Ollie enters the Sky Lounge a few minutes later and stretches out onto the couch.
“You need to cool it,” I say.
“No need to finish those drinks, love,” Ollie says. He settles one couch pillow beneath his head and clutches the other to his chest before closing his eyes. “They’ve gone to bed.”
I pause in my pouring and set the bottle too hard on the bar. “What do you mean?”
“They decided they were tired.”
“Really? They decided they were tired right after ordering mojitos?”
“Guess so.”
“And did you by any chancehelpthem make this decision?”
“I wouldn’t say Ihelpedthem. I simply suggested it might be time to call it quits for the night, and they agreed, so I assisted them in making their way down to their rooms, that’s all.”
I stare at him. “What the fuck, Oliver?”
Ollie cracks an eyelid to look at me. “Keep it down, kitten. I’m trying to sleep.”
I glance out the sliding glass door to the now-empty hot tub. “I don’t know what you said, but if you cost us our tip—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck about the tip,” he says. He closes both eyes again and settles deeper into the couch.
I leave the bar, abandoning the half-made mojitos to glare down at him. “I didn’t need your help,” I say. My voice is raw and frayed. Damn those energy drinks. They never make me any less exhausted, only more fragile.
Ollie opens his eyes and sits up. “Neen, c’mon. I was only—”
I hold up my hands. “Just stop,” I say. “Stop talking. Stop with the jokes and the tough-guy attitude. This isexactlywhy we can’t be together. Iaskedyou to let it be, but you seem to think you know what I need better than I do. You think you can just swoop in here and solve all my problems. But youcan’t, Ollie, because all you ever do is make more problems.Youare the problem.”
Ollie is so still that I wonder if I’ve actually said what I think I have. But then he blinks, and the hurt in his eyes is clear. I wish I could rewind the moment and reel the words in. I knew what I was doing. Ollie’s greatest fear has always been that he is a burden to the people he loves, that he can’t help them because there’s something fundamentally wrong with him that makes him incapable of it. It’s why he left Ireland in the first place. It’s why he hasn’t been home in almost ten years. It’s not true. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut for once and walk away?
I cover my face in my hands. “I didn’t mean that,” I say. I know I should say more, but I’m too tired to know how to fix this right now.
“Go ahead and take the bottom bunk tonight,” he says. “I’ll sleep here.”
I peek at him through my fingers. “Don’t be ridiculous.” But Ollieis no longer listening. He stretches out on the couch again and turns his back to me. “Fine,” I say, trying to keep my voice even as I focus on gathering up dirty glasses from around the Sky Lounge. “If you wake up with your back thrown out, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”
I pause and wait for a response, but Ollie is silent.
I leave for the galley and wash the glasses. True to his word, Ollie’s bed is empty when I slip inside our room. I can’t take the bottom bunk. It smells like him.This was what you wanted, the bitchy voice in my head says as I settle beneath my comforter. But this isn’t what I wanted at all. I didn’t want to hurt him.
Though lately it’s all I seem to do.
***
I soon discover that Ollie isn’t the only one I’ve pissed off on this charter. The next morning, I find myself in the Sky Lounge with Alyssa, the vacuum quiet at her side as she glares at me.
“It looks better with horizontal lines,” she says. “That’s how I did it on theWhy Knot.” She’s got her arms crossed over her chest, attitude rolling off her in waves. The vacuum, which I unplugged as soon as I stepped into the room and saw her with it, rests quietly against her leg. Tiny wisps of hair float around Alyssa’s face, having escaped her always-neat milkmaid braids. Seems the junior stew life does not suit dear Alyssa. Surprise, surprise.
“And all I’m saying is that this isn’t theWhy Knot.” I tap the name embroidered across my polo. “This is theSerendipity.I don’t want to come up here and find you wasting time vacuuming the already-clean Sky Lounge because you don’t like the direction of the lines. You don’t need to like them.Ineed to like them. There are a million things to do, like the things Iaskedyou to do. Have you made up the guest beds?”
Alyssa begrudgingly nods.
“And are there other tasks on the list I gave you?”
She nods again.
