Page 21 of Totally Wrecked
He climbs down from the wheelhouse and heads off to the galley. Every time Gray moves along the bulwark, it makes me nervous. I don’t say anything, though. Can’t wrap his giant frame in cotton wool. His spells of vertigo only come on occasionally now. A year ago he could hardly walk across a room without falling over. It’s funny; the dizziness seems to settle down when he is on the water.
Gray never complains, so I don’t know when it’s bad. He's the king of being controlled. Leander doesn’t complain about his injuries either, just covers everything up with jokes and booze—and fucking anything with a pulse. But I still see it for what it is.
A Band-Aid on a whole lotta hurt. Just like this whole Samoa venture.
I’d grown up on the Ozarks, messing around on boats. Leander just wanted to get the fuck out of America, and Gray seemed most at ease on the water, so when my Samoan cousin-in-law had to put his passenger business into dry dock for a year, I’d persuaded him to let us take over the lease. Hence the Mary-Mo, and our new lives.
The ultimate Band-Aid while our wounds failed to heal.
DAISY
I’m so sore—in all kinds of ways. The days of travel have made my back and neck stiff, and my night with Killian has made some other areas very tender.
Oh, Killian.
I want to walk to the front and sneak a cuddle with Killian, but I don’t want to run into Harvey. So instead I lean against the life jacket locker and do some leg stretches and wonder how my sister is doing.
Breaking her tibia was the worst luck. Brooke had been in the competition for ten months. There are only two challenges and three other contenders left, with two men, and one woman. She’s currently way ahead in the cumulative scoring.
“I can’t lose! Not after everything! Daisy, I’m begging you. All you have to do is exist! It doesn’t matter if you don’t complete a single challenge, I just need you to be there as my body, else I forfeit everything. Please Daisy, please. I would do it for you. It means EVERYTHING.”
“It means EVERYTHING.”
She used the magic words. Words so magical, I couldn’t say no.
Obviously, being identical twins, we’ve done a classic switcheroo before—but this is next level. We’ve changed a lot since our school days, physically and mentally. Brooke is like this hardcore, crossfit-obsessed power woman, and me? I'm a marshmallow girl who likes to keep her head down and not get noticed. Brooke had gotten her eyes lasered, while I still wore glasses for driving. She loves money and attention, I love…
What do I love?
Kids, books, romance. Also crafting and Animal Crossing.
Yeah, I'm just soft, where Brooke is strong.
“No one will notice, honestly. Just keep wearing long sleeve shirts and your lack of biceps will be invisible.”
“And my lack of stamina? Clumsiness? Lack of survival knowledge?”
“Daisy, we had exactly the same upbringing. Dad was as hardcore with you as he was with me. You know all this shit.”
Dadwashardcore. He’d washed out of the army, so felt he had something to prove. One way this manifested was acting as a drill sergeant to his daughters.
“Yeah, I did know that stuff once upon a time, but I left it all behind because it wasn’t me. I’m a children’s librarian, for Pete's sake.”
Brooke had given me a hard stare.
“Come on, you do this for me and we’ll be even. I’ll split the prize money with you as well. Anyway, it’s not like you’ve got anything else going on.”
Ouch.
I am currently unemployed. Instilling kids with a love of reading is my passion, and I’d been assistant manager at an amazing library for three years.
But as of two weeks ago the funding for the children’s library had been completely axed, so my sister was correct.
“Well? Are you inundated with job offers and party invitations?”
Hardly. The only invitation I’d had recently was to take part in a class action suit against canned tuna fish.
“You’ve nothing else to do, Daisy!”
