Before Drea could respond, her uncle pushed up from the section of the bar he was resting against and moved up to stand right next to her. She could see a light scowl on his face and he looked Brig up and down. Grayson had to have a couple of inches on him, but wasn’t near as bulky as the meathead. In a fight, however, especially if the topic of said fight was Drea, her money was solely on her uncle.
“You need to be listening to the safety talk,” Grayson interjected.
“Just wanted to say hi—”
“Great. You said it, now back up front to listen.”
“And what makes you think you’re so special? Standing there like you own the place. Why aren’t you listening to the safety talk?” Brig challenged.
“Because I do own the place. And the fucking boat you’re on too. So I don’t think it’s uncalled for to tell you again to sit your ass down.”
“Ok!” Drea interjected. “Brig, he’s right, the Coast Guard requires that you listen to the safety talk, even though it’s the same as yesterday. I’ll make sure to come chat in a bit.”
Brig nodded his head and turned to head back to the front of the boat, where all his buddies were sitting with the blondes. When she was sure he was out of earshot, she turned to her uncle and glared at him.
“Wanna explain why you just went all Uncle Vaughn on him?” Grayson just glared right back at her. “You have never, not once, gotten huffy with a guy who was interested in me, not even when I was in high school. Hell, you were the one who taught me how to sneak out so that Uncle Vaughn couldn’t bitch out my dates.”
“Who’s the douche?”
“For one, a guest! For two, just some dude. He hit on me at the gym yesterday and then was on our excursion.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Don’t like who?” Kyle asked, coming down from his perch.
“Well, I don’t particularly like him either, but whatever, he’s a guest.” Drea pulled her tank off, revealing her new suit. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go apologize for my asshat uncle and try and save our tip!”
Kyle watched Drea pull off her tank top as if it were in slow motion. It wasn’t a new motion, it was an act she did every day—strip down to her swimsuit to go hop in the water with the guests. But today, today was as if it was happening for the very first time. He saw her reach for the hem of the shirt and didn’t think anything of it until she started to lift it higher, inch by inch, revealing her beautiful golden-brown skin instead of the lycra of her swimsuit. When she reached the point of pulling it over her head, making her breasts shift in those small cups, he was pretty sure he’d been rendered useless. He’d seen her breasts in a bikini top before when they’d been hanging out on her porch or a couple of times when they’d taken the boat out, just them. They’d made plenty of appearances in his fantasies, and thoughts of playing with them were regularly conjured as spank bank material. But something about that shade of purple against her skin and the way they sat in that top, he could feel all the blood rushing to his groin. As she turned to go, all he could think was that he couldn’t wait for her to take off the shorts too.
Stop thinking of her like that, her uncle is standing right next to you, Kyle thought, swallowing hard. If he didn’t stop staring, it was going to be impossible to hide what he was feeling. Not that the sudden tenting in his board shorts was helping anything.
“This is the point where I should tell you to stop ogling my niece, dude,” Grayson said, startling Kyle out of his thoughts.
“Sorry, sir, I wasn’t, I mean…” he trailed off. “I’m gonna head back up and drive the boat.”
Once they pulled up to the location of the shipwreck, Kyle killed the engine. He could hear Drea giggle and as he peered down he saw she was back at the bar chatting with her uncle. He hated to admit it, but he was thoroughly relieved that the giggles weren’t in reaction to that meathead. It had taken every mind trick in the book—thinking about sports, picturing Margaret Thatcher on a cold day as Austin Powers would say, his parents having sex—but his boner was finally subsiding. Those giggles weren’t helping, though.
He stared out over the ocean from his perch and sighed heavily. He just needed to remind himself why he was here. He was all about the job. He was so close to being able to afford going out on his own. Once he had his own boat and was running his own charters, then maybe he could have a relationship. That was assuming Drea even wanted him. He’d seen her with Dalton last night, and then whispering again this morning. He hated the idea of them together, but if it was really what Drea wanted, he’d figure out a way to deal with it.
He closed his eyes and enjoyed the movement of the boat underneath him. It should have been more than enough to calm him down, but the last twenty-four hours had him rattled. The meathead, Staci with an i, seeing Drea run off in tears and then refuse to tell him what was wrong—it all weighed on him. How could so much change in such a small amount of time?
Kyle headed down to the main deck when he heard the guests reboarding the boat. He told himself it was because he was doing his job, that he was mingling with the guests, and not that he wanted to get a full view of Drea in that bikini. He scanned the boat to find her up front, helping someone undo their life jacket. Brig stood not far from her, obviously waiting until her attention could be back on him.
“Glaring at him won’t make him go away,” Dalton said, coming up behind him.
“I’m not glaring at anyone.”
“Sure you’re not. Just keep lying to yourself.”
Kyle turned to look at Dalton next to him. He was looking at Drea with a smirk on his face Kyle couldn’t quite read. “What’s going on, Dalton? What am I missing?”
“If you gotta ask the question, buddy, then I don’t know how to answer that.”
“I know something is going on, Dalton. What happened with Drea last night?”
“You ask her?”
“She brushed me off, told me it was ‘nothing,’” he answered, making air quotes with his fingers.
“Then there’s your answer.”
“Except I’m pretty sure you know something I don’t,” Kyle accused.
“Dude, I told you last night, I just don’t understand what goes through your head sometimes. Take that however you want, but if she’s not gonna tell you what she was upset about, it sure as hell isn’t my place.” He turned and walked toward an older couple who had just come up from the water, smiling flirtatiously at the woman as he offered to help her out of her life jacket.
“You didn’t want to get in the water?” Grayson asked.
Kyle shifted slightly as his boss appeared to his left. “It was a full tour. Only Drea gets in on the full tour days.”
“I was on the boat, you could have easily joined her. You deserve to have some fun too.”
“I went yesterday. It would have been unprofessional to get in two days in a row.”
“Dude,” Gray sighed, shaking his head. “A little piece of advice you didn’t ask for: you can't be a chickenshit your whole life. At some point, consequences be damned, you just gotta go for it.”