Chapter 2 Welcome Aboard
CHAPTER TWO
Welcome Aboard
HENRY
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
I grunted at Atlas, not glancing up from my computer screen.
We’d just rolled out an update to the app when I noticed a problem: the membership algorithms were glitching, giving free-trial users access to member-only content.
Not ideal, and definitely not what we wanted.
“I told Beau to iron that out before we went live! We had a thirty-minute discussion about what was required. He assured me it was done!”
I blew out a breath. There was no point getting worked up about junior coders who couldn’t follow simple instructions.
Sometimes it was just easier to do it yourself than try to have the conversation to explain to someone else where they went wrong. If I could visualise the solution, and it was within my power to action it, that was the best course to take.
I set to modify the lines of code that were awry, fingers flying over the keyboard.
“Are you even listening?” Atlas demanded right next to my ear. I jumped. I’d forgotten he was there.
“I wasn’t aware that your cursing meant there was something to listen to.” I finished the line and set the revised code to be pushed out as an immediate auto-update to all devices. “And I just fixed an error in two minutes that could’ve cost us millions.”
“Are you done now?” Atlas shoved his phone into my face. “Because you need to see this clusterfuck of an announcement!”
Taking the phone from him, I scanned the TechRaker article announcing our new silent partner. When I reached the end, I scrolled back to the start, adjusting my glasses and squinting at the text in confusion. “I’m not seeing an issue with this. It’s all factually correct.”
Atlas huffed, raking a hand through his wavy faux-hawk and snatching his phone back from me. “They called me Paul fucking Prideaux the Third!”
“Well, they left out the fucking part … is that the problem?” I joked. “Not enough fucking for you?”
“I told them to write me up as Atlas Prideaux! They’ve made me sound like an absolute twatwaffle!”
“Paul Prideaux the Third is your name, though,” I reminded him. “They likely took the details straight off the media release, which would have taken your legal name from the contract.”
“That’s it!” Atlas exploded, shoving his phone into his pocket and turning to pace the floor of my office. “I’m changing my name by deed poll! I know someone in the Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages who can fast-track it for me. I don’t want to live under his shadow a second longer!”
“The shadow of the father who let you drain your trust fund so we could take a gamble on Tickle … that shadow?” I wasn’t entirely sure if Atlas realised how preposterous he sounded when he complained about his father.
“That’s exactly it, though, isn’t it?” Atlas groaned, falling onto the lounge that overlooked my floor-to-ceiling view of Barangaroo.
“What I’ve done with that pissy amount of money was exponentially grow it by investing in Tickle.
I’ve built my own fucking fortune! But all anyone wants to talk about is how it all leads back to Paul Prideaux the Second, mining magnate and general arsehole. ”
I pressed my lips tight together—the urge to keep arguing with him on this was strong.
I had learned the hard way, many times over, that arguing with Atlas when it came to his father was a recipe for disaster.
And a disaster was the last thing I needed today, having just dodged one with the glitching code.
But if I explain to him, just once more, that no one is comparing him to his father, it might get through to him …
A knock on the door saved me from myself. Atlas stood as Liv, my assistant, walked in, my cousin Lucian on her heels. He glowered at Atlas before heading for the window to peer down at Darling Harbour.
“Morning, Liv!” Atlas said. How he managed to make his voice sound so chipper when a second ago he’d been an angry, resentful mess, I had no idea.
Liv nodded politely in his direction before turning to me. “You asked me to let you know when your delivery was being made?”
My lips curled into a grin. “It’s happening now?”
Lucian glanced over at me, pointing out the window. “Right now, Bax.”
Giddy as a child on Christmas morning, I bounced out of my chair and over to the window, scanning the water of Cockle Bay.
“What’s happening?” Atlas asked, standing beside me.
I pointed down at the black and silver yacht sailing majestically into the bay. “That’s happening.”
“No fucking way … you bought a fucking yacht?” Atlas shoved me.
“I did,” I replied. “Atlas, meet my new home.”
He eyed me until I shuffled under the scrutiny, gaze flicking away from his. That was too much intense eye contact for me. I wondered if he was happy for me, or was it something else entirely? It was sometimes hard to tell with Atlas.
It was sometimes hard to tell with most people.
“Holy shit. Well, we need to have a yacht party!” His phone was in his hand in a flash, and I lost my moment to try and decipher his reaction.
“What are you doing?” I asked warily.
“I’m checking the calendar. I fly to California tomorrow, and I’ll be gone for a fortnight, but after that … yep! We’re christening the yacht!”
“I don’t—”
“It’s happening. I’ll organise everything, I promise!” Atlas nudged Liv with his elbow. “Liv’ll help me, won’t you, cupcake?”
Lucian stiffened beside me, turning away from the window to find Liv. I followed his gaze. Liv smiled and nodded at Atlas. “If Henry is okay with that?” She looked my way.
With a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, I shrugged. “I suppose seagoing vessels do need a christening.”
Atlas hooted. “Yes! It’s happening! I’ll email you from Cali, Liv, and we’ll make it the hottest party Sydney has ever seen.” He tilted his phone in my direction. “I gotta dip. I’ll see you in a fortnight, ready for a rager!”
With that, he tucked his phone away, ran a hand through his horrific hairstyle and sauntered out of my office.
I let out a long breath. “Liv, you should go. It’s Saturday, and the update is finalised now. Go enjoy your weekend.”
Liv shrugged. “I don’t mind being here.” Her eyes flitted away from me then back again. “Uh, there were a couple of calls, while you were finalising the update. Cadence wants to know if you have time for a meeting next week?”
Lucian made a disgruntled sound behind me, which I ignored. “I suppose she wants to discuss advertising again?”
Liv shrugged. “She didn’t mention that. Just said she wanted to catch up with an old friend.”
“Old friend …” Lucian snarled under his breath.
I sighed. “I’ll deal with that next week. Was that all?”
Liv gnawed on her lip. “Your … uh … your dad called too. I told him you were out of the country, like you said to.”
I nodded. “Good. And I’ll continue to be out of the country whenever he calls.”
“Of course, Henry.” Liv turned for the door. “Did you, um, want me to order lunch in for you both, before I go?” She directed the question to Lucian, who gave an odd half-shrug.
“I think I’ll go eat with Henry,” he mumbled.
Liv hovered in the doorway for a moment too long before she trotted off, and Lucian turned back to watch the yacht being berthed. “We should probably get down there to take possession of your new home.”
Shaking off the lingering tension in the atmosphere, I headed to my desk, took two pieces of gum from the pack I kept in my drawer and tossed them into my mouth.
I took a quick glance at my screen, checking that the glitch-remedying update had been pushed to all devices. It was showing ninety-eight percent. I tapped the desk, chewing vigorously on the gum until that bar hit one hundred.
“Alright, let’s go,” I told Lucian, locking my computer before grabbing my satchel and heading towards the lifts.
Beau was there, scrolling mindlessly. I knew I should speak to him about the error in his code, but my head was filled with having to move my belongings into my new home and the fact that said home was going to be invaded by whoever Atlas decided to invite to this yacht christening party he’d foisted on me.
I was out of energy for dealing with another confrontation, so when the lift pinged and Beau stepped inside, I loitered behind.
“We’ll get the next one,” I murmured when Lucian went to follow the coder in. He grunted but stepped back to his spot slightly behind me.
“You know you don’t have to give in to every single one of Atlas’s dumbarse demands, right?” Lucian asked as I pressed the down button once Beau was well and truly gone.
“It won’t be that bad.”
Lucian snorted. “You’ve never been good at masking your facial expressions, Bax. And when he said, ‘yacht party’, you looked like he’d told you that you were going to be hosting a Satanic cat-killing ritual.”
I turned my horrified expression towards him. His mouth curled up at one corner, and he pointed at me. “Yes! That’s the one!”
“He’s not one to back down when he gets an idea in his head,” I muttered as the lift arrived, and we stepped inside. “Sometimes it’s less stressful to endure his plans than to try and stop him from making them.”
“You let him walk all over you,” Lucian muttered. “You have done since uni. And Tickle? You could easily have done it all without him.”
“I really couldn’t have,” I argued. Atlas and I had met during an Introduction to Programming lecture. The subject was basic—I breezed through the course material, while Atlas struggled.
So, I helped him, and we’d become friendly. In the end, he had been the only friend I’d made at university. And we’d stayed friends, even after he’d transferred out of Computer Science into a marketing degree, which was much better suited to his personality and capabilities.
Stoned and inspired one night, I started waxing lyrical about this weird idea for an adult content social media app. People would subscribe to the app, not the creators, and the creators were rewarded based on views and followers. Atlas had jumped on it.
“If you can pull off the code for this, I can absolutely market the shit out of it!” he’d cackled. “This is gonna make us fucking billionaires, Chewy!”
He hadn’t been wrong.
“If it wasn’t for Atlas’s trust fund, Tickle would still be an itch in my brain,” I reminded Lucian. “And that yacht we’re about to move into wouldn’t exist without Atlas having the people skills to get an investor on board.”
My cousin grunted. He thought I was an idiot. Thankfully the lift doors opened at the ground floor, and we could move again, so silence felt less like a void I needed to fill.
I swapped my glasses for sunglasses as we stepped into the thick February humidity.
My shirt clung to my skin within seconds.
The air was still and sticky, made worse by the crowd surging from Barangaroo to Darling Harbour.
Normally I’d be on edge from the heat and damp fabric, but my excitement was growing with every step towards her, and that dulled the discomfort.
When she came into view, I stopped breathing for a moment.
“She’s beautiful,” I murmured to Lucian, stopping among the tourists to admire what I’d just dropped a stupid amount of money on.
The February sun glinted off her silver hull and gleaming windows.
I adjusted my sunglasses, squinting in the glare.
“You know, you could have gotten the same sensation from a waterbed,” Lucian remarked dryly.
“This way, I avoid the back problems … and gain the added bonus of being able to take my home with me if I need to move.”
“Bit of a change from what you’re used to, eh, Bax?” Lucian nudged me.
“Yeah. This one’s all ours.” I let out a sigh of satisfaction. Finally, after years of doing the rental shuffle with my father, I had somewhere that satisfied my intense need for stability.
“How do you think the cats are going to cope with sea life?” Lucian asked as we approached the gangplank and greeted the crew I’d hired to man my new home. Captain Gillies smiled, extending her hand for me to shake as I walked the plank and stepped onto the deck for the first time as the owner.
“They’ll love it.” I was reassuring myself as much as I was Lucian. “We’ll make sure they feel at home.”
“Welcome aboard the Girl on Fire, Mr Baxter,” Captain Gillies said, following me as I wandered over the expansive deck, the pristine lounging area and the hidden swim spa, currently covered with a sleek white shell. The gentle rocking motion of the deck was already soothing.
“You didn’t actually call it that,” Lucian derided, but when I turned, he was grinning at me.
“I gave her a very fitting name, thank you.”
Lucian rolled his eyes. “You are such a nerd, Bax.”
I gave a shrug. “I am who I am, and it’s not like this is a shock to you—you’ve known this about me since we were kids.”
“Weird name aside … this is the coolest place I’ve ever been able to call home.” Lucian turned in a circle, arms outstretched. “This is all yours now, Bax. Can you believe it?”
I followed his gaze, taking it all in. The luxury appointments … the freedom of the ocean, and an experienced crew on board who could take me away whenever I asked. This was about as far from how Lucian and I grew up as we could get.
“It’s still sinking in.”
I headed for the stairs that would take us down to the owner’s suite. “Let’s have a quick explore before we go get all our stuff and make the move official.”