Page 5 of Welcome Home to Ivy Falls (Ivy Falls #3)

FORD

Poisoned Pessimist

The buzzing noise on my bedside table woke me from a deep sleep. I let out a groan. Please tell me my mother is not calling at two a.m. to lecture me.

I grabbed the phone, and when I saw the number I quickly answered.

‘Kip? You okay? It’s the middle of the night.’

‘Oh shit. Totally forgot about the time difference, man.’

Kip was the director of maintenance and one of my closest friends on Humanity of the Seas .

My first day on board, I’d been sitting at a table all alone nursing a cup of strong black coffee and hoping my terrible case of jet lag would pass.

All six-foot-five of him folded into the chair next to me and he started up a conversation about American football, saying he’d heard I was from the States.

He’d grown up in Ohio and went on a long ramble about how he missed going to noisy bars on Sundays and watching all the games.

It didn’t take long for us to become fast friends after that.

‘I wanted to check in because rumors around here say you’re coming back.’

‘Yeah, in October. Contract is for six months this time.’

‘October, huh? What are you doing in the meantime?’

I reached over and turned on the light, shifting back against a mound of pillows.

It was another nice thing about renting a furnished place, there were little extras like four fluffy pillows filling the bed.

A big difference from the lumpy, old mattress and threadbare sheets on the ship.

‘Took a job at a small clinic. Filling in for a doctor who went on a three-month sabbatical.’

‘A small clinic? Why?’

‘It’s forty-five minutes from my parents.’

‘Ahhh. I get it. You’re hiding from them.’

‘No,’ I grumbled. ‘It’s a good job. Tomorrow is my first day.’

‘It’s gonna be a lot slower than things around here, that’s for sure. I hear the guy they brought in to replace you is having a hard time adjusting to the pace. You know how things pick up on screening days. The long lines of people waiting to be seen.’

‘He’ll be fine once he gets into a routine.’

‘Maybe.’ He sighed. ‘But not everyone catches on as quickly as you.’

‘How would you know? You’re busy fixing leaky toilets and faucets all day,’ I teased. Kip had a much bigger role on the ship, making sure that all the facilities were in running order, but I loved to rib him about the tasks he hated most in the world.

‘You forget how quickly word spreads around here, especially when people are getting their asses kicked.’

I let out a small huff of laughter. That was a truth I knew too well.

Many of the clinic nurses teased me in the early days of my first contract because I insisted on micromanaging every aspect of the job like I’d done in residency.

It got on the nurses’ nerves and one night during dinner they cornered me.

Told me if I didn’t stop hovering they were going to order the kitchen staff to cut off my caffeine supply, and on the ship strong coffee was life.

‘So you’re living away from your parents? I take it things aren’t great?’ His voice went hesitant like he knew he was wading into a minefield.

‘Too complicated to talk about in the middle of the night.’

‘That bad?’

‘Same shit. Different day. They keep asking me what I’m going to do next. My dad is the worst. Three times now he’s tried to set up meetings for me to join private practices. And my mom—’

‘Wait, let me guess, she’s already picked out her bride of choice.’

‘Close. She’s inviting me to brunches under the guise that it’ll be only family, except when I get there a girl I know from my past shows up like some old-fashioned setup.’

‘Damn. Your parents make my folks look like saints.’

Kip was from Cincinnati. His dad was born there but his mom lived in Senegal until she was ten before her family moved to the United States.

For most of his childhood, she spoke about missing her home.

Even tried to teach him French, which he admitted didn’t take.

After Kip graduated from high school, he backpacked around most of the world, eventually ending up in Senegal.

Like his mom, he loved the place and never wanted to leave.

‘Speaking of women, there’s a new girl working in the dining hall and she’s gorgeous. Her name is Vivienne, and her red hair is the same color of the sky at sunset.’

‘And how many times have you asked her out?’

He went quiet before saying, ‘Twice now. I even invited her to that rooftop bar at Les Mamelles Lighthouse to have a drink. Listen to music.’

‘Turned down both times?’ I ribbed him.

‘No, asshole. She said she just needed time to acclimate to the ship.’

Kip was a nice guy but not so slick with women.

When we had weekends off, he’d shown me his favorite parts of the country.

Saint Louis for its annual jazz festival.

Toubab Dialaw, a bohemian village with one of the most beautiful beaches I’d ever seen.

In every place he’d confidently approach a woman, but then his brain short-circuited and he stumbled over his own words.

It didn’t help that most people spoke French and his fluency skills weren’t so great.

In one instance, he told a woman at a restaurant she was très Jeudi .

She rolled her eyes, walked away, and Kip shook his head in confusion.

‘Was it wrong to tell her she was very pretty?’

‘No,’ I cackled. ‘But you just told her she was very Thursday .’

He dropped his head in his hands. Grumbled that he should have paid more attention to his mom’s attempts to teach him her native language.

After I’d witnessed several of his crash and burns, I started calling him a hopeless romantic.

He, in turn, called me a poisoned pessimist when it came to dating – which wasn’t far off.

‘What about you? Any beautiful women where you’re at? What’s it called?’

‘Ivy Falls, and I have absolutely no time for that. I’m going to do my job. Relax a little. Count the days until I can get back to the ship.’

Even though Piper flickered through my head, there was no way I was telling him about our coffee mishap. Plus, I meant what I said. I didn’t have time for dating. I was only here to kill time until I could return to Senegal.

‘I’m going back to bed because they need me at the clinic by seven.’

‘All right. Miss you, bud. This place is boring without you.’

I pictured him standing in the framed doorway of his cabin, his tennis shoes squeaking against the yellow linoleum floors.

How the early morning crew moved outside on the decks, their boots clomping with powerful thuds.

The way the ship swayed along with the tides, the powerful scent of brine and salt floating in from the North Atlantic.

The time couldn’t go by fast enough here.

‘I’ll be back before you know it.’

‘Don’t fall in love with some gorgeous girl and keep me hanging. I need my wingman back.’

I let out another laugh. There was no chance of that happening.