Page 6 of No One Aboard
Rylan pressed the pencil tip deeper into the page, his knuckles as tense and white as mountaintops.
Whenever he imagined his future, Tia was always in it, an image that had kept him steady a thousand times since he had watched her jet take off to Connecticut last August. They would be going to Pepperdine together in the fall. Rylan had gotten into five of the six schools he’d applied to, some of them Ivy Leagues, but Tia, applying to the same six in order to placate her parents, had only been accepted to Pepperdine, so that was where they were going. They would live at their Malibu beach house on the weekends, resume bingingCriminal Minds, and go on long midnight drives when they couldn’t fall asleep. They were going to have their old lives back, but better.
Except now Tia had a taste for what it was like to live away from home. Had she forgotten everything good about their family while she was gone?
The Camerons were worth staying for. Rylan had until their birthday to change her mind.
Lila let out a long whistle of a sigh. Rylan looked up at her, and she slid down beside him.
This was how things often went between Rylan and his mother. They were the quieter half of the family. The softer half. She confided in him, and he confided in her. It felt safe between them, even if Rylan did feel an occasional wash of shame for being seventeen and so attached to his mother.
“What’s wrong?” Rylan asked.
“Oh. Nothing at all. Just ruminating.” Lila glanced over at his sketchbook and nodded in approval. “You really are very good.”
Two sharp taps came at the bedroom door, and Lila reanimated like a flower in the sun. “Come in. We’re in the bathroom!”
Alejandro poked his head into the room, sleek black eyebrows quirked in a question. He was a tall man with an impressive head of black curls. His goatee was nicely oiled, and his tank top showed off a colorful kraken tattoo that snaked from his left shoulder to his wrist.
When the twins were small, Alejandro used to watchFinding Nemowith them, and whenever they had nightmares about the shark with the big smile, he would tuck them securely into bed and promise if they were ever attacked by such a monster, he would volunteer to be the bait.
Rylan and Tia had given him the call sign Sharkbait.
“There is a whole world out there, you know,” Alejandro said, jerking a thumb behind him. “Sunsets and sailboats. But I see you two have chosen to spend the evening on the floor of a head.”
Lila lifted one of her arms daintily, and the cook obliged her, pulling her to her feet. Her white cover-up streamed behind her like a sail.
“Estás radiante,” Alejandro told her.
“Podría decir lo mismo de ti,” Lila replied in perfect Spanish. She kissed both his cheeks. “¿Cómo va la cena?”
“Está listo.” Alejandro looked at Rylan. “Before you go eat, I have questions—” he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper “—about the cake.”
Rylan tucked his pencils into the spiral binding of his sketchbook. Tia hadn’t wanted a big party for graduation, which had fallen on the same day as Rylan’s, last Saturday. When Francis had suggested either he or Lila fly to Connecticut while the other stayed back in Florida, Tia had texted in the family chat not to bother.
So instead they would give gifts tonight at dinner and have cake and champagne to christen their voyage.
Understated and elegant, Lila had called the idea (two of her favorite words).
“It is multitiered, isn’t it?” Lila said, stacking her hands in the air to demonstrate the cake’s imagined height. “Did you get all twelve layers? One for each year of school.”
“I did indeed,” Alejandro replied, seemingly amused. “I just need to decorate.”
Lila barreled on. “Yes, with your homemade buttercream frosting, of course. And you have those molded chocolates, shaped like roses, I think. Or perhaps peonies?”
Alejandro chuckled, shaking his head. “Naturally. Do you have any input, Rylan?”
Rylan smiled up at the two of them. “Oh, I dunno. She likes... strawberries?”
Alejandro clapped his hands. “Perfecto! A twelve-layer cake with hand-whipped frosting, molded chocolate flowers, strawberries, and we might as well sprinkle edible gold on top while we’re at it, yes?”
Lila tossed her head. “I don’t see why not.”
Alejandro shot Rylan a wink and headed for the door. “Go enjoy your first few courses, then. I’ll bring it up when you are done.”
Rylan thumbed through his sketchbook and stopped on his best picture of Tia. He tore it loose and folded it with great care until it could fit in the pocket of his board shorts.
“Let’s feast, my darling,” Lila said, clasping his upper arm and pulling him up and to the deck.
