Chapter Twenty-Four Take It One Day at a Time
Chapter Twenty-Four
Take It One Day at a Time
Frankie
Talking with Hayes last night was a revelation.
He opened up in ways I hadn’t expected. Each new side of him surprised me and left me wanting more.
He’s slowly but surely growing on me—like an unwanted mole.
If I’m not careful, I can see myself developing a soft spot for him just like I have for Charles.
The following day, I finally catch up with Tessa via a much-needed FaceTime.
“Don’t make a big deal about it, but I just broke up with Big D,” she says when I answer.
“Okay . . . Do we need to talk about this?”
She shrugs and messes with her bangs. “Not really. I wasn’t feeling it, and there’s too many fish in the sea to stress about it. What’s new over there?”
I fill her in on the latest and greatest aboard the Elysium—basically that we’re cruising the French Riviera and it’s all very bougie.
“How’s the yachting life treating you? Not getting seasick or anything like that?”
Aside from that first day, when Hayes gave me medication and distracted me, I hadn’t experienced any more queasiness on board.
I learned later that that day was particularly windy and we left when we did to avoid an incoming storm, so it appeared it was a one-off situation related to the weather and not my body’s reaction to life on the water.
“It’s honestly been great. I’ve never slept better, I can tell you that.”
When I mentioned that to Charles yesterday, he pointed out that it was likely due to the lulling sound of the sea. The shh sound a mother makes to calm a baby is a universal sound across cultures—it was as though the ocean was shhing me to sleep every night. And I kind of liked that idea.
“What else is new? You’ve gotta give me something.”
I draw a breath, hesitating. “Okay so don’t hate me . . . but Hayes is growing on me.”
“Um, I’m going to need more information.” She sounds skeptical, and rightly so. I spent a lot of time complaining about him. A lot of time fixating on how awful he was.
When I didn’t know much about Hayes, but assumed I had him all figured out, I thought his life’s mission was burning through money, making my life a living hell, and worrying exclusively about himself.
(In that order.) Now that I’ve peeled back the onion, so to speak, I realize I may have been a little judgmental.
Now I see him as someone who cares deeply for others—even in his limited capacity.
He feels a lot for Charles and Maddie and especially his assistant, Greta.
He looks out for them, worries for them—possibly more than he does for himself.
The level of care he set up for Greta floored me.
Instead of looking at him and seeing only a perfectly manicured life, I’m starting to see the cracks and bruises too.
I picture him just yesterday . . . hunched over a tattered paperback at the breakfast table with his hair flopped over his forehead.
Something in me softened. Maybe it’s not him that’s changed .
. . maybe it’s me. I don’t know how to explain all of that to Tessa.
It’s been a slow, gradual process, like the changing of the seasons.
One thing has blended into another until it’s almost unrecognizably different.
“Okay, yeah, he’s grumpy and judgy and impossible—but he also listens. Not just nods-and-smiles fake listening. Like, actually remembers things I say. He smells stupidly good too. Like woodsy aftershave and mint. It’s honestly distracting.”
“You seem to be talking an awful lot about Hayes. How’s Charles, by the way?”
“Charles? Oh, Charles is great.”
I launch into a story about our latest obsession—RummiKub and how he beat me last night.
“What if I just slept with him?”
“Charles?!” she screeches. “He’s like ninety!”
“No!” I sputter, nearly choking. “Hayes!”
“Oh, I’m sure that will end well. You finally have a job you love, and you’re all going to be stuck together out at sea. Classic Frankie—might as well ruin it by sleeping with the boss’s jerk-nephew.”
I roll my eyes. She might be right, but I’m unable to completely abandon the idea. Maybe the salty ocean air has gotten to my head—messed with my brain somehow.
“Be sensible!” Tessa says, her tone sharp.
“Sensible who? Don’t know her.” I stick out my tongue and wave goodbye before pressing the button to end our call.
“What if we skipped our next port?” Charles says over breakfast the next morning.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugs. “It means, where’s your sense of adventure? Let’s stay out at sea, skip the whole stopping at every fancy port along with every other megayacht in the Med, and cruise around to Spain.”
“What would that entail?”
“A longer trip, I’d guess. We’d probably have to stop for provisions in Marseille.”
My brain jumps into overdrive. Before I can even process what this extended jaunt would mean for Hayes’s time on board, I’m busy thinking about Charles. Why the sudden change in plans? Is he doing okay?
I don’t love that he occasionally needs help getting up out of his chair and suddenly can’t seem to remember to take his pills without me reminding him.
But he seems happy and in good spirits, and he loves being on the water just as much as I do.
Life is good, at least for now, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to get complacent.
“When’s the last time you had a physical?” I ask him.
His mouth slips into a wry grin. “Why? Are you worried about me?”
“Maybe. We’ll be at sea for a couple of weeks. If something happened, we’d be far from a hospital. What if you just humor me by having a checkup before we go?”
“Whatever will make you happy.”
I arrange for a concierge doctor to visit the boat the next day when we stop in Marseille—just for my own peace of mind.
I knock softly on the door before pushing it open, then stepping into Charles’s cabin, where he sits on the edge of his bed, his posture rigid, his expression unreadable.
Dr. Fournier stands near the small desk, flipping through a leather-bound notebook, his brows drawn together in a way that makes my stomach tighten.
“Everything okay?” I ask, my voice careful, controlled.
Dr. Fournier looks up, offering a small, practiced smile. “Frankie. I was just going over Charles’s exam results.” He hesitates for a fraction of a second before continuing. “There are some concerns.”
Charles lets out an exaggerated sigh. “They always have concerns,” he mutters. “A doctor’s job is to be worried about things I have no time to worry about.”
Dr. Fournier doesn’t take the bait. He flips the notebook closed and tucks it under his arm. “His blood pressure is higher than I’d like. There are also some irregularities in his heart rate. Nothing immediately dangerous, but at his age, these are things we have to monitor closely.”
I swallow hard, shifting my gaze to Charles. He’s staring out the porthole, his jaw tight. I know him well enough to recognize the frustration in his silence. He hates this—hates being reminded that he’s anything other than invincible.
“What can we do?” I ask.
“I’d like to run further tests,” Dr. Fournier says, his voice calm but firm. “I can arrange for them at our next port. But beyond that, he needs rest. Less stress, better hydration. And, if I had my way, less red meat.”
Charles snorts. “Now that’s asking a lot.”
I shoot him a look, but he ignores it, still fixated on the ocean beyond the window. The light reflects in his silver hair, making him look older than I want to admit.
“Charles,” I say softly. “We need to take this seriously.”
His shoulders lift in a shrug, but the movement is slow, heavier than usual. “I hear you.”
Dr. Fournier exhales, sensing that the pushback isn’t worth more arguing. “Check in with me anytime.”
Charles waves him off with a flick of his fingers, and Dr. Fournier gives me a look on his way out, one that silently passes the responsibility over to me.
When the door clicks shut, I cross my arms. “Are you going to listen to him?”
Charles finally looks at me, his lips twitching into something that isn’t quite a smile. “I’m eighty-two years old, kid. I listen when it matters.”
I hold his gaze. “This matters.”
A beat passes, and then he sighs, running a hand through his thinning hair. “I know.”
It wasn’t a promise. But it was something.
After dinner, I find Charles on the aft deck, a tumbler of whiskey in hand, watching the sun dip toward the horizon.
He looks small against the vast stretch of ocean, though I know better than to say that out loud.
In my mind, he’s grown to this larger-than-life character, someone steady—as dependable as a Swiss timepiece.
Someone fatherly, brilliant, and almost all-knowing.
But as I look at him now, the silhouette of his shoulders against the inky sky, he looks far less imposing than I’ve built him up in my mind.
Almost slender. Frail. A nervous lurch rises in me.
I clear my throat. “Mind some company?”
He glances over, one brow lifting. “If it’s not to scold me about the drink, then sure.”
Smiling, I lower myself into the chair beside him, the wood warm from the day’s heat. The view is spectacular, but I can’t even appreciate it.
Steeling my nerves, I ask the question that’s been rambling around in my brain all afternoon—probably with far less tact than I should. “Are you dying?”
He sighs and sets the tumbler down on the railing. “We’re all dying, Frankie.”
It feels like maybe we should have had this conversation before now.
Like back when I was interviewing for the job.
But the me back in that coffee shop didn’t know what she didn’t know and was mostly curious—I’d never even heard of a travel companion.
And I was enamored with the idea of running away from my problems, if I’m being totally honest.
“Charles?” I manage, my voice soft.
“Just like any of us, I have no idea how much time I have left, and neither does that doctor.”
I frown, watching the way his fingers tremble slightly around the glass. “Is this some bucket list thing for you? This trip? One last hurrah . . .”
He doesn’t answer me, not with words anyway. He takes another sip of his drink and stares blankly out at the choppy water as it swirls and crests. The unease in my chest grows.