Page 33

Chapter 33

Cabin Inspection

Easton

I’m not a surgeon. Never wanted to be a doctor. But I can do this. I push supplies around in the kit.

“Here,” Dante says, pushing a can into my hand. It’s an energy drink. Unlike other athletes, I never touch the stuff. But this is exactly what I need.

“Thanks.” I down it. I’m just hoping it doesn’t make my hands shake.

“We’ve got a couple more kits with other supplies,” Sam says.

“Good, but this one has everything I need.” Fuck. I put on gloves. And the snap of the vinyl on my wrist clears some of the thirty-year-old Scotch out of my head. Muscle memory is going to be my friend. I can remember how to do this. It wasn’t that long ago. Fuck, ten years. It’s fine. I’ve got it. “You ready?” I hope to hell the drunk giant doesn’t pick me up and throw me over the railing after the first stab of the needle. I tilt my head, trying to convey that thought to Dante, but it’s Firefly who picks up on it.

“Is it okay if I sit next to him?”

“That’s a great idea, Haley,” Sam says. “Sit there, and I’ll steady his leg.”

“What in the hell do you think I’m going to do? I’ve had stitches without being numb before. And I wasn’t drunk then. I sure as hell am now. I sliced my hand wide open on a barbed wire fence. Fucking cow charged the fence and I tried to stop her. The cow won, the fence came in second, and I sure as hell lost. Come to think of it, I was drunk then too. My grandma was a nurse. She said if I was dumb enough to try to stop a bovine from going through a fence, I deserved every ounce of pain I got.” He lies back and crosses his arms over his chest.

And I’m struck by a couple of things. How did he just fuck Haley? He’s drunker than a skunk. And two, how did he not drown, let alone swim under the tender checking it for holes?

I’ve got what I need to set out. I turn to Dante on the other side. “You got him?”

“I’ll do my best, which is always perfection.” Dante nods at Sam.

“A little pinch,” I say.

“What the fuck?” Calvin scowls at me. Then he drops his head to the cushion. “Just kidding. Do your worst.”

I brace myself while I flush the wound with disinfectant. I hold it up, waiting for Calvin to react. But he doesn’t.

Haley’s running her fingers over his hair. She’s keeping him calm.

I take the first stitch and pause. He doesn’t so much as flinch. Then the next, and more. I’m on the twelfth stitch when he snorts. I freeze. Then keep going. It’s got to hurt, but I need to just get it done. I’m only halfway finished.

Haley raises her eyebrows at me. “He’s out.”

Eighteen stitches in all, and I tie it off. I coat it with an antibacterial salve and gauze it up. How in the hell is he going to keep this clean, let alone dry? I have no idea. “How is he like this?” I still don’t get it.

“After you left the bottle of Glendronach on the floor, the two of us decided to give it a taste test. I had a sip. He had a bit more. That was right before Sam noticed the tide. The alcohol hadn’t claimed his wits yet,” Dante says.

“Ah, that will do it. I remember being eighteen and just having come home from training. The stuff isn’t meant for slamming back, for sure. The worst hangover of my life.” I glare at the giant. His mouth is hanging open. “We can’t leave him here. He’s likely to sleepwalk off the side of the yacht.”

“Let’s get him to bed. Zane, how’s it going?” Sam calls down to the swim platform.

“Coming up now.” Zane takes the stairs two at a time.

We’re gathered around Green like a family at a hospital bedside, all of us staring and no one saying anything.

“How are we going to get him to a bed?” Haley runs her fingers around Calvin’s knee.

“You know, I helped a boxer friend of mine hide one of his passed-out teammates from their coaches. We rolled him onto a blanket and carried it like a giant sling.” I leave out the part where we dropped him—twice. Hard, once, on his head. Come to think of it, I was drunk then too.

“We could put this back under him.” Haley lifts the discarded lounge chair cover from the deck.

“I never understood how the nurses in the hospital could change the sheets with someone still laying on the bed. Let’s move him over,” I say. The cover on the lounger next to Calvin is still in place, and I push it next to him, lifting his limp arm out of the way. Then I try to lift his shoulders. He’s like a rock. “Yeah, this is going to take all of us.” I stare at Dante, who’s sitting at the table, staring at the seagulls swarming the cliff of the island. “Can you help?”

Dante grabs Calvin’s other shoulder. Zane and Sam each grab a thigh.

“I’ll guide his feet,” Haley says. The white of the gauze catches my eye. It looks like a kindergartener set out to make a mummy. I hope for fuck’s sake that I did a better job on the inside.

“One, two...” Even with his size, we easily slide him over. I’m surprised we actually got him over without bashing his head.

Zane un-cinches the underside of the cover, and we each take a corner again. Sam and Zane are in the lead. We travel back through the main salon.

“Where are we going?” Zane slows at the sofa.

“Primary state room.” I’m hoping I don’t have to re-suture him tomorrow. “The light is better there.” The main salon where the sofas are has windows on one side and the study on the other.

Haley runs down to the cabin ahead of us. When we get there, she has the bedding pulled off. “Give me a second.” She gets a clean bottom sheet on, and we roll Calvin into bed.

“What the fuck?” He groggily wakes, but Haley’s got a blanket over him. He rolls onto his side and sighs.

“I’ll stay with him tonight. I don’t want him walking on his stitches.” Haley’s picking up things that she tossed onto the floor earlier.

“If you’re staying in here, Sassy, this is where I’m sleeping.” Dante sits on the side of the bed.

I stare at Calvin. It’s a big bed. But not big enough for six adults. My bedroom is down the corridor, but I’m not giving up a single night with Haley. Not a touch, not a minute, not even a sigh. “I should stay in here to watch Calvin.”

“Same,” Zane says.

The captain grips the headboard. “I’ve thought about sleeping down here before. The cross breeze will make it the coolest cabin below deck. But...”

“We can bring another bed in. This cabin is big enough for three king-sized beds,” Haley says. She takes off down the corridor to my cabin. “Let’s drag the mattress to the primary.”

Zane and I carry it back to the primary suite.

“Fuck no. I’m not sleeping on the floor if there’s a perfectly good bedframe down here,” Dante says. He walks out of the room, and I’m not sure why most of us follow, but we do. He turns into my old cabin. “That’s a good bedframe.”

“Then sleep down here,” Zane counters.

“I said I sleep where Sassy sleeps.” Dante pushes the mattress out of the way. “Only four bolts holding it to the wall. We move the mattress and the frame and make one huge bed.”

Zane drops to the floor. “I’ll get the ratchet set.”

“Good. Call me if you need help. I’ve got a galley to clean.” And Dante’s gone.

And that’s how we spend the next hour: sobering up and then fighting, pushing, and pulling the mattress to the primary cabin, following it up with the frame.

“Do you need help?” Haley asks. “I would have come down, but I didn’t want to leave Calvin alone.”

“No worries, Little Bird. There were lots of words you didn’t need to hear.”

“That bad?”

“Easton dropped the wrench on my leg twice. I’m fine.” Zane laughs, and Calvin stirs.

We all freeze, staring at him. When the bed is set back up, Haley has it made. And damn if it isn’t big enough for us all. I’ve got to admit, if it wasn’t for the white waving bandage on Calvin’s foot, I’d toss Haley on it right now to try it out.

“I’ll stay with Green if you want to take a break?” Zane says.

Haley nods. “Okay. I should go help Dante wash dishes.”

“On your birthday? No way. I’ll go help Dante.” And Zane’s gone before she can tell him not to go.

“I’ll stay, Haley. You go. Have you even checked out your cabin yet?” I push a clump of her hair back from her face.

“No, but... it’s fine. I was thinking we should search some more for the key.”

“We’ve gone through everything.” I turn to look around the room. The last search we did was pretty thorough. We found my mother’s necklace. But then I spot the closet. “You know, I looked in the bottom of the closet, but I didn’t search the pockets of the clothes in there.”

“That’s a good idea. I’d never think to look for a key in clothes hanging up.” Haley stares into the closet, her hand on the handle. Her shoulders slump.

“What?”

“It was one of the last things Shayla did on the boat. Candy had her re-iron all her clothes after Rocky gave Shayla a compliment on the drink she made him.”

“She really was an ass,” I say.

Haley sucks at her lower lip. “My mother always said never to speak badly about the dead, but in this case...”

“Warranted.”

She pulls open the closet door.

“Where are my dad’s clothes?” The entire closet is full of nothing but Candy’s gross gowns and leather pants. The entire trip they were taking was tropical, and the majority of the clothes in the closet look like something you would wear to a winter ball.

“His clothes, along with Candy’s extra clothes, are in the next suite over, the one we hadn’t finished setting up. It was a big beef Candy had with us. But the Captain told her we were overworked as it was.”

“Right. I suppose we should be thorough, though.”

The hangers glide across as I pull them. Most of the outfits have more sequins, bows, and crystals than they have pockets. I pat down the fabric because I don’t want to start thinking, later, that I might have missed something. There’s nothing but price tags in most of them. I hold a tag out for Haley to see.

At the end of the closet is a garment bag. A big one. “What’s in there?” I ask.

“I don’t know, but I’m guessing that’s the wedding dress Shayla talked about. She said it was hideous. Candy told her that was the only thing she didn’t have to touch in the closet. In fact, she made a pretty big deal about not touching it.”

“Not touching it? Not showing off my father’s wealth to someone who she thought would fawn over it? Yeah, that’s suspicious.” I pull the zipper down on the bag, and a white and pink silk gown with feathers and crystals sparkles at us. Oh, for fuck’s sake. The crystals aren’t crystals. They’re actual diamonds, and they’re in the shape of a horse’s head on the back of the train.

“That’s... Wow! That’s like the ugliest wedding dress I’ve ever seen. And it doesn’t look cheap. Are those real diamonds?” Haley lifts the side of the dress and taps at them.

“I’m not an expert, but knowing Candy, the answer is yes.”

“Wow, no wonder she didn’t want Shayla to open the bag.” Haley pauses. “I guess Shalya did open it, since she said it was ugly...” Haley cringes a little.

“Firefly, you don’t need to worry. I would have opened it too.”

Her blue eyes widen. “Were they planning on getting married on board? No one told me. I certainly didn’t order supplies for a wedding.”

“Also yes.” My stomach flips. Emily and I had planned to talk Dad out of the whole thing. Emily had even made a PowerPoint about how Candy was just using him. And how it was going to come back and bite him in the ass. That if he wanted to play with Candy, that was one thing, but binding himself to her forever was a piss poor idea.

I pat down the side of the dress. It’s huge.

“We should take it out. There’s too much fabric,” Haley says.

“Right.” I take the monstrosity off the hanger and pull and pull the length of the dress out of the bag. There’s a thump. A very non-fabric-like thump.