“Not too shabby, huh?” I ask cheerfully, stepping out onto the balcony as the bellhop and the concierge leave.
He shakes his head, his expression unreadable.
“Oh, just you wait, sir. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” I laugh. “This trip’s gonna be all about the luxury.”
He doesn’t say anything, but his jaw tightens almost imperceptibly.
Not sure what that’s all about, I decide to get this party started. That is what I’m famous for, after all. Busting open the minibar, I’m delighted to find a couple of full-sized bottles of champagne inside. When I grab one and start to open it, I notice Hunter roll his lips between his teeth, but when I turn to look at him, the frustrated expression has been replaced by a polite smile. Pouring us each a glass, I hand him one, then grab my own, together with the bottle, and head out onto the balcony, where it’s twilight. The sun has just set, and the beach crowd is thinning out while the traffic on the main street is getting heavier as people head for the restaurants and nightclubs lining the strip.
We spend a laid-back hour on the balcony, chatting about the trip and the things we want to do this week. Hunter wants to put in some serious beach time, but other than that, he doesn’t seem to have anything specific he wants to do other than focus on relaxing.
When I start telling him a little more about the activities on board the ship, his eyes get big and round when I talk about the ship’s zip line that runs from one side to the other, suspended several decks high.
“Have you ever zip-lined before?” I ask, a giggle escaping when he shakes his head vehemently and spits out his answer.
“Fuck no! No fucking way am I doing that!”
“Oh, come on, Hunter! I think you should totally do it! It’s completely safe. I did it a couple of times on other ships. It’s such a rush, you won’t believe it!”
He shakes his head again. “Um, no. I think I’ll be quite happy to keep both my feet planted firmly on the ground. The flight here was excitement enough for me.”
I roll my eyes at him teasingly. “Well, who knows what adventures we’ll get up to this week. Never say never, Hunter Davies!”
He blinks at me for a minute and then snorts, apparently deciding a response to that comment isn’t warranted.
A while later, we walk down the main street, appropriately named Seabreeze Blvd., to find a dinner spot. Conveniently, there’s a sushi bar only a few blocks away without much of a wait, so we snag ourselves a table and order another drink.
Chapter six
Hunter
I’m pleasantly buzzed when Penn and I settle into our table at the sushi restaurant. We order drinks, but we also ask for waters. I’m sure neither of us wants to start the trip with a hangover.
“Hey, would you mind ordering for both of us?” Penn asks as we’re checking out the menu. “I pretty much like everything, and I don’t want to order stuff you don’t like.”
“Um, sure,” I say. I don’t usually order for other people, but there's something oddly exciting about it when Penn asks. I’m sure Serah would say it’s my control freak tendencies coming out, and maybe she’s right, but I like it. There’s something about taking care of Penn that makes me feel good. It’s ridiculous, though, because if he really wanted someone to take care of him, he could just pay someone to do it. I mean, god, the hotel he booked for us tonight is unlike anything I’ve seen except for on TV. It’s posh in ways I’ve never experienced. I could barely contain my gasp when the person who checked us in started listing off all the amenities we have access to, like a private butler and a chauffeur, but Penn just took it all in stride. Plus,I don’t know a lot about wine, but even our little pre-dinner drink on the balcony probably cost more than my first car. The bottle of champagne he popped open like it was literally nothing is worth hundreds of dollars. It made me uncomfortable as hell for a few minutes because it felt like an ostentatious display of wealth. But watching him be so cavalier about spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, was probably a necessary reminder that Penn and I are from very different worlds. I know he’s not the same as the little fuckers who used to mess with me when I was a kid, but the simple fact is there could never be anything more than friendship between Penn and me. There’s not enough common ground between us.
Serah’s always telling me I’m too serious, and she’s probably right, but the fact is that life is a serious business, and if you want to get ahead and be successful, you need to take things like your money and your career seriously. I don’t know if I'll ever want a family of my own, but one thing is certain—if I do have kids, I’ll be making damn sure they’ll never get teased or bullied for being the poorest kid in the neighborhood, the way I was. That means my job and my finances are important, and I need to treat them that way. Someone like Penn Thompson, who lives the high-life but never has to lift a finger to afford it, could never understand that.
The server comes back a few minutes later, and I order us a variety of different sushi, and then we lean back in our chairs, exchanging a smile.
“Thanks for ordering,” he says with a smile that melts my insides. Fuck, if only he wasn’t so damn hot. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to constantly remind myself of the many, many reasons I shouldnotentertain the fantasy of being more than friends.
“No problem."
“You know,” he says a moment later, “I just realized something.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What’s that?”
“We don’t actually know each other very well.”
I chuckle. “You’re just realizing that now?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he says. “Like, I know you were raised in Canada and you have a computer science degree and an MBA. I know you work in video games, yadda yadda yadda, but that’s about it. I don’t know anything about your parents or siblings, or your life before college. Isn’t it kind of weird that we’ve known each other so many years, but we’re basically still strangers?”
I chuckle. “Well, maybe we can change that this week,” I say.
“I hope so,” Penn says with that smile that makes my dick hard. “But come on, don’t make pry it out of you. Tell me something about yourself I don’t know.
