Page 128 of Ship Wrecked

ALL DEATH AND NO AENEAS MAKES DIDO A PISSED GIRL, she’d texted in the cast chat, if Peter recalled correctly.HEEEEEEEEEEERE’S PYRO DIDO!

“Also, April, my good bitch...” Carah saluted the redheaded geologist. “Thank you for helping Marcus be his best fucking self. One might even say: You rock.”

A chorus of groans rang out.

“We literally just came from this amazing rock and mineral warehouse in Vacaville,” April cheerfully admitted. “There’s no shame in my geology game.”

“Really?” Alex sat up a little, brows raised high. “That’s all it took? For both of you?”

A few seconds passed before everyone got it. Then Lauren smacked his arm, and April, normally an unflappable scientist, blushed a little as she glanced at Alex and giggled.Giggled.

Marcus scowled at his BFF and tugged April tighter to his side.

Carah rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing you’re hot, Woodroe.”

“Wren agrees.” With a wink, he lowered his head back to his girlfriend’s lap.

Determinedly, Carah turned away from him. “To Maria and Peter, the last of our main cast. Or, rather, the last of our main cast who isn’t a tuna-obsessed asshole with what appear to be tiny biceps on top of his biceps.”

Peter could almost feel sorry for Ian. Perhaps hewouldhave felt sorry for him—if Ian weren’t, in fact, a tuna-obsessed asshole who’d alienated the rest of the cast and lorded his ostensible status over the crew. But he was, so Peter wouldn’t shed any tears for the guy.

“Maria, everything I’ve seen about your next movie makes me want to get in line right fucking now. Woman-on-the-run flicks are my motherfuckingjam.” When Carah leaned forward, she and Maria fist-bumped. “And I can’t tell you how goddamn happy I am that you’re here in LA for good, my most vicious of bitches.”

“Me too.” Maria directed her effervescent smile toward all their friends before meeting Peter’s gaze for a long, speaking moment. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

A message to everyone, but also to him in particular.

As she knew, he still worried about her distance from her family. Because that distance was a sacrifice, and one she’d made for him and him alone, no matter how much she genuinely adored their castmates. And she’d never made him feel guilty about it, but he wanted her to have absolutely everythingshewanted, and it hurt that he couldn’t provide that for her.

But he could do better. Hewoulddo better, and it started tonight.

Carah continued, “Peter, my beardy bro, you’ve been racking up the goddamn wins lately. That lead role inYoung MacDonaldis the part you were fucking born to play, dude. I mean, a surly but sexy city-guy veterinarian newly arrived in a small rural town? With his own farm?Score.”

He would agree. Mostly. Except when it came to all the fuckingcows, Jesus Christ almighty,so many fucking cows.

But he loved the character of Jack MacDonald, and the series mainly shot in LA, so he supposed he was willing to risk death by malicious trampling. Best of all, the pilot had already been picked up, and they were guaranteed at least one full season.

If they got a second season, maybe he could convince the writers that Young MacDonald only liked chickens or sheep oranything, really,anything at allother than fuckingcows.

It would also help if Maria would stop fuckingmooingat him at unexpected moments, then cackling in delight when he jumped out of his skin. And whenever he suggested afterward that her blue cupboard or her boots might be a tad shit-filled, she only laughed harder.

The Danes had been right all along: Swedes were a cruel people.

“Your other huge win, of course, is that fine piece of Nordic ass at your side.” Carah’s appreciative wolf whistle was low and long, echoed by others in the room, and followed by cheers and applause. “How you were lucky or clever enough to drag thatgorgeous Valkyrie to the altar, I’ll never know, but congratulations, Peter. Well done, you sneaky fucking beardo.”

He hadn’t actually dragged Maria to an altar, although he would have, as needed. Instead, immediately after his proposal, they’d scheduled a civil ceremony and gotten married as quickly as the law allowed. Which Carah and everyone else in the room well knew, since they’d all attended. As had Ramón, Nava, and Maria’s entire family. Not his father, though, who’d been unable to make the trip on such short notice, and Peter had been more than okay with that.

He didn’t consider himself especially clever either. Carah’sgorgeous Valkyriebit, though? And the part about him being lucky?

Entirely, breathtakingly, joyously correct.

Apart from all the mooing, obviously. That wasn’t lucky. That was annoying as hell. Which was why he planned to debut his new T-shirt tomorrow, the one readingbenny and björn: true geniuses. And below, in slightly smaller print:were there other members of abba? i don’t remember any.

She was going to lose her fucking mind.

Payback. She’d learn.

“And finally,” Carah began, an evil smile curling her lips, “to Ron and R.J., our—”

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