Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
This wasn’t all on me.
Finn was the one who’d touched me tonight. It was him who was crossing the line and tempting me to test it with him. Was it because he missed me? Did he have regrets?
Oh, God… was he using me to get back at Gisella for what she’d done to him?
My gut soured at the thought, and that’s when resolve sank in deep.
I was done.
He didn’t get to play both sides.
And I refused to be the girl who let him.
No more.
This ended here, now, tonight, in this cab, without a word of declaration.
Starting tomorrow, Finn Pearson would be nothing more than a coworker. No more lingering looks. No more small, stolen touches. No more talking about a past that needed to stay buried.
If cutting him out meant bleeding for a while, I’d take the pain. Eventually, the bleeding would stop. Eventually, I’d scab and heal and only have the remnants of a soft pink scar, one I could easily ignore.
This was it for me. The final straw.
He could keep the memories.
I was done living in them.
CHARTER CONFESSIONAL
CLOSE QUARTERS
SEASON 4, EPISODE 9
CHARTER 7
PALMER HUGHES: BOSUN
PRODUCER
How are you feeling about the charter guests coming aboard for charter seven?
PALMER
It’s not the guests I’m concerned about — it’s the weather.
PRODUCER
Uh-oh. What’s going on?
PALMER
These guests pay a small fortune to come on this yacht for a few days, and they expect it to be everything they ever dreamed of: crystal blue water, soft white sandy beaches, endless cocktails served on a sunny upper deck, all the water toys they can think of, six-star service… but all that goes right out the window when a storm moves in. A little rain is one thing, but thirty-five knot winds, a gale warning, lightning, and buckets of rain?
Palmer shakes head.
PALMER
That’s when it becomes a nightmare — especially for the interior. Because suddenly, you’ve got to make a yacht charter worth $100,000 without even leaving the dock. The food has to be impeccable, and the whole crew has to pull together and figure out some way to entertain the guests.
PRODUCER
Does it eat into the tip, you think?
PALMER
Oh, absolutely. There’s only so much you can do when rich people have had their expectations shredded. Our tip will suffer — and so will we.
PRODUCER
Sounds like it’s going to be a tough one.
PALMER
For sure. And there’s nothing like a high-tension charter to test a team of crew members already on edge.
PRODUCER
On edge? It seems like everyone is doing great after yesterday. The beach day off was a hit, right?
Palmer scrubs a hand over his jaw, shaking his head.
PALMER
You’re really going to pretend like you didn’t see, huh?
PRODUCER
What do you mean? Did something happen last night?
Palmer laughs, stands.
PALMER
Good call. Save it for the reunion.
Palmer exits.
If the weather outside was gloomy, then the mood on Sinking Sun was an outright hurricane.
Rain pelted the harbor like bullets from a gun, wind whipping so hard the deck crew had no choice but to bring everything inside or hide it away in the locker. Inside, the air was thick with nerves, exhaustion, and whatever invisible toxin made an entire crew collectively want to throw themselves overboard.
We’d been docked for thirty-six hours.
Thirty-six hours of non-stop complaining from our current charter guests — a group of middle-aged tech investors who looked like they’d just rolled out of a cigar lounge and brought their sugar baby starter packs with them. Their girlfriends were runway hot, chronically bored, and wore their distaste for the men who paid for this little adventure like diamond necklaces, bright and brazen and impossible to ignore.
The primary’s girlfriend, Jewel, had gotten so blitzed at our make-shift wine tasting last night that she’d openly admitted that she and the other girls were hoping to pick up guys at the beach. Not that her boyfriend, Robbie, or any of his friends noticed — they were too busy yelling over each other about how the weather was “ruining the vibe” and asking Captain, “Is it really even that bad? This boat would be fine out there. It just seems a little windy.”
We’d somehow survived the first night and got them drunk enough that they slept in. Finn made brunch a whole ordeal, and Bernard and I made sure service was nice and slow-paced. But the dishes were clear now, and the weather still sucked.
It was only 1 PM.
“Okay,” I said to the interior team, hoping the calmness in my tone would wash over them and bring them both down a notch. They looked two seconds from quitting on me, and it was up to me to find a way to keep them motivated and hanging on. “Let’s recap. We’ve already done a spa day, a wine tasting, a trivia night, and the most traumatic game of charades I’ve ever endured. What else can we pull out of our magic hats here?”