Page 2 of The Rival in South Africa
The corners of his mouth shot back down again. “I didn’t know,” he said, scowling. “He said he hadn’t heard from you in a week.”
“I was on vacation with Ion.”
He waved his hand, anothercase in point.And suddenly, I was tired. Tired of arguing with Alex, tired of my boyfriend and my father not being here, tired of not even knowing why I was doing things.
I put my hands up, palm out, just completelydone. “You know what, Alex? Just forget it all. Seriously, I had a fun day, for the most part. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
Alex took a step back from me. There was just enough space between him and the railing on the boat for me to get by, so I moved to slip through and escape.
“Nikki,” Alex started, his tone softer. He reached out his hand, grabbing my elbow, but at the same moment, my toe caught on the hem of my dress, the soft fabric stretching and causing me to stumble...right into Alex. We both went down, Alex letting out a soft grunt as he connected elbow-first with the table.
I thought, for a second, that we’d barely escaped disaster. Alex’s hand still gripped my elbow, his other arm bracing against the dessert buffet. My chin had clipped his shoulder, and my body was pressed against his, our shocked faces staring at each other.
Alex’s eyes widened.
And then the table collapsed underneath us.
We tumbled over into a horrific still moment when everything stopped moving. The table was flattened underneath us, desserts smushed by Alex’s back. I had avoided the worst of it, somehow having twisted to land on top of him.
I scrambled away from the mess.
Alex sat up, a bewildered expression on his face. “What. The. Fuck.”
Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god. Our mothers were going to kill us.
Stunned, Alex got his feet beneath him and staggered to standing. He peered over his shoulder, and as he twisted around, I saw clumps of icing and cake and macarons studding his jacket.
“What the fuck, Nikki?”
My chin snapped up at his tone. “Excuse me?” I was flabbergasted. How could he blame me for this? “You grabbed my arm!”
“You literally fell on me! I was trying to apologize.” Our voices were raised and started to draw attention.
“For insulting my boyfriend? That’s been long overdue.”
Alex slipped an arm out of his jacket and gritted his teeth. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Ion, and you know it. You just can’t accept that I won.”
“It was an accident!” My voice came out high and shrill. This is exactly where I knew this would end up, why I should have gotten out of here while I could. “And I could stand it just fine if you’d stopped rubbing your win in my face all the time. Sailing was my thing, and you’ve got your spindly, grubby hands all over it.”
He smirked at me. “And I’m better at it than you. Maybe if you spent more time with your sailing coach instead of that shitty boyfriend of yours, you might have done better,” he hissed. We were toe-to-toe now, teeth clenched and bare feet grinding the pastries down into the deck.
“Fuck. Off. Alex,” I said between my teeth.
“Nikki!” came my mother’s voice. “What is the meaning of this? Stop this nonsense right now!” She stepped closer to me, delicately avoiding the mutilated desserts lest her dress be ruined, one of the yacht staff following behind her. “Seriously, I don’t know what has gotten into you two.”
Mum brushed an errant strand of hair out of her face and tugged her silk wrap tighter around her shoulders.
Alex’s mother appeared from the other side. Her voice matched her gaze: disappointed. “Alex, obviously, we’ve let this feud between you two go on long enough. The award part is over, and dessert looks like it’ll be delayed, thanks to you two. Apologize to the staff and go down to your room.”
Alex bowed his head to our mothers. “My apologies, Mum, Ana.” He tipped his head to the chef standing in the corner as well. “Sorry, Marcella.” He glanced around the deck, eyes barely flitting over me, and was gone.
Mum turned to me and shook her head. “You’re going back toPegasustoo. This is far too much disappointment for one weekend.” Tugging my arm, Mum pulled me over to Alex’s mother.
“Sorry, Natasha.” I did feel terrible. Thank god we were out on the bow of the boat and not in front of everyone.
Natasha rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you two are twenty-four years old and we have to send you to your rooms like children,” she said as I picked up my hem, now weighed down with the remnants of the dessert table.
I kept my eyes down, quickly walking back towards the stern. I’d nearly made it to the gangway when I hesitated. The regatta had been a team effort, and my coaches and fellow sailors were still having a good time. I at least owed them my thanks and a goodnight.
