Chapter 6
Keston and I pull up to the jetty at the end of the race and discover we’re in last place.
“Last?” Keston asks incredulously.
The head of the event is a gorgeous woman. She’s clocking in the boats with a stopwatch.
Her beauty stuns me speechless. I thought women like her — tall, toned, honey-colored skin, honey-colored hair, green eyes, and two perfect dimples in her half-smile were only found in movies or magazine covers.
Not standing around in a white swimsuit, a floaty cape-like cover-up, and gold sandals emceeing a boat race on a tiny island.
“Who’s that?” I whisper to Keston.
He’s frowning at the goddess in white. “Tabitha, check again. You know we’re not in last place.”
She raises a perfect eyebrow at him. “You always came in first when I was your co-pilot.”
She turns and flounces off. Cape flying in a way I wish I could pull off.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Keston scrambles off the boat and ties up next to the jetty. He helps me out and then marches over to a man with a clipboard. “Hey, Oliver, has anyone else arrived yet?”
Oliver shakes his head. “You’re the first boat back, Kes. As usual.”
Keston turns a winning smile on me.
“We won, CJ,” he grins.
I want to smile back and wave my hands in a victory salute, but the woman, Tabitha, is glaring at me.
It makes sense that Keston has exes on the island, but he’s never talked about them. I’m not prepared for the darts of jealousy coursing from her eyes.
Keston gathers up our pirate booty from the boat and heads over to Oliver to check that we have everything on the list.
Oliver holds up the mermaid shell we retrieved from the bottom of Mermaid Pool.
“Yo, man, this is a perfect triton. You want to keep it?”
Keston glances at me.
I nod my head up and down. “Yes, please.”
I already know where I’m putting it in his house. Right on the kitchen counter to hold down the napkins that threaten to blow away every time a breeze sweeps through.
Before Oliver categorizes our bounty, other boats roar up to the dock.
Amidst a lot of laughing, teasing, and name-calling, they hurtle their booty off their boats and demand a recount.
“There’s no way that a Yankee beat us,” Starr chortles.
“See, you didn’t win,” says Tabitha, appearing by my side. She holds up a pristine, laminated paper.
“The Rules for this Pirate Regatta say that only residents can enter. It’s to keep out the foreigners who come down in their fancy, fast boats.”
To me, she says, “This is a local event. For St. Nicholas islanders. I’m afraid you’re disqualified.”
Keston walks over, bronzed skin still wet from our swim, dark tousled curls dropping water at my feet.
If “masculine” had a poster boy, he’d be it.
He peers at the “Rules.”
Tabitha hands it to me. She points a gleaming, pink-tipped nail at Rule #1.
“Where did this come from? I’ve never seen it before in my life.” Keston frowns at her.
“You did say there aren’t any Rules,” I chime in. Like I’m offering supporting testimony at a trial.
Tabitha narrows her eyes. “And you are?”
My heart beats weirdly out of sync—too fast for the problem at hand, which is to introduce myself.
“I’m . . . .”
Keston steps between me and Tabitha. “My future wife. Which makes her an islander, too.”
“Wait, what?”
But he doesn’t respond to me. Just takes the “Rules” out of my hand and passes it back to the vision in white.
His words “my future wife” resound inside me like a clanging bell.
The pack of soggy, drunken fishermen behind us burst into raucous applause.
“Ooooh, Loverboy is getting married,” says Starr.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” Captain Shaq agrees.
Another fisherman, called Beast, in a rasta-colored netted shirt revealing the same sleek muscles they all possess, apparently from hauling nets daily, dries his hands on his non-existent shirt and hands Keston a beer.
“Congratulations, pardner. Now we stand a chance with the other beauties.”
Keston accepts the beer with a grin. “Thanks, Beast. I’m sure there is a Beauty just for you.”
The air of good feelings is infectious. I find myself smiling at Beast and Starr, clicking my bottle of water with Shaq.
“I wanna sing at the wedding ceremony,” declares a shiny bald man with a grizzled grey beard, clutching a bottle of 150-proof rum. His nickname is Redfish.
They all go by nicknames. I don’t know any of their real names. And it appears Keston’s nickname is ‘Loverboy.’ How did I not realize that?
Redfish raises his rum bottle to use as a microphone. He sings at the top of his voice, “Now that we found love.”
The men join him, giving the oldie-but-goodie song a whole new vibe.
I never imagined it as my wedding song . . . or that my wedding song would be sung by a group of intoxicated fishermen.
Keston sips his beer, totally nonchalant about the fact that he’s just “proposed” publicly.
Tabitha fans herself with the Rules, her pretty face in a scowl.
My alert monitor is Orange. There’s some undercurrent going on that I don’t quite understand.
“Hey, Oliver,” Keston calls out. “Are we disqualified?”
Oliver scratches his thick grey hair. “It appears that you may be. Until you get married, that is.”
Fishermen start booing at Oliver.
My sense of injustice summons anger at Tabitha, who created the Rules solely to get back at Keston—for something.
That old bottle of rum is important to him. He worked hard to finish his boat on time. Today, he excelled at getting to each destination and retrieving each item before everyone else.
“I have a suggestion,” I speak up.
The fisherfolk dim down their exuberance a tad.
All eyes are on me.
“Yes?” Tabitha says with disdain. “What is it?”
“Can I see those Rules again?” I ask. Tabitha pauses before reluctantly handing me the list.
“Your rules say no foreigners with fast, fancy boats can enter. But I don’t have a fancy boat. Or any boat at all. So, I don’t count under Rule #1.”
I don’t mention that Keston has declared his boat “ours.”
Everyone goes, “Oooohhhh.”
I hold up a hand. “And . . . .”
The green of her eyes intensifies. Like a poisonous cloud descending on me.
“In the spirit of fairness, Keston and I will forfeit the prized rum if all the fishermen agree it is the right thing to do.”
“What?” Keston stutters.
I place a hand on his arm.
Tabitha’s eyes laser focus on my hand.
Meanwhile, the fishermen huddle together, talking over each other. Some curse. Some pull out cigarettes and light them. Puffing away in the thick of discussion.
After five minutes, Redfish says to Oliver, “Nah, man. Loverboy wins fair and square. He has the fastest boat. And his co-pilot ain’t bad.”
He winks at me.
“Thank you,” I mouth back.
“Give Keston the rum,” someone shouts. It’s followed by a chorus of voices repeating those words.
Keston grins and kisses my hand. “You’re a genius, CJ. How’d you know they’d say we won? After they’ve been trying to beat me for years.”
I point at the swaying hips of the fishermen dancing to the reggae blaring from speakers as the Pirate Regatta party gets underway.
Women in cute party clothes hand out plates of rice and beans and stewed chicken.
The delicious scents waft my way. My stomach rumbles in response.
“I may not know St. Nicholas islanders well,” I tell him. “But I recognize good guys when I see them.”
I don’t mention that I’ve been picking juries for years and that I’ve taken classes in reading people.
“Oh, yeah,” he plucks my chin. “It could have gone the other way. I didn’t take you for a gambling woman.”
“What the heck do you think this trip is about? I’m gambling my entire life on you. On us.”
He sobers up. “You are. Aren’t you.”
He wraps strong arms around my shoulders and hugs me close. “I love you, CJ. Thank you.”
I’m pressed too close to his lovely pecs to speak without suckling one of his naughty-looking nipples.
“I’d say today was a win-win,” he says. “Thanks to you.”
“Team effort,” I reply.