I couldn’t believe this woman.
She was a goddamn menace in a skimpy dress.
I should’ve never let her handle the ticket-booking. This was the girl who’d infamously gotten knocked up under the bleachers of Fairhope High’s football field, while I spotted for her and Rob, the honorable wingman that I was.
I remembered that scene too well.
Cara Loughlin had been buttering me up, trying to get me to ask her to prom in roundabout ways, and all I could think about was the fact that Rob was taking Tennessee Turner’s virginity not even a few feet away from me.
I heard his feral groans, like he was wrestling a pig, not making love with his high school sweetheart, and one soft sigh from her.
Four months later, Tennessee dropped out of high school and started wearing baggy clothes, and we all knew what it meant.
Didn’t help that Rob broke up with her, and in one drunken moment post-prom, while we were all getting tanked at the gazebo by the library, he climbed onto the white pagoda’s roof and hollered, “I’ve been in Tennessee and it felt hella good, y’all!”
The woman who, when asked what was good at Jerry & Sons, replied, “The restroom. Sometimes. When they get cleaned.”
This was the woman I’d trusted to book us the tickets.
I had no one to blame but myself.
In lieu of plan B, I went to locate our stateroom, which was spacious for a cruise (a low standard) but far too small to avoid a woman with a personality the size of Mississippi.
Next, I retrieved my lifejacket and headed to the muster drill.
Anyone who’s ever been on a cruise knows you have a better chance of becoming the first unicorn astronaut than getting out of muster-drill duty. Their announcements are loud enough to wake the dead, and they call your room and make your existence a living hell until you attend the mandatory exercise.
One of the cruise staff scanned my ID card, confirmed my identity, and pointed me to a seat in the corner of the stand-up comedy lounge, my assigned muster station.
While I waited to hear the thirty-minute safety spiel, I tried to think back to how Tennessee Turner had become my one (and only) enemy in Fairhope.
I knew exactly why I detested her, even though my reasons might not be so fair to her, but I hadn’t the faintest idea why she hated me.
I only knew that she did, because she was one of the very few residents in Fairhope who opted to register with a physician all the way in Wilmington instead of staying local.
After the muster drill, I stopped by the guest services desk, which had emptied up considerably, and asked about getting off on the nearest island and joining the Ecstasy.
“Well…” The representative in the extra-ironed uniform beamed timidly. “The issue wouldn’t be leaving the Elation, but finding available rooms on the Ecstasy. Not to mention, both cruise ships would have to be on the same island at approximately the same day for that to happen, which may only occur on day four, depending on the weather.”
“What happens in case of an emergency?”
“We do have an in-house medical clinic, fully equipped, and a helicopter landing pad for medical emergencies. Could you explain the situation to me? Maybe then I’ll be able to help,” the representative encouraged.
I would, but even I don’t understand it very well.
“Do you happen to have any spare rooms, then?” I sighed. “I’ll pay anything.”
Anything.
My lease on the Q8 was ending in half a second, and I was going to upgrade to a Land Rover Sport, but screw it, avoiding this woman took precedence.
“No, I’m so sorry.”
“So am I,” I muttered.
I left her my details and room number, anyway, and asked her to let me know if and when I could escape this unexpected slumber party with the elder Turner.
I think I dropped the “money is not an issue” line three or four times, which made me feel like a smarmy L.A. pimp, but desperate times screamed for desperate measures.
After that, I gave myself a tour around the popular decks, familiarizing myself with the area. As far as cruise ships went, the Elation was probably the best one I’d been on.
It had a dozen restaurants, beauty salons, two waterparks, two casinos, a tennis court, a mall, libraries, bars, a movie theater, an ice skating rink, a performing arts theater, a submarine, and a rollercoaster.
I was beginning to cool off and subconsciously (but evidently not that subconsciously) kept an eye out for Tennessee. I was still angry enough that texting her was out of the question—she’d screwed both of us over and I wasn’t done reminding her—but she’d also looked genuinely upset when we’d parted ways, and I wasn’t used to seeing her wearing any other expression than sheer, stubborn pride. Plus, I knew she was probably freaking out about being away from her son. They’d been attached at the hip from the moment he was born. That must’ve been hard realizing they weren’t on the same ship.
I secretly liked her fight.
The thumb-in-the-nose attitude she gave Fairhope. How she didn’t back down, didn’t leave, didn’t frantically try to convince everyone she was not who they thought she was.
She got a raw deal when it came to Fairhope, as far as I could tell, making one mistake, for which she’d been one-hundred percent accountable yet held one-hundred percent at fault.
True, she found it hard to concentrate and got some orders at the diner wrong every now and then, but I chalked it up to inattention or phoning in parts of a shitty job, not stupidity. Once you got talking to the woman, you could tell she was a lot of things, but by hell, she was not a moron.
I found Tennessee three hours after we’d parted ways, exactly where I was expecting to locate her—at the open bar, flashing her tanned legs and white teeth. Earlier, the check-in receptionist had confirmed all-you-can-drink packages on our ID cards.
And, of course, Tennessee being Tennessee, she’d already made good use of her package and was nursing a white cocktail, a Maraschino cherry dangling from her full lips, still in her work uniform, chatting up a man in his sixties.
Even from afar, I could tell she was shamelessly flirting. He wore Bermuda pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and a half-drunk smirk that told her wordlessly what he wanted to do to her.
She was probably working her way to his wallet. Rumor around town was that she’d gotten pregnant with Rob’s child purposefully to try to lock him down. The other option, that she genuinely wanted to frolic in the cornfield with Mr. Rich Tourist, shouldn’t have surprised me considering her reputation, but it did.
Either way, fresh anger roared in my blood when I saw her purring and giggling like all was well in the world.
I tromped my way over to her, plastering on my best, your-trusted-doctor smile as I ran my hand up her spine from behind, sprawling my fingers inside her sprayed blonde hair.
I’d have kissed her temple, too, if I didn’t think it’d result in my not being able to have children in this lifetime.
She whirled back almost violently, ripping her body from mine. When she looked at me, the beam dropped from her mouth, and I had to admit—it pissed me off even more that somehow, even though I was the town’s favorite, she was practically allergic to my face.
“Sweetheart.”
I pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, marveling at how small and aesthetically pleasing everything about her was, even when she tried hard to look like the drag queen version of Christina Aguilera.
Her lips were plump and naturally pouty, her eyes somewhere between hazel and green, and her nose was so button-y, it begged to be pinched.
“Excuse me, sir, do I know you?” she asked coldly.
She looked at me like I’d had a personality transplant, not sure where my easygoing attitude was coming from. The man glimpsed between us, turning slightly in his barstool to take me in.
“Very funny, Mrs. Weiner.” I slid between the two of them, giving him my back as I propped an elbow onto the counter. I didn’t mind being rude. No one on this cruise knew me but Tennessee, and her words were worth nothing in Fairhope. “Been lookin’ for you all over.”
“Are you…Mr. Weiner?” I heard the man ask behind me.
“The one and only,” I confirmed.
“So this is your husband?” This question was directed at her.
“Also yes,” I said, at the same time she corrected, “Cousin.”
I took a step back so they could see each other’s faces. For the first time since I’d gotten on this damn ship, I was having something that resembled, at least from afar, fun.
Tennessee’s face was as red as a ripe tomato. The old man paled, but upon a second peek of her shapely calves, squared his shoulders, and decided to give it another go.
“You’re married to your cousin?” he asked her, slowly as though deciding whether or not that was a dealbreaker.
Tennessee swung her gaze my way, pinning me with a look that promised me a slow, painful death involving fructification, starvation, and asphyxiation.
“We’re in the process of getting a divorce.” She played with her plastic earring coyly, doing her whole vixen act.
I flung my arm over her shoulder and swiveled to him.
“We were in the process of getting a divorce. We’ve decided to give it one last shot. Hence why we’re here, on this cruise. This is our make-or-break second honeymoon.”
“Where was your first honeymoon?” The man looked between us with a frown, obviously getting suspicious.
“Paris,” Tennessee said, at the same time I answered, “Fiji.”
He took a leisurely sip of his beer, waiting for us to get our stories straight.
But while I couldn’t give two shits about what he thought about me—finally, I was in an unchartered territory, where I could loosen up and be less than perfect—it was obvious from the way my companion was pretzeling her limbs and changing shades of red, that she was having a hard time trying to explain my existence.
“We went to Paris first, for a weekend, but then he wanted to go to Fiji. And we always do what he wants. That’s why we’re getting a divorce. Because it’s always Mr. Weiner’s way or the highway. He is the town’s beloved golden boy, you see.”
The man nodded knowingly, burying his hand into a bowl of wasabi peas and throwing a handful into his mouth.
“Been there, done that. Twice divorced now, with three kids between the ex-wives. Life got me real good after that second divorce. Reminded me that the sun don’t shine from my ass.”
“Yes!” Tennessee clapped her hands together, delighted to have an ally. “I don’t wish bad on a lot of people, but I hope my soon-to-be-ex-husband learns that he is, in fact, mortal.”
“I don’t think you’re telling him the whole story, sweetheart.” I unfurled my arm from her shoulder to grab her mysterious white cocktail, taking a sip. It tasted of coconut, charred marshmallow, and gin. “Tell him why we really found ourselves in a marital pickle in Fiji.”
She opened her mouth to stop me, but I was too far gone, driven by vengeance and anger and something else I couldn’t exactly put a name on, but made my blood run hotter.
“What’s your name again?” I asked Mr. Rich Tourist.
“Brendan.”
“So, Brendan, here I am, newly wed in Fiji, deliriously happy and deeply in love…with my cousin.”
This time I did drop a casual kiss on the crown of Tennessee’s head. I felt her stiffening beside me. Even her hair was hot with shame.
She pretended to wrap an arm around my waist, actually digging her claws into my abs, going for blood.
I ignored the pain, continuing, “I wanted to surprise her by getting her a black pearl necklace. No better place finding ’em than Fiji, amiright?”
“Pearls aren’t my favorite.” Tennessee made a show of examining her atrociously long fingernails. “They’re basically an oyster’s blisters. Did you guys know that? Oysters produce them to ease their pain when debris gets stuck in their bodies.”
“Please excuse her.” I smiled winningly, rubbing at her shoulder. “My bride here was raised by wolves. She doesn’t do well with polite conversation. Anyway, my wife had told me she was going to wait for me in the hotel. Didn’t think much of it at the time.”
“You should’ve,” Tennessee said adamantly. “I’d tried to escape our marriage five or six times at this point.”
I ignored her, chuckling as I shook my head, as if this was nothing more than our usual banter.
“Anyway, so here I am, purchasing her a grand black pearl necklace, to go with her grand black heart. I come upstairs to our room, and lo and behold…she is not alone.”
Tennessee rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her generous cleavage when she was sure she’d drawn enough blood under my shirt.
“It was the maintenance guy. My loving husband made a mess and clogged the toilet after going ham on the seafood the evening before.”
I continued, feeling reckless, and unhinged, and completely un-like myself for the first time in years.
“Sweetheart, I don’t know what he told you, but what I caught him doing had nothing to do with unclogging the toilet and everything to do with bottlenecking you.”
Good ol’ Brendan choked on his beer, coughing and spitting some of the foam and pea wasabi. A bartender arrived, handing us three tall glasses of water. Brendan downed his in less than two seconds.
“You cheated on him?” He jerked his thumb my way, his face thundering as he took Tennessee in.
She shrugged noncommittally. “He cheated first. With my sister.”
“Maybe so, but you were the one who brought a third participant into our marriage.”
She twisted her head and threw me a violent stare. “You were the one who wanted a threesome!” She jabbed her finger in my chest.
“I’m talking about the gonorrhea.”
“Okay then.” Brendan stood up, patting his pockets to ensure his wallet, phone, and dignity were all in one place. “I’m going to head to my room now. Y’all obviously have some things to resolve, and frankly, it’s getting a little late and I had a big dinner. It was nice meeting you, Mr. and Mrs.…Weiner.”
The last name was uttered with a wince.
I waved him off with a smile. “Sure thing. Maybe we’ll catch a game of golf sometime.”
“Yeah. I don’t know about that. I’m not much of a golfer.”
He was already on the other side of the bar. World’s tiniest violin for this creeper.
I wrapped my arm around Tennessee and squeezed, my smile broadening.
“Say goodbye to him, cuz.”
“I’m going to kill you,” she muttered.
“Oh, sweetheart, not if I kill you first.”
