Page 61 of Falling Overboard

My heart galloped in my chest and my mouth went dry.

Like you?

“You’re right,” I said with a fake smile. “Maybe someday, when I find a pot of gold and hell has frozen over, I’ll think about dating again.”

“Not all men are terrible,” he said. “And you only have to find the right person once.”

He made me want things I couldn’t have. Had told myself I didn’t want to have. I tried to brush off what he was saying. “Maybe I will try to date the right kind of guy when I’m done with yachting. Until then I’ll be too busy. Plus, the rules.”

I walked a bit faster toward our destination. Hunter was being a friend to me. Kind and caring. It would only make sense for him to tell me to stop dating losers when that had been the only type of man I’d dated so far.

But I yearned, literally yearned, for his words to mean something else. For him to be saying that I should date someone like him.

Or that I should just date him.

Hunter asked, “What is everyone else doing today?”

“Since we have a charter tomorrow, we won’t be able to go out tonight. We’ll just have a couple of beers on deck, like we have before. It’s a working day. When we have a whole day free, Andre likes to rent a car and explore. You could do something like that, too.”

“Oh no, I can’t rent a car.”

“Why not?”

“I may have the tiniest bit of a road rage issue.”

“That must make it hard to get places,” I said.

“Not really. Living in New York City means it’s not a problem.”

“Personally, I find it hard to imagine that you’re not actually perfect.” He was like someone a romance novelist had dreamed up.

His mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’m the furthest thing from perfect.”

“I don’t believe you,” I told him as I took off my shoes, ready to board theMio Tesoro. “I don’t want to compare, but of the two of us, I’m willing to bet you have your life much more together than I do.”

“In what way? We’re both doing the same job.”

Fair point. “For starters, I’m guessing that you don’t suffer from crippling impostor syndrome.”

“What are you an impostor at?”

“Life,” I told him.

“You can’t be an impostor at life,” he said as we walked down the stairs toward our cabin.

“You can. I feel like I never know what I’m doing and I’m faking everything.”

“Lucky, that’s adulthood. None of us know what we’re doing. We’re all faking it and trying to do our best. Nobody has to get it perfect because nobody can.”

We entered our cabin and I wished that his words were true. It would have been nice if I could believe that everyone around me was struggling as much as I was. I always felt completely alone and the odd person out.

But he made me feel like I wasn’t.

I needed to get out of this room—it suddenly seemed way too small.

“You can shower first,” I offered. I set my bag down and went to the aft deck to sit in the sun for a little while. I had to stop thinking about my bunkmate all the time. I felt like I was getting obsessive.

“Lucky! Ahoy, mate!”

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