Of course he’d noticed she was holding her breath.
Although he was wrong about why she was doing it.
She nodded. Or at least she meant to. She was too distracted by his mouth, which was curved into a soft smile that made his dimples pop, to know if she actually did it.
“I’m not worried about that,” she assured him. “I mean, not really. I know no one on Wayfarer Island will sleep until we’re found. But Romeo, I should apol—”
“I really wish you’d go back to calling me Spiro,” he cut her off, and his words were so unexpected, her chin flew back.
She’d taken to calling him Spiro the night she first learned they shared a love for the Night Angels series. The first night they’d “slept together.” But the next day he’d said that thing about her being nothing he needed and him being nothing she should want, and she’d gone back to using his nickname.
Spiro had suddenly felt too...intimate.
“Why?” Her voice was so low she was surprised he heard her.
“I’m not sure.” His expression turned contemplative. “I guess because I like it.” When she blinked in confusion, he was quick to add, “Like I told you, for the longest time I thought I hated that name. Thought it was a relic from a past I hoped to forget. But when you use it...” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels like me in a way it hasn’t in a hella long time.” He made a face. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to.” Her heart beat harder than when they’d been falling out of the sky. “If it’s what you want, I’ll do it.”
She realized she’d said too much when his gaze laser focused on her face.
“I just mean, we’re friends, right?” she was quick to add. “If you want me to call you Spiro, then I will.”
He opened his mouth, but Cami interrupted anything he might have said.
“Look, the truth is we don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the mob coming after me. Maybe it was somebody who has a beef with you two.” The lawyer flipped a finger between Doc and Romeo. “Or...” She let that one word dangle while her gaze alighted on Mia.
“I don’t think anyone would want to kill me.” Mia shook her head, confounded by the mere notion. She’d never stayed anywhere long enough, or gotten close enough to anyone, to make an enemy of them. “I mean, my mother hates my guts and always has. But if she wanted to do me in, she probably would’ve tried long before now.”
“Your mother hates your guts?” Cami blinked as if the concept was foreign, and Mia supposed to most people it was.
She faked tired indifference and waved her hand. “Long story for another time.”
“Oh-kay,” Cami said slowly, and then she regained her original train of thought. “My point is, the who or what or why of the crash doesn’t matter right now. What matters right now is that we focus on what needs to be done to make sure we survive until rescued.” She glanced pointedly at Romeo. “And in the name of cooperation and survival, would you like me to take over for you? I’m slightly less proficient at rowing than I am at particle physics, but I’d be happy to give it the old college try.”
Mia could see Romeo bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at the lawyer’s suggestion. Imagine the High King of Chivalry allowing a lady to do manual labor when he was whole and healthy enough to do it on his own.
For all of Romeo’s modern know-how—he was the one everyone turned to when technology failed them—he was sweetly old-school. Mia had no doubt if capes were still in fashion, he’d be the first to remove his and lay it over a mud puddle so passing ladies didn’t have to dirty their shoes.
“Thanks for the offer,” he told Cami. “But all I need you to do is sit back and relax. I’ll have us to the sandbar in half an hour. Forty-five minutes tops.”
Cami’s expression turned grim. “I was hoping to use the exercise as a distraction from seasickness.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I think I might hurl, and I don’t feel like I know any of you well enough to revisit my breakfast in front of you.”
“Go on and blow chunks if it’ll make you feel better,” Doc told her. “Believe me, we’ve all seen worse. Besides, you might chum the waters and attract some fish for us to catch. Now who’s being all Silver Linings Playbook, huh?” He looked inordinately pleased with himself, obviously thinking he’d made up for being a butthole earlier.
“I don’t know.” Romeo shook his head. “Given our luck today, she might attract a shark instead.”
Cami’s complexion had been looking a little green. But at mention of the S-word, it turned positively gray. “Are there really sharks around here?”
“Pretty sure there are sharks in every ocean on the planet,” Doc said unhelpfully.
“But, like, nurse sharks and reef sharks, right?” Cami insisted. “The cute cuddly ones that I’ve seen divers petting on the Discovery Channel. No great whites, right?”
When no one answered her, she turned desperate eyes on Mia.
Mia winced when she couldn’t give Cami the answer the lawyer so obviously wanted to hear. “Unfortunately, there are great whites around here.”
“Fuck.” As soon as the word left Cami’s lips, she looked mortified. “Sorry. Despite our less-than-ideal circumstances, I’m still your lawyer. I should conduct myself professionally. If it pleases the court, I would like to retract that fuck.”
Mia remembered how intimidated she’d been the first time she’d met the men of Deep Six Salvage. And that’d been a normal day with no drunken shenanigans from the night before, no confused identities, and no plane crashes. All things considered, Cami was keeping it together pretty well.
Since Mia hadn’t been able to reassure the poor woman there weren’t any man-eating sharks in the vicinity, she thought the least she could do was reassure her that cursing was considered a sport on Wayfarer Island.
“In the parlance of your people,” she told Cami, hoping a little humor might put the woman at ease, “consider it stricken from the record. But just so you know, these two”—she wagged a finger between Doc and Romeo—“curse like the sailors they are. And I’m from Chicago where the F-bomb is said more frequently than ‘Go Cubs.’ Feel free to let ’er rip as much as you like. I can assure you, you won’t offend any of us.”
“Oh, thank fuck.” Cami’s shoulders relaxed. “Because I have to admit, a plane crash followed by a row through shark-infested waters certainly qualifies for a fuck-ton of fucks in my fuckin’ book.”