Chapter 17
The remaining days of the cruise passed in a blur, composed entirely of lovemaking in one of their two cabins, quick trips to meet up with Chloe and Desire in their large cabin, and frequent trips to the cafeteria to refuel.
It was at the end of one of these, both Trey and Jenn enjoying a heaping cone of the soft serve ice cream– Trey strawberry, Jenn chocolate– that they encountered Casey.
He drew up short when he saw them, his eyes wide, the tray of food in his hands largely forgotten. Trey reached out to hold up the side as it started to tip over.
“Easy there, sailor,” he said quietly.
“Uh… hey…,” Casey said quietly, his eyes fixed on Jenn. It was obvious to anyone who cared to notice the flicker of fabric between his legs what he was remembering. Jenn ignored it.
“Sit with us?” she asked, instead, turning and walking to an empty table with four chairs in a far corner without waiting for an answer.
Casey glanced at Trey, who smiled disarmingly and gestured for him to follow.
When they were all situated, Casey sat, wide-eyed and openmouthed, as Jenn voraciously licked the dripping sides of her ice cream. When she caught his eye, she glanced at the cone, then shook her head quickly. “Don’t worry,” she pointed at the cone. “This isn’t symbolic. It’s just really good ice cream.” She took another lick.
“‘Kay,” Casey said weakly. His eyes turned downward, staring down at his tray as he concentrated on adjusting everything on it to keep his mind otherwise engaged.
“I wanted to ask, since we never really got a chance to talk after… you know,” Jenn said, taking a long, definitely suggestive lick of her ice cream cone. “Everything… What’s so special about that bracelet?”
Casey took a deep shuddering breath. “My uncle–,”
Jenn interrupted him. “Yeah, we know about that. You told us already.” She glanced at Trey. “Me, at least. But nobody goes to the lengths that you did over nothing more than sentiment and a couple of rock-shop gemstones.” Jenn caught a drip with her finger and sucked it off loudly. Casey stared. Trey laughed and shook his head.
Casey hemmed and hawed for a moment, right up until Jenn said, “Look, I don’t like to throw around the ‘B’ word, but I’m not above blackmail right now, all right? You can either tell us, or we’ll go ahead and report what you did. I don’t think I’m asking for a lot here, do you?” She glanced at Trey, who shook his head with mock seriousness.
“God! Okay, fine.” Casey glanced around the cafeteria, then slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a wadded napkin.
Jenn frowned. “Is that from the banquet hall? Weird klepto fetish.”
Casey pushed back the folds of the napkin, revealing a yellowish stone, no larger than the tip of Jenn’s pinky.
“Is that…” Jenn’s eyes widened. “A diamond?”
Casey nodded. “It was in the bracelet.”
Trey scowled and spoke around the last bite of his ice cream cone. “No, it wasn’t. I looked over every inch of that bracelet, and there was no diamond. Not like that!”
Casey shook his head. “No. I mean it was in the bracelet! Literally inside!”
Both Jenn and Trey stared at him.
Casey rewrapped the diamond, slipping it back in his pocket. “Look, my great-great-uncle was approached by a guy, some actor-turned-jewel-thief named Jack Murphy, to hide the diamond. He said he’d stolen it, it was hot, he felt like he was gonna get caught, and he wanted it hidden.” Casey picked up his fork but didn’t even glance at his platter. “He did get caught, and he served time, but he never went back for the bracelet. My uncle held onto it. He was scared that Murphy would come after him if he sold it, so he just hung onto it until he died.”
“But why didn’t your family hang onto it, then?” Jenn whispered, leaning across the table, her eyes wide with interest.
“Because my uncle never told anybody about it. Not a word about it to anyone. When he died, the family sold off everything in his shop that they didn’t have any feelings about. Nobody knew anything about the bracelet, so it just got sold.”
“So, how did you come by the information?” Trey asked, equally intrigued.
“Years after his death, somebody was reading his journal, doing some work on family history or genealogy or something, and he talked about it there, along with a sketch of the bracelet.”
Trey and Jenn looked at one another. “So, your family has just spent the last sixty years looking for this bracelet?” Jenn asked quietly.
Trey nodded. “Sort of. A lot of them tried really hard to track it down at first, but nobody knew anything about it at that point. Over time, it mostly just became one of those family stories you know, ‘Oh, if only Uncle Herbie hadn’t lost the Eagle diamond, things would be so different!’” Casey laughed. “Most people moved on, got their own jobs, did their own thing. I–” He lowered his eyes, and his shoulders slumped. “I haven’t really had anything going for me up to this point.”
Jenn and Trey looked at each other.
“That’s… really something,” Jenn said quietly.
“So, are you gonna keep it?” Trey asked.
“Probably? I mean, I’ll try and sell it, probably. I’ve been wanting to try and start a business. I thought this might help.”
Jenn sat back and slurped a wide swath up the side of her neglected ice cream cone. “I think you deserve it. Maybe I’m crazy, but I still think that somewhere, under all those muscles and bad decisions, you still have the capacity to be a decent dude.”
Casey looked up, suddenly bashful. “Thanks,” he smiled.
“Don’t mention it,” Jenn said, and offered Trey a lick of her cone. “Help me finish this?” she asked.
Trey made an unreasonable amount of eye-contact with Jenn as he lowered his mouth to her cone and began to slurp loudly.
Jenn yanked it back. “Oh, good lord, stop that! Can’t anything ever just be what it is with you guys? Why does anything that goes into my mouth have to be sexual?” She stood to leave and looked down at Casey. “I mean it: use that to do something good. You don’t owe anyone else a damn thing from it. You did all the work; you should get all the reward.”
“Thanks,” he repeated.
Trey stood to leave, as well, putting a hand on Jenn’s ass. She hip-bumped him as she started walking. “See you around, Casey!”
When they were a few tables away, Trey said, “It’s pretty big of you to just forgive what he did. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been.”
Jenn shrugged. “Eh. Honestly, I was never really that scared. I was mad! At you, though.”
Trey scoffed. “Really? You were literally kidnapped, and you were still mad at me for something you only thought I did?”
“Yes!” Jenn responded quickly, smiling into her strawberry soft serve. “I had no idea you were planning…” She glanced at Trey, who raised his eyebrows and glanced at her, as well, waiting for what she would say. “What you were.” Jenn’s eyebrows knit together. “Hey, by the way, how on earth did you arrange the entire Moonlight Lounge to ourselves for our little ‘party?’”
Trey shrugged. “I paid off Ricardo.”
Jenn choked on a mouthful of ice cream. “You did?”
“Yeah.” Trey’s eyes were thoughtful now.
“For how much?”
He glanced at her again.
“How much, Trey?”
“Ten thousand dollars?”
Jenn stopped short, staring sightlessly down the hall.
“What?” Trey asked, turning to look at her. “You just closed the biggest merger of your career! Your bonus will be unreal!”
Jenn turned around and began walking back into the cafeteria.
“Where are you going?” Trey asked, his arms wide.
“To negotiate my half of that diamond,” Jenn called behind her.
Trey ran to catch up to her and caught her by the elbow, turning her around. “No, remember? You think he’s a nice kid who deserves the chance to make something of his life.”
“Yeah…” Jenn allowed herself to be redirected. “You really think I’m worth ten thousand dollars?”
Trey grinned. “And a fortune more, besides.” He steered Jenn toward the elevators to below decks, where they still had a few things left to pack before the ship docked and it was time for debarkation. “C’mon,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve still got some stuff scattered across the cabin that I need to gather up.”
They walked to the elevator and rode it to their deck.
Stepping out of the elevator, Jenn glanced at her phone, checking the time. “You know what I just remembered?”
“What?” Trey nodded to another couple walking the other direction.
“That incredible red sky last night at sunset.”
Trey nodded, humming his agreement. “Oh, yeah. That was pretty epic.”
“But you know what that means,” Jenn said, sliding her keycard across the reader one last time.
“Uh… no?” Trey frowned.
Jenn grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the cabin. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight!”