Page 38 of Falling Overboard

That suddenly seemed like a stupid rule.

“I just like exercising,” he added.

My unthinking response was, “I can tell.”

This was what happened when I let my body run the show. We said bonkers things.

“Do you like exercising?” he asked.

I liked watching him exercise. Did that count? “I do crunches sometimes. Cap’n in the morning, Nestlé at night.”

He laughed and came over to me. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“The crew is going out tonight and I came to invite you along.”

“Lucky Salerno, are you asking me out on another date? I don’t know, things seem to be moving pretty quickly between us.”

I would not be baited. He loved tormenting me. “Ha ha. Everyone is going. Not just me.”

“You say everyone is going, I say it sounds like a date.”

“Not a date. We’re leaving at nine o’clock, where we’ll then go out and drink our body weights in alcohol.”

“I’ll be there, ready to dock and roll.”

“No puns,” I reminded him.

“There’s nothing I can do about that. I’m already giving you the best that I’ve yacht.”

I let out a little groan while he laughed. “Nine o’clock,” I reminded him.

“Nine o’clock,” he repeated. “For our date.”

I shook my head and left the garage. Despite me repeatedly assuring him this wasn’t a date, my heart was currently beating like it was.

Chapter Fourteen

Lucky

We were approaching the dock and the exterior crew were on their radios calling out distances to the captain as he brought the yacht in.

“Fenders!” I heard Thomas say as theMio Tesorocame to a slow crawl. Sometimes the interior would assist in tricky situations, like when the yacht was being narrowly positioned between two other ships. No one had called for us to help lower the inflatable cushions this time.

They probably should have. I had just finished helping Georgia and Emilie with packing up the guests’ luggage when I both heard and felt a loud crunching noise as we made contact with the dock, hitting wood and concrete.

Captain Carl’s extensive litany of expletives filled the primary cabin and I turned the volume on my walkie-talkie down as I ran up to the deck.

All the guests were watching Thomas and François as they circled around Hunter, who had apparently failed to get his fender down in time, resulting in the ship smacking into the dock. I leaned over the side to get a better look.

This had happened once before, on one of my previous ships, but that had been a much harder hit. The damage to theMio Tesorolooked to be mostly superficial, though it would cost a few thousand dollars to repair it.

It could have been much worse.

The fender was put into place and the deckhands began throwing their lines so that they could be tied off by the dockworkers.

Once everything was secure, Captain Carl came down to where Thomas, François, and Hunter waited.

I half expected the captain to lose it in front of the guests, despite the fact that I’d never seen him do so before. This was a very big screwup.

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