At Sea
“I call this meeting of the Original Renegades to order,” Pax said, lifting his Corona bottle.
We all clinked our longnecks and then tipped slightly toward where Nick sat on Skype next to Pax’s seat at the dining room table.
“You guys do realize it’s two in the morning, right? I mean, we are still in the same time zone,” Nick said, running a hand over his sleep-mussed hair.
“It’s the only time we can meet without Bobby knowing,” Landon answered.
“So whaaaaat are we doing?” I asked as I yawned. Getting back in shape meant I was exhausted by the end of the day, let alone the middle of the night.
“While we were home, I got called in by UCLA,” Pax said.
“Okay?” Landon prompted.
“There’s a threat of Gabe’s parents suing over what happened in Nepal.”
I sat up straight, my beer forgotten on the table in front of me.
“Holy shit,” Landon whispered, running his hands down his face. “I just saw him while we were home. He looked good—casts off and everything—and he sure as hell didn’t say anything about this.”
“It’s not Gabe,” Pax assured him. “His parents weren’t even telling him until after we left.”
“Scared we’d talk him out of it?” Nick asked.
“That’s my guess. He’d never go for this shit.” Landon swore.
“He signed a waiver,” I said. “We all did. Hell, even Leah has a waiver on file. How the hell can they sue us?”
“They’re not suing us,” Pax answered quietly, opening the manila file in front of him. “They’re threatening to sue UCLA for not supervising the Renegade Program, which they’re saying is the cause of Gabe’s injury.”
“Fuck that!” Landon hissed. “Gabe got hurt because we tried to board one of the most dangerous ridgelines in the world at twenty-one thousand feet with little to no acclimatization in avalanche conditions, and guess what? An avalanche happened. We were all more than aware of the safety risks, and we chose to ride anyway. He knows that.”
I crossed my flannel-pajama-clad legs under me and leaned my elbows on the table, resting my forehead on my palms. In the ten years since we’d started the Renegades as a lark in Pax’s backyard to the last five where we’d become a corporation, no one had ever come after us directly. Let alone a member of our own Renegade family. It was unthinkable.
But here we were, thinking about it.
“Okay, so what’s the solution?” I asked. “Brandon has one, right? If they’re not coming after us, it’s because Brandon shut them down before they had a chance.”
“Right. Our waivers indemnify us, and it helps that we all signed an additional one specifically for Nepal. But the school is another issue. They’re in agreement that we need supervision.”
“Did you tell them you own this ship?” Nick questioned.
“Yeah, they weren’t impressed. Not with a lawsuit being threatened. I talked to Brandon, guys. We’re stuck unless we agree to a faculty member to sit in a supervisory role.”
“They think we need a damned chaperone?” Landon snapped.
Pax’s eyes shot up the stairs. “If you wake Leah, we’re going to have words. She has a huge math test tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes, not bothering to tell him I had the same test slated for tomorrow. When it came to Leah, there was no speaking logic to Pax. “Fine. So we pick a faculty member to sign off as what? A sponsor, like we’re some kind of after-school club?”
“They have to be on-site.”
Landon’s beer sprayed from his mouth, raining Corona all over the table in front of us. “I’m sorry, you’re saying they have to go on the stunts with us? What the hell are we going to do? Strap Professor Lawson onto an ATV and tell him to hit the ramps? The guy has got to be seventy.”
“Seventy-two, actually,” Pax answered. He pulled a list of names and put it in front of us. “That’s every teacher on this ship. I’ve narrowed our options down to the two most likely to say yes.”
“The two youngest, I’m assuming?” Nick asked. “They’ve got to be able to keep up.”
“The two you can find some way to partially keep happy enough to let us do whatever the hell we want, or the end of this documentary is screwed,” Landon added.
Of course I knew the answer. He was over six feet tall and two hundred and thirty pounds of carved muscle. He was in better shape than most of the Renegades and had experience jumping out of planes. He was the perfect option, and the only one I didn’t want.
“Cruz,” I whispered.
“What?” Pax asked.
Shit.
“Dr. Delgado. His first name is Cruz,” I said, keeping my eyes open and honest. These guys were my brothers, pretty much the only siblings I had left, and if I didn’t have to lie, I wasn’t going to.
Pax looked down at his papers, and his eyebrows shot up. “She’s right.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Landon asked.
“Oh, come on. I know you guys think you’re the hottest guys on the ship, but trust me, girls talk, and while you’re the old-and-monogamous, he’s the new hotness. Ask any woman on this ship, including your girlfriends, and she’ll be able to tell you. Besides, sometimes he runs at the same time I do,” I finished.
The three of them stared at me like I had three heads—like somehow in the midst of all the bikes, jumps, and stunts, they’d forgotten that I was a girl.
“Dude’s in shape,” Landon said with a shrug. “I’ve seen him in the gym, and I have no doubt he could keep up with us, or even pass us up.”
If Cruz became our faculty sponsor, he’d be with us on every stunt. Every excursion. Every overnight. Between Renegade business and class, I’d never escape him. I cursed my traitorous heart, which sped up at the thought of spending so much time with him. The logical side of me knew it was the worst thing we could agree to. The sexual tension between us was heavy enough to anchor this damn ship, and if we spent that much time together, it was only a matter of time before we crossed that line again…
Or someone noticed.
“Is there anyone else we could consider?” I asked.
“Miss Gibson is the next youngest,” Pax answered.
“You guys could probably charm her,” I admitted, then sighed, knowing what was going to be said next.
“Yeah, but Delgado could keep up with us, and by the look of him, he might actually be down for the shit we pull,” Landon added.
“He’s right,” Pax agreed. “I could see Miss Gibson nixing everything that’s perfectly safe, just because she doesn’t understand what we do.”
Cruz wouldn’t back down, but I couldn’t tell them that. They’d ask how I knew about his military experience, or the fact that he had zero fear when we’d jumped from the High Roller. I swallowed as a lump fought for supremacy in my throat. I’d never had a secret I couldn’t tell these guys, never had a problem that we couldn’t all solve together, and here I was hiding the fact that I’d been trying to contact the woman who nearly destroyed us, because I missed her, and I had wildly inappropriate thoughts about the guy they wanted to bring on as our sponsor.
But I was a Renegade first.
“We ask Delgado first. He’s the best choice.”
“Agreed.” One by one they spoke the word that sealed my fate.
…
The hallway on the academic deck was packed when Rachel caught up to me. “So, Landon just told me.”
“Told you…?”
“About Dr. Delicious being our new sponsor?” She raised her eyebrows at me.
“Don’t call him that.” I looked down at my watch. Fifteen minutes until the math test I should have rested for. Instead, I’d spent my night rolling around my bed, unable to sleep, finally sitting on my deck to watch the sunrise as we pulled into the port of Cabo San Lucas. I was going to be anything but on my game for this afternoon’s stunt.
She lowered her voice. “Fine. Whatever. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Seriously? I haven’t forgotten what I walked in on. I just gave you a little space.”
“Shh!” I hushed her, knowing we were coming up on Cruz’s classroom. “You walked in on nothing.” Liar.
“Yeah, okay, and the Statue of Liberty is a knickknack. Look, if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. I just know that you usually…”
“Talk to my sister?” I asked.
“Or the guys.”
I snorted. The guys would be the last people on Earth I told about Cruz. They’d never understand, and then they’d get all protective, and crap would get really bad really fast.
I paused in the hallway, taking her hand with my free one. “I appreciate what you’re saying. And if there were anything to tell, as crazy as it sounds, you’d be the person I’d come to.” It surprised me how true that was, how the one person I used to hate more than anyone was the only person I knew I could trust with this if I had to.
But there was nothing to tell. Cruz had drawn that line.
“Miss Carstairs.” His voice came from behind me as if I’d summoned him, and I realized that we were stopped in front of his doorway.
Rachel lifted a single eyebrow at me, and I made the “what?” face at her before turning around.
“Dr. Delgado?”
Ugh, he looked good today. Gray slacks that made his ass appear in desperate need of a grab, and a rolled black shirt with a silver tie. Did he know how to wear his shirts any other way? I kinda hoped not.
“I need to see you for a second, if you’ll come in and shut the door.”
“Yeah, nothing to tell,” Rachel whispered over my shoulder.
“I’ll meet you back at the room after class.”
“Uh-huh,” she said with another roll of her eyes, but she walked off.
Doing as Cruz asked, I walked into his room and closed the door behind me. “Yes, Dr. Delgado?” I asked with exaggerated innocence.
“Knock it off,” he said, sitting back on his desk.
“Oh, this isn’t where I tell you that I need a little extra credit and drop to my knees?” I asked playfully, leaning against the desk across from him.
“Not funny,” he said, looking at me with barely leashed hunger. At least I wasn’t the only sexually frustrated one in the room.
“Why did you want to see me?”
He turned and grabbed a small stack of papers. “Tell me why I should sign these.”
All humor drained out of me like someone had pulled the drain on a bathtub. “The sponsorship papers?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn, Pax is fast.” It was only nine a.m. for crying out loud.
“Yeah, and insistent.”
“What did he offer as terms?” I asked, holding my math books to my chest like a shield.
“A raise that would let me pay off my grandmother’s house before we dock in Miami.”
“Go figure. Pax throws money at a problem,” I muttered.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. You take it. Hell, I’d pretty much sell my soul to pay off your grandmother’s house, and I’ve only met the woman once.”
“Wait, you want me to do this? I’ll be around you all the time if I agree. You’re on my class excursions, and I’d be on all your stunt trips. Is this really what you want?” His forehead puckered like he was trying to figure me out.
Good luck with that.
“No, I don’t want you to,” I answered.
His shoulders fell…in disappointment of losing the money? Or losing the chance to be around me?
“Do you want me to turn it down?” he clarified.
“No,” I said quietly. “I don’t want that, either.”
“Penelope.” He sighed in frustration.
“Is it just the money? Because if it’s about your grandma’s house, I can arrange to have that paid—”
“You will do no such thing,” he snapped. “I’m well aware how much money you have. Hell, the Wilder kid throws it around without even realizing it. Do you even grasp how ludicrous it is that a twenty-two-year-old kid owns a damn cruise ship?”
I hadn’t honestly. Pax’s dad was preparing to step down from Wilder Enterprises, and— “Damn, you actually think that’s normal. It’s like we live on two different planets.”
“I just didn’t want you doing this for the money, especially being around me more than you have to. I can’t help what I was born into.”
He put his empty hand up, palm out. “I know. I’m sorry. Just tell me what you want me to do. If you want me as your sponsor, if you need me, I’ll do it.”
“Do you want to do it?” I asked.
“Follow you guys around while you do impossibly cool and reckless shit? Sure, I’m down for it—as you well know. But there are other things to consider.”
“Things like you…and me.” But not us.
“Yes. We’d be together a lot.”
“What does that matter? You drew a line. I’m respecting it.” I shrugged like I didn’t care, when it couldn’t have been further from the truth. The more time I spent with him, the more I wanted.
“I didn’t draw a line, school policy did. If I’m going to join on to the Renegades as your sponsor, let’s make sure that’s crystal clear, Penelope.”
“Penna,” I corrected him. “Or Rebel, your choice.”
“I’m sorry?” He put the papers down and crossed his arms over his chest.
“If you are going to come into my world, then it’s Penna or Rebel. Your Penelope doesn’t exist in the Renegades. I’m Rebel, an Original, a four-time X Games medalist, one of which is in an all-male category. I don’t go soft and doe-eyed for boys, because I worked too damn hard to get where I am to be a piece of ass for some guy on the circuit. If you want to take this job as our sponsor, I support you. Hell, you’re the best fit for the position, honestly. But you have to realize that you don’t know the girl who goes out there—you’ve barely gotten a glimpse of who I am.”
“I know you,” he challenged.
“You don’t,” I threw back, knowing it was partially a lie. He knew who I was in the marrow of my bones, in all the ways that really mattered, but I wasn’t only the person he saw, and he was missing too much of the full puzzle to say he knew me. I shook my head, fully aware this was stupid, that we were putting ourselves and his career at risk by spending this much time together, but also realizing this would give him the means to take care of his grandmother.
“Sign the papers, Dr. Delgado,” I said, moving to leave.
“That’s it? That’s your advice in all this? There’s nothing else you have to say?”
I paused at the door and turned to him, loving and hating the way he stripped me to the barest of truths with a simple look. But I was going to have to get used to it if he was going to be with me on every stunt, every trip. I couldn’t let him affect me.
A smirk played at my lips until it turned into a laugh, the irony of this situation almost too much to handle.
“Maybe one more piece of advice.”
“Please, do tell me.”
“Keep up.”
