Then his eyes meet mine and I expect to see a hint of a smile in them.
I smile, anyway.
He doesn’t smile back.
“I meant what I said,” he says, his voice on edge. “Just stay out of the way.”
I blink. Wow.
He’s a mean pirate.
I narrow my eyes at him for a moment before tossing my hair over my shoulder and turning around.
I’m immediately reminded of how small this boat is and that Lacey and Richard both heard what he just told me.
“Why don’t you go downstairs and try to put your suitcases out of the way?” Lacey suggests, another attempt to get me pushed aside.
“But don’t put them in either fore or aft cabin,” Tai says, then pauses. “That means front and back.”
“I know what they mean,” I snipe at him. “I’m not an idiot.”
I’m just waiting for one of them to laugh at that, but to their credit, they don’t. It’s way too early to be starting off on the wrong foot.
And to think, you have ten more days of this.
Shit.
“Come on,” Lacey says. She goes to the hatch and pushes it back, walking backward down the stairs and into the belly of the beast.
I follow.
And I’m impressed.
Somehow the boat doesn’t seem as small down below. While up top felt a little cramped, I guess how the cockpit is set up a little forward on the boat, down here it feels more open, and everything is made of this gorgeous teak wood. This boat should be in a museum.
“Wow, this is nice,” I say. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
There’s a kitchen, or galley as they say, to the right of me, a navigation table and seat to the left. In front of me there’s the lounge area with two small couches and a table, and beyond that there’s a glimpse of the cabin at the front. There are Maori masks with pāua shell eyes on the walls, along with a few of Tai’s personal touches that give it this lived-in feel.
It’s very Instagrammable.
So, of course I pull out my phone and start taking pictures. Maybe if I don’t get back into the athleisure line life, I can start marketing boats.
“There’s a cabin back there,” Lacey says, gesturing behind us. “The owner’s suite, as they call it. But it’s ours for the journey.”
“Fine with me, I get my own cabin,” I say, walking to the one at the very front and poking my head in. It has its own door, a small closet, and own washroom. Score!
“Did Tai explain the shifts to you?” Lacey asks, watching as I haul my suitcases up onto the couch and start unzipping them.
“The shifts?” I ask as I rummage through my stuff. There’s not enough room in the closet for everything, so what I’ll do is put all the stuff I don’t need in the small carry-on, empty the bigger suitcase, and then put the carry-on inside it. I’m already proud of myself for the space-saving idea.
“I take it he didn’t,” Lacey says begrudgingly. “So for an ocean crossing, there must be at least one person on deck the entire time to make sure everything is fine and that we aren’t going to collide with any shipping containers that might not show up on the radar.”
I stop what I’m doing and look at her with wide eyes. “That happens?”
“Haven’t you seen that movie with Robert Redford? Yes, it happens. Hence why we all must take shifts. And since there are four of us, we’ll do it two people at a time. Which means Richard and I will be on our own shift during the night and then you and Tai will be on another.”
“Wait a minute. Why do I have to be with Tai?”
“Well, each shift has to have someone that knows what they’re doing.”
“I think I’d rather be with Richard.”
She adjusts her glasses. “Uh huh. Remember, this is our honeymoon.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Listen, Tai is fine…just…don’t annoy him.”
I laugh. “You think I annoy him on purpose?”
“Maybe,” she says thoughtfully. “I think your personality in general is an anathema to him.”
I flinch. “What’s wrong with my personality?”
Now it’s time for Lacey to laugh, albeit dryly. “If you haven’t noticed, Tai is one of those people who takes things seriously. As he should. He’s been through a lot in his life, he doesn’t have time for people who seem to coast by.”
There are two things there catching my attention.
“He’s been through a lot? What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter and it’s none of your business,” she says.
Okay…
“And also, I don’t coast by,” I tell her.
She stares at me for a loaded moment, as if weighing what to say. “Yes, you do. You always have. You’re doing it right now.”
I throw my arms out. “How is this coasting by?”
“Well, you’re on a free trip to Fiji, for one, jumping aboard your own sister’s honeymoon.”
“You invited me!”
“And I didn’t think you’d come!”
Oh my god. So the truth is out.
“Well fucking hell!” I swear. “Let’s turn this damn boat around and take me back then!”
I don’t care that I sound like a petulant child, I march right up the stairs to the cockpit.
“Turn this boat around, I’m going back!” I yell at Tai.
He barely acknowledges me.
“Did you hear me? I’m not wanted, and I’m not spending the next ten days on this boat, ruining someone’s honeymoon.”
“I heard you,” Tai says calmly, his eyes on the horizon.
“I also heard you,” Richard says, walking down the length of the boat. “I regret to inform you that there’s no privacy on this vessel.”
Agh, he pronounces it priv-acy.
“And we’re not turning around,” Tai says. “You committed to this trip, now you’re in it. There’s no going back.”
“She doesn’t know the meaning of the word commit,” Lacey speaks up.
I’m having a hard time forming words against her relentless attack, she’s like a piranha with glasses. “What on earth are you talking about? I was committed to Chris!”
“Like you were to every other boyfriend you had before that you so easily discarded?”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why is she even going there?
“I’m allowed to break up with people, you know,” I say. I almost tell her that it’s better than settling for the first guy that ever paid her any attention, AKA Little Dicky, but I know that would open a portal to Hell that I am not prepared to deal with.
“Because you can’t commit. And had Chris not cheated on you, I’m sure you would have kicked him to the curb eventually. It’s just that for once in your blessed life you have a little bit of bad luck.”
I am seething. I angrily gesture to the boat. “And you’re happy about that, aren’t you? The fact that I lost my boyfriend and my job. Well guess what, my bad luck streak isn’t over. I’m on this boat with all of you guys and apparently I’m not going anywhere.”
“And the irony is that we’re all stuck with each other for the foreseeable future,” Richard says, laughing his stupid dorky laugh.