Page 34 of Love on Deck

He dipped his head. “Am I allowed to check on you as a friend?”

“You don’t really qualify for that, either.”

Hurt splashed over his face, but it was gone as quickly as it came. I questioned whether I’d seen it at all. He gave me a lazy, cocky smile. “Either way, you’re saddled with me, Sunshine. Let’s make the most of it and get ourselves some soft serve.”

“Ice cream?”

He shrugged.

It was late morning, but the sun was beating down on us. That actually sounded really good. “I could go for a cone.”

Jack dipped his head in a quick nod and turned toward the stairs again, one of his hands slung in his pocket. He was so perfectly casual. So unaffected.

“You must’ve had a really nasty breakup,” I mused.

He lifted one dark eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“Because you’re desperate to keep me around at all times in case you run into Sydney. What did she do? Key your car or hide out in your garage to collect clippings of your hair?”

“I actually had a garage at my old apartment, but not anymore.” He sounded distant, lost in dreams. “But no, she didn’t stalk me. You’d think we dated for years based on the number of voicemails she left after I ended things, though. It wasn’t pretty.”

Yikes. “Did you ever try calling her back and reasoning with her?”

Jack nodded. “Multiple times. She just begged and begged. It wasn’t her most dignified moment.”

I appraised him, trying to see what it was that Sydney couldn’t seem to let go of. Yeah, he was really attractive, if you were into the whole cut jawline and muscles thing. But he wasn’t the only hot businessman in Dallas.

“I know, I don’t get it either,” he said, holding the door for me to exit the Adults Only section of the ship.

“That’s not what I was thinking.” It was exactly what I was thinking. I caught a whiff of his cologne as I walked past him and tried to school my expression not to show how much I liked those hints of sage and citrus. “Begging? That’s a bit much.”

“I would put money on the fact that you’ve never begged anyone for anything in your entire life,” he said.

“That’s a weird observation to make.”

A smirk played over his lips, drawing my attention there. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I won’t feel ashamed of having self-respect.” When Derek broke up with me, I’d packed all the things he’d left in my car and apartment and quietly left them on his front porch. It was raining then, and a few of those items were entirely constructed of paper—namely, the books he’d borrowed from his boss—but I didn’t make a big deal out of the breakup and never once asked him to reconsider. Why would I want to date a man who didn’t want me?

Jack pretended to shoot a basketball in the air and made a swish sound. “Point for me.”

We reached the soft-serve machine and each pulled out a styrofoam-flavored cone. He gestured for me to go first, and I twirled vanilla soft serve twice as high as I should have. I was licking the peak off the top when Annie popped through the door that led to the buffet. Her blonde hair was in two braids and she sported a light pink cowboy hat that went with her pink shorts.

She threw her arms in the air. “My fourth favorite cousin! And his friend!”

Jack swore under his breath. He finished topping off his ice cream and turned to face Annie. “Fourth? I thought I was at least number two.”

Annie gave him a sassy grin. “Colt helped Levi remove a dead tree from our property a few weeks back. Had to bump him right on up to number one.”

“That won’t last,” Jack said, offering her his unadulterated ice cream cone. “Gracie won’t stand for it.”

She took it, licking the top. “Mmm. Thanks.”

“There’s more where that came from. Literally. It’s all-you-can-eat.”

The door swung open again to reveal her husband, Levi, in another Hawaiin shirt and cowboy boots. Jack swore again, and Annie shot him a look that clearly said play nice. Well, this was a fun development.

“I thought we’d see you around more,” Levi said, taking his wife’s cone and licking the top before giving it back to her. She didn’t seem to mind.

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