Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
For the next hour, Tzipi had no need to consult the map on the bottom of her shoe.
Or think about Hannon Kershaw. Max escorted her from one activity to another, from level to level and deck to deck.
Some, like karaoke and the charity auction, were so mobbed, they steered clear.
The tournaments looked intense; the dreidel tables were fast-paced and as energetic as any craps game in Vegas.
And Mahjong? That ancient game was intimidating to Tzipi on a normal day, but the way the well-dressed women were clicking and clacking the tiles tonight looked positively cutthroat.
A pretty brunette, weaving between the tables and overseeing the games, smiled and gave them a friendly wave.
Inviting them to sit and take part with an eager swish of her hands, like they were old friends.
Tzipi gave a subtle not-on-your-life shake of her hair that she hoped Max picked up on when he turned to her. He looked relieved.
“She probably wants to thank you for the shout-out you gave her last year on your socials,” he murmured in her ear above the din of the players shrieking Pung! and Chow! “Mahjong Muse, remember?”
Now that he said it, Tzipi did remember seeing a pretty tile set on her sister’s Instagram feed last Hanukkah. “I do!” She hastily blew a kiss and waved in thanks as they continued their circuit around the boat.
Whatever his rate was, Max had earned a bonus in her mind for filling in the gaps.
“People must try to give you things all the time,” he observed. “Do you have, like, a room in your house full of these random things? I’d be the ultimate re-gifter if I did. Forget a friend’s birthday? No worries, here’s a blender!”
Tzipi laughed. “Yeah, Rosie used to get a lot of fan mail and sometimes presents. Stuffed animals, mixed CDs. Most things never made it home from the studio. Unless it passed Mom’s inspection.”
“Oh man, I’m picturing your mom ripping off some poor teddy bear’s head to make sure there wasn’t a nanny-cam inside.”
Tzipi shivered at the thought. “Yeah, some were a bit questionable and borderline creepy. Like the homemade calendar some guy made with stills from the show, captioned with made-up facts like ‘Rosie eats pancakes every Tuesday’ – that must’ve come from some deep headspace canon.”
“Totally. Everyone knows Tuesday was onions, lox and eggs day.”
She gave his arm a little punch. The solid meat of his bicep under that suit jacket reminded her of their dynamic: he was muscle for hire, she was his Client with a capital “c” – the high value asset and nothing more.
You can’t fall for this guy while you are not even supposed to be you, Tzipi’s brain chastised.
But it felt so easy to be around him, talking about…well, just about anything under the moon. And that was the most dangerous part: how natural it felt to slip from borrowed memories into her own – those old Rosie days recalled with fondness. Her real self, hidden in plain sight.
“Kara! Kara! Kara!”
There was a commotion coming from one of the dreidel tables, guys and girls in glitzy attire chanting and fist-pumping to get her attention. One reveler broke from the pack and jogged up to them, his hands clasped.
Jonah couldn’t help it. His shift in gait, from strolling to sentry, was immediate and baked into him from years of rolling with Avi. Stance squared, weight balanced. Just in case.
Turned out they had nothing to worry about; the guy quickly revealed what was in his hands: a small, metal dreidel.
“I’ve won three young champion dreidel competitions with this,” he stuttered, by way of explanation. “Can you help me win a fourth?”
Did he want Kara to bless it? Blow on it like lucky dice? Kiss it?
“Spin it! Spin it! Spin it!” The friends all cheered.
Kara looked up at Jonah for guidance. He lifted a shoulder. “No pressure,” he joked.
“You won’t be disqualified, right?”
“Nope,” the kid assured her, dropping the weighty dreidel in her palm. “We’re still in the practice round.”
She slipped off his jacket without ceremony – just a quick shimmy of her shoulders – handing it back to him so the sleeves wouldn’t get in the way. Then approached the table and leaned over the smooth glass.
“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” she warned the group, but they all seemed too star-struck to even care.
“No one’s watching,” Jonah murmured in assurance.
It was true, they were all filming.
Kara’s lips twitched, perhaps sending a silent prayer up before giving it her best twirl, putting an extra flick of her left wrist in as she hovered over the sleek table.
The thing was no toy; it hopped, spun counter-clockwise and stayed up for an respectable amount of time for someone who hadn’t spun one since childhood.
It didn’t matter how it landed, the whole table went bananas.
And that twitch of hers had turned into an uncontrollable grin – not trained, not photogenic, just full wattage and unapologetic. All for her, like she knew she had fucking earned it. For just a second, before she reeled it back in.
She turned to him, eyes wide. “Max.”
Max.
She was still calling him Max. And now he was certain it wasn’t in service of his stupid James Bond bit an hour ago. That unsettled inkling from the bar resurfaced.
She hadn’t, he realized, called him Jonah, even once tonight.
Maybe it had been silly to think a celebrity as big as Kara Koff would remember his actual name from last year’s drunken disaster on the deck.
Do I correct her now? After hours together? It felt as awkward as fuck, like joining the improv circle a beat too late.
“Can we…not be here?”
He looked in the direction she was staring, and realized he had bigger problems.
Leah was rushing toward the rowdy table – and them. Leah, of all people.
Out of all his friends’ significant others on the boat, he knew her the least. But she had the potential to embarrass him the most.
Not only had Avi’s girlfriend been on deck with him when he faceplanted last year, she was also somehow connected to the grandmother of Kara’s date that night. It felt like a small world collision course that none of them needed to re-hash.
Compounded by Rob whatshisface – not a Celebrity Crush Island contestant, according to Kara.
But a contender for her attention all the same.
For the second time tonight. He was closing in, too.
The short king was doing a meerkat-on-tiptoes scan of the crowd, craning his neck to see if and where he could insert himself into the fun.
Maybe the guy just wanted to bet it all on hay – he seemed like a half-pot full kind of guy.
Oh, and there was Kershaw. Drinking a beer by the high stakes spinagogue and leaning to leer at Leah’s ass as she hustled by in her long dress.
It was a trifecta of fuckery.
Jonah angled subtly closer to Kara, not touching her, not crowding her. Just enough to align himself between her and her former and current co-stars’ lines of sight.
But Leah was moving toward them, gathering speed.
And Kara was looking up at him.
Not for comfort, not for advice. For direction. For safety.
Because that’s what she thought he was here to provide.
Her bodyguard.
He didn’t have time to unpack it, he just needed to act. “Let’s move,” he breathed, as she leaned into the hand he slid, gentle, decisive, to the small of her back. “This way. Now.”
She didn’t argue.
Good.
He guided her through the throng, around the corner, straight into the photo booth alcove. It was crowded, couples spilling out of booths with glossy strips of pictures, or rummaging through the prop tables.
And it was Nora’s domain, apparently.
Jay or Rebecca tapping her to oversee the props so nothing walked away, and to put a kibosh on any sexy times in the booths, made perfect sense. Nora was, after all, in the costume biz, with Broadway being her bread and butter.
“Jah –” she started, but as soon as he grabbed her arm, her greeting turned into “Jesus Christ, dude!”
“We need to cut the line,” he pleaded with his Year Course friend. The one he’d bonded the most with, out of all the girls on their trip. Her calculated glance at the actress by his side, and shrewd gaze across the room from whence they came told her everything she needed to know.
“Grab some of those,” she directed, pointing at a pile of feathers and sequins. “The booth in the corner is coming up free next.”
Kara was a good getaway accomplice. She had already swung a complicated cape around her shoulders and was elbow-deep in the props. Nora swooped in to help her fasten a mask haloed with stars, obscuring her famous face.
“Damn, you’re good at this subterfuge thing.”
He heard Kara mock-gasp beneath it. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve just always wanted to use it in a sentence.”
She beckoned. “Kneel down.”
He obeyed, and she gently removed his glasses so she could press a half-mask to his face. He felt the warmth of her hand, and when her fingers brushed his curls to get the elastic band in place, heat seared straight through him.
Through the slits of the cheap mask and in the glow of ring lights, everything blurred into glitter. “Perfect,” Kara whispered.
They were anonymous.
Or as anonymous as one could be on a cruise to nowhere with two hundred other members of the tribe.
They ducked through a cluster of revelers and into their booth, shrouded on one side by tinsel curtain. Its inside was mercifully dim, a velvet bench barely wide enough for two. Kara yanked the curtain closed behind them.
The tiny booth hummed around them, warm and close. He heard Leah say a breathless hello to Nora.
“Seriously, who is that Mahjong lady and why is she following us?” Kara stage-whispered.
“She also might think you’re her BFF after you danced at her Bat Mitzvah party last year,” he whispered back. “Long story. You probably wouldn’t remember.”
They were so close, their mask noses almost touching.