Page 32 of Total Ship Show

I bite my tongue so I don’t laugh recalling her grumpy mood this morning when she told me about listening to Jock Strap James and her friend Pippa go at it all night.

“I’m sure you’ll sleep even better tonight, Babe.” I rub her shoulders and give her a friendly smile.

My brother Aiden watches the two of us with narrowed eyes and I can tell he wants to know all there is to know about Adrienne. He’s always been the one to question any non-family member that us boys would bring home. Male or female, he’s always felt the need to learn all he can about that person. I swear he missed his calling as a private investigator or something along those lines. I’ve never thought anything of that part of his personality, and maybe it’s just because I’m a little on edge around my family these days but seeing the look in his eye tonight makes me a bit nervous. He’s a lion ready to pounce, only tonight, I feel like Adrienne and I are the vulnerable prey.

Maybe I didn’t prepare her for this enough. I can’t believe I forgot to remind her of the Tayla thing.

“So, Tayla, where did you go to school?” Aiden prompts. “Did you grow up on the west coast?”

Adrienne nods. “Yep. Always a west-coast native. I grew up in Oregon. Graduated from Oregon State.”

“Go Beavers!”

She beams. “That’s right.”

My dad chuckles. “Is that what made you want to specialize in Beaver conservation?”

Adrienne points to my dad and winks. “Oh, I see what you did there, Mr. McElfry, and that’s probably the answer I should give people but actually, no.”

Aiden rests his chin on the top of his hand. “So why beavers then? Of all the animals in the world.”

Adrienne glances down at her food. Her cheeks redden and an embarrassed grin spreads across her face.

Oh, God. Here it comes.

Her creativity knows no bounds.

“Honestly? I saw a video once of a beaver trying to cross the road carrying this huge tree limb. Some guy stops his car and gets out and the beaver looks at him like, ‘Dude, help a furball out would ya?’ and so the guy picks up the other end of the tree limb and the beaver keeps going as this guy helps him across the street. Animal and human working together. It was euphoric to witness.”

Everyone at the table smiles.

She shrugs. “I thought the beaver was the cutest thing first of all, but then I started thinking about the determination of certain animals and the way they use their strengths to fortify their habitats and continuously develop their environments. They don’t let big things, big tasks, deter them. Not just beavers but so many other animals and insects. I mean have you ever seen an ant sleep? Or a bee? Those little guys are working around the clock. They’re not like humans who sometimes like to take the easy way out and say things are too hard. Work is too hard. Household chores are too hard. No, those little guys just keep going.” She inhales a deep breath. “Anyway, all that happened around the time I needed to pick a specialty sooo…” She lifts her hands. “Bam. Beavers. I would’ve loved to do something like sea turtles but sea turtles in their natural habitat are hard to come by in Oregon.”

Adrienne grabs for her wine, taking a huge gulp as my family looks on captivated with her story.

And I’m over here in shock at how masterfully she just made up that story on the fly. Did she really see a video with a beaver in it and just chose to go with that or has she been cooking up this story all day? Either way it was genius and I need to remember to tell her how amazing she is later.

And she thinks she can’t act.

Like a smack to my forehead, a memory hits me out of nowhere. A memory of me telling my best friend, Kohen, that his now wife, Kim, was his beaver.

“I’m just sayin’, when a woman knows your kryptonite and not only stands by you, but holds your hand through it, she’s a keeper as far as I’m concerned. I think you found your beaver, Koh.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your beaver. Beavers mate for life. They’re like…in the three percent of animals that are monogamous or some shit like that.”

Weird how things like this pop up when you least expect them to. Now I find myself staring at this woman beside me, my head tilted, my eyes zeroed in on her beautiful face wondering if this is some sort of odd sign.

It’s not like the universe hasn’t woven the two of us together in peculiar ways over the past forty-eight hours.

What if this is the universe’s way of showing me the key to my future? Right here in this self-proclaimed beaver-loving woman?

* * *

“Wow you weren’t kidding when you said the view was amazing.” Adrienne stands against the balcony of my sea-view stateroom gazing out on the open waters. Everything around us is dark except for what light comes from the surrounding decks above and below us. There are no other ships as far as the eye can see and the only other illumination above the water is the moon and remarkably decorated starry night.

“Peaceful, isn’t it?” I lean on the doorframe of the sliding glass door watching her hair blow in the breeze of the night. Still wearing her stunning red dress, she’s picture perfect, and I seriously have no idea how I’m going to sleep tonight knowing she’s asleep next to me. The forbidden fruit I have no business touching. She’s doing me a favor and I simply invited her here to get her away from her ex. Not for any sort of sexual favors even though they’ve absolutely been floating through my mind since we left for dinner number one earlier this evening.

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