Page 140 of Falling Overboard

I left the bridge and went down to my cabin. I stood there, not sure of what to do. I had to pack up immediately. I knew that.

This was all my fault. If I had been more honest with the captain from the beginning, maybe things would have turned out differently. If I’d had the guts to tell him about how lazy Emilie was, she would have been long gone and I wouldn’t be here, trying to gather up all my belongings.

I had tried so hard to protect everyone, including myself, that I’d only made things worse. I should have been truthful about how I felt and what was happening. The problem was my emotions were a whirling, tangled mess of confusion and I couldn’t see my way clear.

Georgia came running in, panicked. “What happened?”

Thomas must have told her. “I got fired. The captain knows about me and Hunter.” I shared all the other details, like the list and the screenshots. Her eyes widened with shock as I spoke.

“That’s not fair!” she said. “This is partly my fault. I made the list and I encouraged Emilie. I’ll go up there right now and straighten this out.”

“You can’t,” I said. “Then you’ll lose your job, too. Your grandma relies on your help.”

“We’ve all done so much worse than you,” she said in a sad voice, and I could only nod. It felt supremely unfair, but I didn’t want anyone else to lose their position here.

Thomas came into the room with my suitcase. I hadn’t expected to see it again for a very long time. “I’m sorry, Lucky. We’ll miss you around here.”

“Thanks,” I said. Impermanence. This happened all the time. I knew that even if the crew felt bad now, they would get over it quickly and go on with their lives. Nature of the beast.

“I’ll see you on the tender,” he said.

Georgia offered to help me pack and I took her up on it. We had so much practice packing and unpacking for guests that it didn’t take us very long.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this without you,” she said, hugging me tightly. I was glad that my numbness was overriding my other emotions or else I would’ve probably started crying. I couldn’t imagine not seeing Georgia every day.

“I’ll miss you,” I said, swallowing down the sob that rose up in my throat.

She walked with me to the tender. All the guests and the exterior crew were there already. They had been waiting for me.

Thomas took my suitcase and loaded it onto the smaller boat. The port here required larger ships to stay in the bay near the harbor and be ferried to the pier. It would only be a five-minute ride.

But once I saw Hunter’s face, I had no idea how I was going to make it through the next five minutes.

Chapter Forty-Six

Hunter

Thomas had told me that Lucky had been fired. I couldn’t believe that it was true. Queasiness rolled around inside my stomach and my chest felt too tight. Panic and dread pumped through my veins. I didn’t understand.

I led Lucky into the back of the tender, away from everyone else. I needed answers. Her face had gone completely pale. “What happened?”

She couldn’t be leaving. I didn’t want to be here without her.

Her voice sounded numb. “The captain knows about us. And then Emilie told him that I was part of the list, trying to get points, and showed him a screenshot of texts between Georgia and me where we were joking about me being with you. Emilie took a picture of you and me together in the primary cabin.”

I wanted to punch something. “This is my fault. I told her I was going to talk to the captain about things she had done, and she must have gone to him as some kind of preemptive strike.”

She must have been planning to do this for a while. I’d dismissed her as harmless but she was some kind of criminal mastermind out to get Lucky.

How had I not seen this coming?

“Or she did it because you two were having some lovers’ spat,” she said angrily.

Now I was really confused. “What?”

“You kissed Emilie. You were cheating on me.”

Emilie had kissed me. Did Lucky really have so little faith in me? Did she think I was like every other guy she’d dated? I would never cheat on her. Ever.

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