Page 28 of Interning For A Billionaire

“You look terrible!”

He looked great, of course. Tanned, blonde curls, big smile.

I steadied myself, holding onto the railing.

“Just give me a minute here,” I begged him.

“Not a chance!” he said, handing me a heavy bag filled with snacks and drinks. “Go put that over there, will ya?”

I felt unsteady on my feet, my stomach turning at the thought of food.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” I said.

“Are you kidding?” He slapped my back, harder than necessary.

“This is just what you need! Salt air in your lungs!”

“You sound just like dad,” I grumbled.

“Fuck you too!” He shot back at me.

Neither of us were particularly fond of or close to my father. He’d had a new girlfriend within months of my mother’s death from cancer. In the last weeks of her illness, he’d barely been to see her. I could never forgive him for that.

Our new stepmother, Crystal, didn’t like the idea of playing mommy to us and she was always making plans for us to go to boarding school and spend holidays at camp. As soon as she could convince the old man to leave us to our own devices, Crystal had my dad move away and Nathan and I moved into an apartment in the city, leaving us to our own devices. While Nathan was in college, I was supposed to finish high school, but I spent more time finishing bags of weed than homework.

Nathan and I had essentially raised ourselves.

“Don’t fall overboard,” Nathan said. “I won’t turn around for you.”

I knew he would though.

My brother had my back. Despite everything, I knew I could count on him.

I had gone out the night before with Clint as promised, a guy’s night to get his head off his troubles at home. I’d called around for a few friends to join us and we’d started off the night with drinks at Smuggler’s Cove. I was surprised by how much Clint drank and even though I tried to pace myself, I found myself drinking more than I usually did.

Nathan got us ready to leave the slip and I stumbled to my feet to help him. As soon as we got moving, I felt better. There was quite a bit of wind and the sails filled out above us. I felt the boat glide through the water and the breeze hit my face, blowing my hair back.

It felt good.

I was reminded of how my father used to take us out over weekends. Around the time my mother fell ill, we often spent our weekends with him on his boat, sailing around the bay and taking in the scenery. Crystal didn’t like sailing much, she said it mucked up her hair too much and Nathan ended up taking the boat over from my dad.

“You take the helm!” Nathan called to me as he disappeared inside.

I took over and watched the waves.

I closed my eyes briefly, cleared my mind, letting all the thoughts about work and everything else just drift away. It was easy to do so out on the open water.

“Here,” Nathan handed me a beer.

“Hair of the dog and all that!”

I thought about how the drunker Clint got, the more he kept talking about his wife and baby, how cute the little thing really was and how he was scared he was going to fuck up his second marriage just like he’d messed up his first. He was awful company and all my friends started drifting away, leaving only me and Clint ordering one round after the next.

Clint suddenly noticed, “What’s up with everyone? Where’d they go?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that they’d gone off, telling me that this was not their idea of a fun night out.

I watched some seals swimming near the boat, jumping into the air and playing in the water. The view of the city was magnificent and seeing it far behind me like that, surrounded by the open water, gave me a sense of relief.

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