“Help!” I screamed. But no one heard me.Yup….this is how I’m going to die.“Help!!!” I screamed again. A guy looked over the side of the yacht and pointed at me. A second later Tanner dove over the railing.Oh, thank God.
He wrapped his strong arms around me and pulled me back to the yacht. Nigel lowered a little ladder for us to climb. Tanner let me go up first. A whole crowd had gathered to see the dumb girl who’d fallen overboard.Great.My face flushed. Everyone was staring at me. No…not just me. They were staring at my breasts.
Fuck. My. Life.My coverup and bikini top must have caught on the railing as I flipped overboard. Because the only things left on my body were my bikini bottom and boots. Which meant I was flashing everyone. I threw my hands over my breasts. Incident #6 was worse than I’d ever imagined. It just kept piling on. I was still drowning in awkwardness even though I was standing ontwo shaking legs. I considered jumping overboard again to hide, but the water was too damned cold for that.
Tanner wrapped a towel around me and glared at the crowd. “Show’s over,” he said, waving everyone away.
“Thank you,” I said, my teeth chattering from the cold.
“What the hell were you thinking?” asked Tanner. “And why’d you get naked in the river? That water is freezing. Are you trying to catch a cold?"
I slapped his arm. “I didn’t mean to do either! This is all your fault. What did you put in that Kool-Aid? Did you roofie me?!”
A smile tugged on the corner of his mouth. “Ooohhh. It all makes sense now.” He laughed. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize it was spiked.”
“I’m glad you think my humiliation is so funny.” My wet hair dripped onto my shoulders. I pulled the towel tighter around myself.
“I mean…have you ever seen someone run straight into a railing and flop off the side of a yacht?”
I tried to picture it. He was right - it was pretty hilarious. “I think I might need you to reenact it for me,” I said.
“Maybe some other time.” He wrapped another towel around my shoulders and I finally stopped shivering.
“Well at least be a gentleman and immediately sell all your shares of Wineflix and Chill.”
“Why? You worked so hard to make this all possible.”
“Um…maybe because everyone in the company just saw my boobs?”And heard me yell on the dancefloor about making you cream your shorts.
“They’re probably all too drunk to remember. And you shouldn’t be too embarrassed. You have lovely boobs.” His eyes went to the knot in my towel.
“Oh yeah?” I opened my towel and flashed him.What am I doing?Oh, right. I’m still kinda drunk.Not drunk enough to tell him I loved him again, though. God, what had I been thinking? I needed to sober up and fast. I tapped the side of my face like I was trying to slap myself sobber.Yeah, I’m so drunk.
“So about what I said earlier…”Well, this conversation will definitely sober me up.
An awkward silence filled the air.
Kill me now.“I wasn’t trying to say that Ilovedyou. I was just so happy that Joe and Sierra’s relationship is a total joke. Combine that with the spiked Kool-Aid, and I chose my words poorly.”
“I really didn’t think anything of it,” said Tanner.
“Oh.”Great!So why was he staring at me like he was thinking about it? His eyebrows lowered as he continued to stare at me. I swallowed hard.
“At least, I didn’t until you totally freaked out and jumped overboard. That was my first hint that maybe you had actually meant that you love me.”
“What?” I laughed awkwardly. “Ha, no. I wasn’t freaking out about saying I loved you. I just wanted to go for a swim.”
“You’re a terrible liar. And that’s just one of the many things that I love about you.”
“Don’t mock me.”
Tanner shook his head. Then he grabbed either side of my face and looked into my eyes. “Ash. From the moment you started stalking me, I knew that you were special. But I didn’t know how special you were until you hit me with a door and laughed in my face. Seriously…who does that?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” He brushed a strand of wet hair off my face. “And that’s another thing I love about you. You never mean to do any of the crazy stuff that you do. It just comes naturally. I’m so sorry I’ve been pushing you away all this time. I’m just…I’m not used to something like this. Something real. My whole life has just been lies. Running from one city to the next. Waiting for DODO to catch up to me.”
I couldn’t speak. Or maybe I just didn’t want to speak. Or move. I just wanted this very moment to last forever.
