“I wasn’tfinishedwith the plan, Neen.”
“Go on.”
“We drinkthis.” He gave the bottle another slap. “Down on the sun deck, if you like, and then you teach me to do a cartwheel.”
I gave him a blank stare. “You want me to drunkenly teach you to do a drunken cartwheel?”
“I never learned.”
“To do a drunken cartwheel?”
“To do any sort of cart anything. Why are you always pestering me?”
“I don’t see why we have to be drunk.”
“We don’t, but it’ll make things more interesting, don’t you think? All I know is I really need a drink after the last few days, and I want to learn to do a cartwheel.”
I looked him over, trying to reconcile this man with the one who’d tried to ditch me on the boat a few weeks ago. He was dressed in gray sweatpants and one of the ridiculous graphic T-shirts he always wore when he was off the clock. From what I could tell, he owned a seemingly endless supply of them. The goofy sayings didn’t seem to match the grumpy, hotheaded chef in the galley. Today’s shirt had an image of a cereal bowl beside a carton of milk.Cereal Killer,it read. I nodded to his shirt. “You can’t tell me you really think these jokes are funny.”
He looked down at the shirt, then back up at me, his expression serious. “It’s not a joke,” he said. “It’s a warning. I can kill a box of Froot Loops easy. Don’t even need a bowl. I just pour the milk right into the box.”
I laughed, which made Ollie grin. “Froot Loops?” I said. “Everyone knows Cap’n Crunch is the superior cereal.” At his offended expression, I sighed. “You’re not at all what you seem, Oliver Dunne,” I said.
“What do I seem, then?”
“Like a younger Irish version of Gordon Ramsay on a boat. Like a big serious grump.”
“And I’m not a big serious grump?”
I paused for a moment. Ollie was... confusing. I’d thought he was aloof, but tonight he’d shown up at my door and invited me up here. I’d thought he was serious, but here he was in his goofy T-shirt cracking jokes. I’d thought he was angry, but here he was smiling at me with those dimples. “You are, but you’re also...”Interesting, I thought. “Odd,” I said.
Ollie unscrewed the top of the whiskey bottle and took a swig before holding it out to me. “So the plan, it’s good, yeah?
“I wouldn’t say it’sgood.”
“But you’ll do it.”
I stared at the whiskey bottle. There was something about Ollie that seemed almost pleading. He’d said he needed a drink, and I believed he meant it. I didn’t know where he’d gone or why, but the Ollie who sat beside me now seemed decidedly different from the one who’d left theSerendipitytwo days ago. He seemed... desperate for something. I wasn’t sure what.
“Fine.” I grabbed the whiskey bottle from him and took a swig. “I’ll do it, but only because watching you drunkenly cartwheeling all over the sun deck sounds highly entertaining.”
Ollie and I left the bunny pad and pushed all the lounge chairs to the edge of the sun deck.
“I have to show you how it’s done before I get too drunk,” I said. I took another swig from the whiskey bottle and passed it back to Ollie, then directed him to go sit by the hot tub. I pulled out my phone and put on some music, turning up the volume as loud as I could and setting it on one of the lounge chairs before doing a few cartwheels.
“All right,” I said once I righted myself again. It felt good to have my body moving, even though I wasn’t as in shape as I used to be. I smoothed my hair back into place, then walked over to Ollie and nudged him with my toe. “Your turn.”
He stood with a groan and trudged over to the center of the deck, then did the most pathetic attempt at a cartwheel I’d ever seen.
He shot me a false glare. “No laughing!” he said. I laughed even harder as he massaged his groin muscles. “Jesus, that’s harder than it looks. I better not get a dick hernia.”
I choked on the whiskey in my mouth, coughing so hard tears streamed down my face. “A... what?” I wheezed. “Is that a thing?”
“What am I supposed to do with it?” he said. He shot me another glare when I dissolved into a fit of giggles. “I’m serious! Is it supposed to just be swinging around down there? That can’t be right.”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“Should I be wearing underwear for this? Is that what the pros do?”
