“Why?” she asked as Dean wrapped his arm around her shoulders and dragged her away.
Thank god Josephine had the sense to follow him.
I stayed right where I was and finished off the beer I stole from Josephine with a sense of determination. As soon as I was done, I popped the cap off another one. Drinking away my problems was a new endeavor for me, one that I knew would never work in the long run. For now, I was only concerned with the next six hours (i.e. being stuck on a fucking boat with Josephine while my hormones raged inside me like a fourteen-year-old).
My plan was to drink beer until my vision blurred and my limbs went numb. That way I wouldn’t be in any danger of doing something stupid with Jo. I’d fully committed to my drinking-induced-coma plan when one of Dean’s friends, Kiki or Kenzie or something, sidled up beside me on the edge of the deck.
“Is that one for me?” she cooed, glancing down at the beer beside my foot. I glanced at her, back down to the drink, and then I shrugged. I wanted to tell her to go find her own drink. I had no clue how long we were sailing and there was a finite amount of liquor, but if she wanted to steal my beer, then so be it. I wasn’t an asshole.
“All right then,” she said with a laugh, like I was being funny.
I wasn’t.
“Are you usually this quiet?” she asked, turning toward me so that her knee bumped against mine. I studied the contact, wondering if there would have been a spark between us before Josephine had weaseled her way into my life, cause there sure as shit wasn’t one now.
I took a deep breath and cut her some slack.
“No. I’m in a quiet mood today,” I muttered.
“Strong and silent type, eh?”
I ignored the urge to turn around and find Josephine, to see if she was hanging out with Dean or if she’d found a different guy to spend time with. There were plenty of guys on the boat. Plenty of them who were smart enough to realize Josephine was the best option, the only option, to spend time with during our voyage out into the…
Where?
The New York harbor?
“Where the hell are we even going?”
The girl beside me giggled again. “Out into the open-ocean! Like real sailors!”
I scanned over her. Sailors don’t wear high heels, but I decided not to point that out to her.
“You know what? On second thought, I think I’m going to need that beer back.”
She scrunched her brows in confusion.
I pointed to the drink in her hand.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
That pretty much sealed my fate. She muttered something about me being a brooding asshole as I walked away, but I just tipped my bottle to her and swallowed down another mouthful of now-lukewarm beer.
Cheers, assholes.
After my fifth beer, I knew I’d made a mistake. I needed to slow down. We were in open ocean, out far enough that if I decided I’d had enough and wanted to jump ship, I’d only manage to swim back about halfway before getting eaten by sharks. I cringed at the thought. As terrible as that experience sounded, at least I’d be done with the charade I was playing. I’d be far away from Josephine and her siren call.
“What’s your plan here, Julian? To drink up all of my good beer until we’re left with the girly shit?” Dean asked, leaning against the rail next to me.
I ignored his line of questioning and peered over my shoulder to see if Josephine was still chatting with some guy near the bow of the ship.
“Who’s that she’s talking to?” I asked, lacking my usual knack for subtlety.
“That’s Eric, one of my managers at The Merchant.”
He was looking at Jo like she was water in the desert.
“Is he into women?” I asked.
Dean choked on his beer.
“I’m not sure. Want me to ask if he’s interested in you?”
I resisted the urge to punch him in the face.
“Why don’t you go tell him that if he keeps talking to Jo, we’re going to have a big problem.”
Even to my drunk ears, I knew I sounded like a douchebag, and not even an intimidating douchebag at that.
“Wow. You want me to tell him you’ll be waiting for him by the flagpole at recess?”
Dean was laughing, but I couldn’t find the humor in the situation. I was frustrated beyond my boiling point. Something was about to happen and if I wasn’t careful, I’d do something that could ruin my relationship with Jo.
“Well, if you don’t like them talking, I wouldn’t turn around now,” he said.
Of course, like a fucking idiot, I turned to look over my shoulder and saw Eric rubbing sunscreen on Josephine. She’d pulled her cover-up down to expose her shoulders and back, and Eric looked like a man finding a bag of treasure at the end of a rainbow.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Dean shook his head. “It’s nothing, man. They aren’t fucking, dude.”
“Yet!” I said, throwing my empty beer bottle into the bin a few feet away. The glass slammed against the other bottles as I pushed off the railing.
“Where are you going?” Dean asked as I walked away, toward my demise.
“To get Josephine.”
He laughed. “Try not to get any blood on my boat in the process.”
I wasn’t going to make any promises.
Chapter Nineteen
Josephine
The name of the game was avoidance. I was avoiding Julian’s stare as he watched me from afar the entire morning. I was avoiding my desire to glance his way, to confirm that the girls were leaving him alone. He kept his distance, but his gaze had a way of constantly reminding me that he was there, on the boat, just as sexy and unattainable as he’d ever been.