32. Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Riley
When Trick tells me he brought my beer, I sit up and look over at the cooler.
It’s not the one I use backstage, of course, because that always travels with me when we tour.
It doesn’t come on our vacations. It goes into storage on the tour bus with the rest of our equipment when we take a break.
That’s kind of how it goes when you don’t own any property.
This cooler is new. It’s much bigger than my backstage cooler, and when I open it, I find out it’s packed. Mostly my brand of beer, but I can see a few different caps that are clearly Kian’s weird beers.
“Why do we have a cooler full of beer on the jet?” I ask, starting to get suspicious.
Trick shrugs at me. After looking around for a second, he sits down under the shade of the tree.
“It’s in case of emergencies,” Kian answers as he sets down a second cooler, around the same size as the first one.
“Like the resort is gonna run out of beer?” I snort as I pick one up and twist the cap to open it.
Kian opens the second cooler, and I see it’s full of sandwiches.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t try to tell me you brought that in case of an emergency.”
“I brought these as a snack,” he says breezily. “I know some of you don’t care about what you put in your bodies, but I have a delicate palate.”
Trick rolls his eyes. “He’s been eating nothing but sandwiches from that chain for months now. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Huh. I guess I had noticed.
Still, it’s kind of weird that we conveniently have all this stuff.
“We should be rationing the food.”
Kian laughs. “They’ll only last a few days before they go bad. If we need to wait longer to get off this island, we’ll have to fish or forage for food.”
“Xane will fix the jet before that has to happen,” Trick adds.
“You think?” Kian asks, raising an eyebrow at him.
“He’d better,” Trick says. “I’m not dying out here.”
“Who’s dying where?”
It’s Sapphire’s bemused voice that asks the question.
I take a swig of beer, so I don’t have to look at her.
The fact that she’s the only woman on this island, and we don’t know how long we’ll be here doesn’t automatically make her my type. Even if it would with virtually any other woman we got stuck with.
This blonde is off limits. She’s too sweet. Too girl-next-door.
I’m not a heartbreaker, no matter what Kian and Trick like to think.
I only play around with the kind of women who seem to enjoy that kind of attention.
It’s always fleeting. There’s never a tomorrow.
This is a tomorrow kind of chick.
“I’ll go back and grab the sunscreen,” Kian says. “Trick is basically a vampire. If the sun hits his skin, he’ll burst into flames.”
He leaves as Xane arrives.
Our pack leader looks reluctant to be out here, walking slowly and sighing as he sits down, cross-legged, between the coolers, in the sand.
He grabs a beer and starts drinking.
Sapphire is still standing, her shadow looming over us.
The skirt of her dress might be kind of tight, but I doubt that’s the reason she’s not sitting down.
She takes her time stepping out of her heels.
I take another swig of my drink as Kian comes running back through the trees from the direction of the jet’s parking spot.
“Got it!” he calls out, throwing the bottle of sunscreen over Xane’s head to Trick.
Of course, Trick catches it with his chest, because he’s never ready for one of Kian’s out of the blue moves. A gasp bursts out of him as he picks the bottle up from his lap.
“Don’t throw shit like that!” I spit out, shaking my head at Ki.
He flashes an “oops” grimace at us.
Getting up, I pick up my towel and move it away from the coolers to shake the sand from it, one-handed, before I put it back down close to our still standing guest. She looks at me blankly as I gesture to the towel.
“You’re the one in a skirt,” I tell her, “You should have the towel.”
She seems kind of surprised, but she accepts the offer with a nod.
“Uh, thanks,” she says as she sits down primly, keeping her legs together. “You know, there’s room for at least one other person on here.”
And now she’s offering me the chance to sit down next to her.
I’d sooner drink one of Ki’s fruity-ass beers.
It’s just as well the kid doesn’t miss a beat.
“Finders keepers,” he blurts as he swoops into the space next to her.
Saves me the hassle of telling her no, so I’m not complaining.
She gives me an apologetic shrug, and I take another gulp of my beer.
“Okay, this one’s tuna salad. Who wants it?” Kian asks, after inspecting the first sandwich out of the suspiciously full food cooler.
What kind of guy takes sandwiches on vacation, anyway?
I guess the same kind of guy who drinks fruity beer.
Yeah, that tracks.
“I like tuna,” Sapphire says, after a couple of silent seconds.
Kian passes the wrapped lunch to her. “Then you’ll love this. It’s the best tuna I’ve ever tasted.”
They smile at each other in that sickeningly sweet way newly attached couples love to do.
Fuck me. Is this what I’m gonna have to see every day for the next four weeks?
If it is, I’m gonna need a much bigger cooler.
Full of spirits, ideally.
Beer ain’t gonna cut it.
“What would you like to drink?” Ki asks her.
“Uh, I usually drink water,” she starts. “But after how we got here, I think I could use a beer.”
His eyes light up, and I know he’s hoping she’ll be into that gross berry-flavored crap he likes.
“Fruity beer, or regular beer?”
“Um, regular. Thanks.”
He passes her one without a second of hesitation.
And now she’s drinking my beer.
This day can’t get any worse.