Page 28 of Sail Away
“Hey, sounds like he’ll get along with the rest of us,” Bradley said.
“You’re going to hate Preston.” Darcie shook her head. “He’s a pretentious trust fund kid who doesn’t understand the wordno.”
“And you dated his business partner?” Haley stopped chopping mushrooms and stared at Darcie.
Everyone had discontinued their activities and glared at her with their jaws dropped as if they were driving by a horrible accident and couldn’t look away.
“You don’t tolerate people like that,” Bradley said, breaking the silence. “The way you pick on some of the guests after they leave is priceless. How could you date someone with stupid money?”
“Reid isn’t like Preston, other than being an adrenaline junkie. They have very different personalities. Where the tension is going to be is between me and Preston more than me and Reid. Maybe. Probably.”
“Toss Jim into the mix, and we’ve got ourselves some rough waters ahead,” Kirk said.
“Hey, did anyone notice all the luggage he brought back on the vessel?” Bradley asked.
“I did.” Kirk snapped open a soda. “I saw that he did that a couple of charters ago, too. But when I went looking for the bags, they were nowhere to be found.”
“You actually go looking for his luggage,” Darcie said. “That’s weird.”
“I only went looking because he brought all these extra things aboard the charter Kim ended up leaving. But when I went to get her bags, his were nowhere to be found. Later, I saw him leaving the vessel with them,” Bradley said.
“Come to think of it, he brought on extra bags that disappeared on our first charter,” Kirk said.
“Really fucking weird, if you ask me,” Bradley said.
“Jim does have an obsession for clothes, and he always overpacks.” Something that Darcie enjoyed poking fun at whenever she got the chance.
“All crew. All crew. Captain Jim here. I see our guests walking the gangway. Let’s get this party started.”
“You heard the man.” Darcie smoothed down the front of her dark slacks. One thing she hated about this job was the constant changing of clothes. Right after they greeted the guests, she and the deck crew would change into their sun shirts and shorts and prepare the vessel to leave port, where they’d spend a couple of hours cruising up the coast until they found their anchor spot. And then they could break out the toys and let the drunken bad behavior begin.
She stood next to Captain Jim with her hands clasped behind her back.
“Are you ready for this?” Jim asked.
“Don’t worry. Reid and I will be fine,” she whispered.
“I’m more worried about you and Preston.” Jim stretched out his arm. “Reid. It’s good to see you again. And you as well, Preston. We look forward to making this short vacation special for you boys.”
Preston cocked his head and arched his brow. “Make sure we have lots of tequila and food and we’ll be good.”
“Hey. How are you holding up?” Reid whispered as he kissed her cheek.
“Just ducky. How are you?”
“I’m peachier today.”
She laughed.
“Jim’s being awfully nice to me.”
“He wants a big fat tip,” she whispered, patting Reid’s shoulder, trying to move him along.
Talk about fucking games. Jim had some really choice words for Reid the last time they’d seen each other. Of course, Darcie was acting like a fool and screaming at Reid because Reid had called her a selfish bitch who didn’t have a clue about real love or life for that matter.
Darcie had learned one very valuable lesson since that day.
She had anger management issues, and finding Jim with her bunkmate made her understand that she really hadn’t done anything to figure out how to deal with those kinds of emotions.
