there, alone, surrounded by swaying, happy, romance-tipsy couples.

The obvious next step was to follow Finn’s lead: pull out my own phone like I also had some critical business and stride off the stage, too.

But—like in a nightmare—I couldn’t seem to move. And then I understood with certainty that if something didn’t change somehow, I would—guaranteed—start to cry any minute.

I could feel the tears crawling up my throat.

What was Cooper’s formula for faking a faint again? Stop, drop, and roll?

I willed my legs to crumple beneath me.

But I couldn’t even make that happen.

And then, just as my eyes started to sting, someone grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close.

Cooper.

“I’ve got you,” he said into my ear. “Just reach up and hold on.”

So I did. And then I leaned my forehead against his chest. My throat had been feeling so thick, but somehow, at the rescue, it cleared. I took a deep breath and said, “What about Bridesmaid Two?”

I couldn’t stomach anyone getting left mid-dance at this point. Even her.

“She’s fine,” Cooper said. “Pete cut in.”

“Pete’s not allowed near the bridesmaids.”

“Emergency protocol.”

I didn’t have to feel bad for Bridesmaid Two, did I? She’d had Cooper to herself all night, after all. She could let someone else have a turn, right?

Cooper grasped one of my hands in his—and crooked the other around my waist. Then he clamped me tighter to him and spun us around a little.

I pulled back to smile up at him. “I was about to start bawling.”

“I could tell.”

“But you rescued me. Again. You keep doing that.”

“It’s always an honor.”

“Thank you, though,” I said. “Seriously.”

“You’re okay, JoJo,” Cooper said.

“Am I?”

“You really are.”

And then, as if to prove the point, he pushed me out for a spin and then pulled me back in. Which made me laugh a little.

“See?” Cooper said. “That didn’t hurt, did it?”

“Nothing hurts right now,” I said. And it was true.

I wasn’t alone on a stage. That was a win.

And my sunburn was better.

And I wasn’t—I suddenly noticed—miserable. For the first time all evening.

Was it my fault if he had a way of making everything seem like it would be okay?

As we danced, I couldn’t help but contrast everything Cooper was doing now with what Finn had done before.

Finn had held me at a distance, but Cooper nestled me close.

Finn had swayed stiffly, but Cooper pulled us into the waves of the music.

Finn seemed to be concentrating hard to hear the rhythm, but Cooper seemed to just feel it.

Finn wanted to win, but Cooper didn’t care about winning.

He just wanted to make me feel better.

As all the other couples swayed around us, Cooper pushed me out and pulled me back in. He spun me and dipped me. He dropped his head to whisper teasing things into my ear. And by the time the song started to wind down, I was having actual fun.

Of all things.

But then, as the music faded, Cooper said, “I still need to talk to you.”

“Sure,” I said. “Talk.”

“Not here. In private.”

“Okay.”

“Outside, okay? After this?”

“Sure.”

As the slow dancers all let go of each other and stepped back to clap, I looked around and realized that the other couples seemed to be clapping for Cooper and me.

Like we’d accidentally become the winners of this contest.

And I didn’t even have time to register that before Finn—suddenly done with his phone business—showed up between us and tapped Cooper’s shoulder, like he was cutting in, even though the song was over.

“I’ll take my partner back now,” Finn said.

Cooper just looked at me, like Are you gonna let that happen?

But that’s when Ashley fired up the mic and started thanking everybody for an epic night of fun and frivolity.

“I’m about to announce the winners of the slow-dance contest,” Ashley said, “and the rule is that they have to go find a lovely patch of moonlight somewhere and kiss each other. But let me just remind you that smooching is for everyone. You don’t have to win this dance to go find your own patch of moonlight. ”

It seemed pretty clear now that Cooper and I were going to be the winners.

We’d just received a standing ovation. Sort of.

Before I had time to think any of that through, though, Ashley announced the winners. And the names weren’t JoJo and Cooper. They were JoJo and Finn.

“Yes!” Finn shouted, throwing his arms up in a victory V—as if he’d gotten exactly what he deserved.

Cooper and I just frowned at each other, like What the hell?

But only for a second.

Because the next thing I knew, Finn had grabbed my hand and dragged me off the stage—presumably to kiss me. Again. For the second time in my life.