Chapter 1 #3
Jalen starts chanting.
Leo sighs. “Don't encourage him.”
Naturally, Jalen gets louder.
“DREW. DREW. DREW.”
The women join in.
Vale closes his eyes.
“I hate every person on this boat.”
Drew throws the empty bottles toward a deck chair.
“Someone hold my dignity.”
“You didn't bring any,” I tell him.
He points at me.
“That was hurtful.”
Then drops his swim shorts.
Vale sits straight up on the pool noodle.
“Oh, come on.”
Haverhill starts laughing.
Leo turns his back.
One of the models whistles.
I look toward the stars because friendship has limits.
“Travers,” Vale says with the exhausted patience of a man who has apparently endured this before, “I have seen your bare ass more times than Stella's, and I am married to Stella.”
Drew spreads both arms.
“That sounds like a marital issue.”
Then he cannonballs naked into the Mediterranean.
The splash hits Tristan directly in the face.
Vale barely reacts.
His Scotch, however, tilts dangerously inside the drink caddy.
Every survival instinct he possesses activates at once.
He grabs the glass.
“Watch the Scotch!”
Drew surfaces laughing.
“Priorities, Prince.”
“This comes from a bottle is older than your gran daddy’s daddy.”
“So is Blackwell's personality.”
I raise my glass.
“Still heard you.”
Before Drew can answer, Jalen disappears.
I don't even see him go in.
One second he's beside Leo. The next he's chest-deep in the Mediterranean with a brunette wrapped around his shoulders while a blonde tries to steal the cigar he somehow brought into the water.
Drew points at him.
“Finally. A single man behaving responsibly.”
Jalen tongue kisses the brunette.
Vale lifts his rescued Scotch from the safety of his pool noodle.
“I don't think that word means what you think it means.”
“He's a pro baller and unmarried,” Drew drawls. “Tonight, that is responsible.”
Jalen stops sucking face just long enough to point at him.
“Exactly.”
Then the blonde grabs him and drags him beneath the water.
The rest of the women start jumping in.
One.
Two.
Three.
Within thirty seconds, the Mediterranean looks like somebody staged a luxury-fragrance commercial after giving the entire cast access to an open bar.
Vale remains exactly where he is.
Floating.
Scotch beside him.
He looks like a very wealthy shipwreck survivor.
Leo leans over the rail. “You getting in?”
Vale stares up at him.
“I'm already in.”
“You're floating.”
“Different activity.”
One of the women swims over.
“Come dance with us.”
Tristan looks around.
“In the water?”
“Yes.”
She splashes him.
He stares at her.
She splashes him again.
Vale turns his head toward me.
“If I drown her, does that create paperwork?”
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
“International.”
He sighs.
“Fine.”
Haverhill is still standing beside me, beer in hand, watching the disaster unfold.
His best man is swimming naked around a seventy-two-foot yacht.
His best friend is floating with Scotch.
Jalen appears to be kissing one model while negotiating with another.
Leo is currently explaining to a woman that he will not remove his wedding ring before swimming because Jade would somehow know.
Kane looks at me.
“Options?”
“You have two.”
“Let's hear them.”
“You join the mermaids.”
Three women are laughing in the water while Drew attempts a synchronized-swimming move nobody requested.
“Or?”
“You stay here with me and reconsider every friendship that brought you to this moment.”
Haverhill studies the scene.
“Bookworm would've chosen option two.”
“Bookworm wouldn't have boarded the boat.”
“True.”
He drinks.
One of the models calls his name.
Kane looks at me.
I look back.
“Don't.”
“I wasn't going to.”
“You thought about it.”
“I thought about swimming.”
“Same ocean.”
His face splits into a grin.
“Blackwell, you're like a human prenup.”
“Someone has to be.”
I check my watch.
No unusual digital traffic.
No unauthorized signals.
No drones.
No nearby vessels behaving suspiciously.
Vale picked Europe because he wanted privacy.
I provided it.
Everyone surrendered phones before we left the marina.
The models weren't thrilled.
Drew nearly staged a constitutional crisis.
Nobody won.
There will be no photographs of Kane Haverhill's bachelor party unless I permit them.
I won't.
No hashtags. No grainy videos. No leaked footage of an NBA star partying off the French coast weeks before his wedding.
More importantly, no digital evidence of Drew Travers's naked cannonball.
Humanity has suffered enough.
Haverhill sets down his beer.
“Fuck it.”
He dives in wearing his swim trunks.
The women cheer.
I remain where I am.
Watching.
As usual.
We send the women back around three-thirty.
Politely.
Mostly.
Vale's assistant arranged gift bags because apparently bachelor parties now require parting favors.
No phones are returned until they're safely onshore.
No one leaves with photographs.
No video.
No proof.
Exactly how I like it.
Jalen climbs aboard last.
His hair is soaked. There's lipstick along the side of his neck, and he's missing one flip-flop.
Haverhill looks at him.
“Good night?”
Jalen wraps a towel around his waist.
“France is incredible.”
Vale doesn't look up from his Scotch.
“You spent forty minutes in the ocean.”
“Best forty minutes of my life.”
Leo points toward Jalen's neck.
“You missed some.”
Jalen wipes the wrong side.
“Other side.”
He switches.
Still misses.
Drew puts the captain's hat on Jalen's head.
“There. Respectable.”
“Thank you.”
“You look like a gigolo who stole a boat.”
“Also acceptable.”
We take the boat farther offshore and anchor again.
The Mediterranean settles around us.
No music now. Just water against the hull, cigar smoke drifting through warm night air, and six men who have consumed enough alcohol to lower the average intelligence of several elite universities.
Drew has his swim shorts back on.
Vale insisted.
He's stretched across a lounge chair smoking a cigar, wet hair shoved away from his face.
Jalen is across from him wearing his towel, one flip-flop, and the captain's hat.
Leo has his feet on the table.
Haverhill is eating bread directly from a basket because apparently dinner wasn't sufficient.
Vale is still nursing the same Scotch.
I don't know how.
That drink survived more adversity tonight than some marriages.
I sit at the end of the curved bench, cigar between two fingers, fresh Scotch in the other.
For several minutes, nobody says much.
It's the kind of silence that only happens between men who have known one another long enough not to fill every space with noise.
Then Drew looks at me.
Really looks.
Never promising.
“Question.”
“No.”
“You don't know what it is.”
“I know you.”
“That hurts.”
“Ask.”
He takes a pull from his cigar.
“Are you gay?”
Silence.
Haverhill stops chewing.
Leo closes his eyes.
Vale looks toward the sky.
Jalen lowers his drink.
I stare at Drew.
He shrugs.
“What? Everybody's wondered.”
“Everybody has not wondered,” Leo says.
Jalen raises one finger.
“I have.”
“Thank you,” Drew says.
Vale points his Scotch at me.
“I never cared enough to wonder.”
“That's friendship.”
Haverhill swallows.
“I'm curious now.”
I consider all five of them.
Apparently this is happening.
“No.”
Drew leans forward.
“No what?”
“I'm not gay.”
He nods slowly.
“Okay.”
Then waits.
I wait back.
“And?”
“And what?”
“You never date.”
“I date.”
“No. You occasionally arrive somewhere with a woman who looks like she was generated by an algorithm, then three hours later she's gone.”
“Efficient.”
Jalen laughs.
Drew squints at me.
“So you're straight?”
“Yes.”
“But don’t date?”
“Also yes.”
Vale smirks, “He's discreet.”
I point my cigar toward him.
“Thank you.”
“Not a compliment.”
“Still accurate.”
Drew leans back. “Fine. I just wanted to know.”
“You could've asked years ago.”
“I didn't care years ago.”
“You care now?”
“We're all committed.”
Leo glances at his ring.
“Deeply.”
“Exactly.” Drew waves his cigar. “Vale's married. I'm married. Leo's married. Haverhill's about to become a Mrs.”
Kane throws a piece of bread at him.
Jalen points toward me.
“And Xavier is still sneaking around Europe like a Bond villain.”
“It's peaceful.”
“It's suspicious,” Drew says.
Vale studies me over his glass.
“He's selective.”
“Ultra-selective,” I say.
Jalen grins.
“My cousin would select herself.”
I look at him.
“Which cousin?”
“The brunette from Vale's wedding. Green dress. From Vail the ski town—not Vale is in Tristan. You talked to her for twenty minutes.”
“There were hundreds of people at Vale's wedding.”
“She remembers you.”
“Congratulations to her.”
“She asked about you.”
Drew leans forward.
“There. Solved. Call her.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want to.”
“That simple?”
“Yes.”
Jalen looks offended.
“She is absurdly hot.”
“I'm sure.”
“Funny too and she skis double black diamonds.”
“Excellent.”
“She has her own money.”
“I didn't ask for a prospectus.”
Haverhill laughs into his drink.
Drew shakes his head.
“What exactly do you need? Royal blood? Nobel Prize? Three heads?”
“Conversation.”
That quiets him.
Briefly.
Leo nods.
“I get that.”
Drew looks at him.
“No, you don't. Jade could tell you grass is orange and you'd agree.”
Leo smiles lazily.
“Probably.”
The mood shifts.
Barely.
Enough.
Married men have a different expression when their wives are mentioned.
Annoying.
I drink.
Vale notices.
Naturally.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn't nothing.”
I consider lying.
Maybe it's the Scotch.
Maybe the Mediterranean.
Maybe watching people I've known since we were arrogant boys become husbands and fiancés has done something to my judgment.
“There might be someone.”
Five men move at once.
Drew nearly drops his cigar.
Kane stops eating.
Jalen sits forward so fast his towel almost opens.
Vale actually sets down his Scotch.
Leo just smiles.
That is somehow worse.
Drew puts his hand over his heart.
“Say that again.”
“No.”
“You said there's a woman.”
“I said there might be someone.”
“That is a woman.”
Jalen says, “Could be a man.”
I look at him.
“Still not gay.”
“Just confirming.”
Vale gestures with his glass.
“Who?”
I take my time.
Mostly because I already regret speaking.
“Her name is Vesper.”
Drew exhales.