Page 35 of Falling Overboard

A few minutes later he was fast asleep, already gently snoring.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t moved. I realized that watching the movie with him was the best night I’d had in a very, very long time and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or an extremely sad remark on what I had let my life become.

Chapter Thirteen

Lucky

After my close encounter of the potentially catastrophic kind with Hunter, I knew my best bet would be to steer clear of him. The next morning I got up quietly, got ready, and then went into the galley, desperate for coffee.

I grabbed a couple of muffins and filled a disposable cup, intending to go watch the sun rise. Deciding to be nice, I filled an extra cup for Emilie and added three sugars and some cream, the way she liked it.

But as I was walking by my cabin, I heard Hunter’s alarm going off. Maybe he was in the bathroom and couldn’t reach it.

I went inside and he was lying on his bunk, unmoving.

Setting down the coffee and muffins, I walked over and nudged him, making sure not to let my hands linger. “Hunter, your alarm is going off.”

He groaned into his pillow and the sound did strange things to my abdomen. “Tired,” he grumbled.

“Here.” I held out the extra coffee. I’d get Emilie another one. He pried one eye open and then pushed himself up on his elbow to take it from me. He had been wearing a shirt when we watched the movie, but he must have removed it before he’d gone to sleep. Bare chested.Again. I smothered a sigh and instead said, “A little starter fluid for the morning impaired.”

“Plank you very much,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him, but I did smile.

“This is a little sugary,” he said.

“That’s probably because I didn’t make it for you. It’s how Emilie likes it.” When he raised both of his eyebrows in surprise, as if he didn’t think I should be getting coffee for my junior stew, I rushed to add, “My job is to anticipate the needs of people around me, including the crew.”

I handed him one of my blueberry muffins. He gave me a weird look that I didn’t know how to interpret initially, but then I started putting two and two together.

“You’re not one of those guys who doesn’t eat sugar, are you? I don’t understand why people are so against it. Who was there for you when things went bad in your life? Comforted you? It wasn’t kale.”

He gave me a sleepy grin and took a sip. “I like to eat sweet things.”

Air solidified inside my lungs. I very much wanted to be devoured by him.

“I’m a little surprised you eat muffins,” he added.

“Of course I do,” I said, trying to ignore the way my heart had jumped into my throat and was fluttering wildly. “Eating muffins is a way to basically have cake for breakfast without people asking you if you’re okay.”

That earned me a lazy laugh from him. “The last woman I dated wouldn’t eat carbs at all.”

My feelings very quickly shifted from excitement to not knowing how to respond. What did that have to do with anything? Obviously his last girlfriend and I were not in the same category. To quoteSesame Street, one of these things was not like the other.

He had to have meant it as a general observation that he was applying to all women. Not to women he wanted to date. Because he and I were friends. Bunkmates.

Nothing more.

“That’s sad,” I finally said, my brain still parsing through all the possible interpretations of what he’d just said, regardless of how improbable my conclusions might be.

Hunter had another sip of his coffee. “She was obsessed with being a size zero.”

That was one thing I had going in my favor. I did not care about my size or whether I was too fat or too skinny for someone else. I was just me.

I had my nonna to thank for that. “A waist is a terrible thing to mind.”

Another chuckle from him. “Why do we have to get up this early again?”

---