“Really,” I say, wrestling it back from his grasp. He’s quite strong for such a little guy. “I insist.”
Jim lets go, looking like a dog who’s just been put into the cone of shame. He even hesitates before opening the gate to the dock as if I might try to do that for him, too. The defeated expression on his face makes me feel just a little bit guilty, but I’m not like the Warrens, who are clearly unwilling to lift a finger when they could pay someone else to lift it for them. And I’m certainly not going to let Jim do something for me that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself.
I hear a high-pitched squeal behind me, and I turn just in time to discover that it’s not, in fact, the sound of a dying sea lion, but of my sister. I can barely react before Jules tackles me into a hug that knocks me into the railing behind us.
“Jules!”
“Stelly Bean!” she shouts, and I squeal too as I hug her back. I’m instantly enveloped in her familiar smell of honeysuckle and coconut oil, but there’s something else there, too. Something that smells like an overpriced resort candle.
She holds me at arm’s length, looking me over. Jules may be my baby sister, but the older she gets, the more she’s starting to look like the photos I’ve seen of our mom: olive-skinned and enviably curvy with a heart-shaped face that doesn’t show a single wrinkle no matter how often she smiles. But while I share her wavy dark hair, the only sign of my mom’s Chilean heritage, I’m lanky and paler than I probably should be: the stretched and bleached version of Jules’s Selena Gomez. Since I saw her last, she’s cut her waist-length hair into a fashionably short bob, and I’m willing to bet the Chanel sunglasses and color-block mini dress she’s wearing cost more than my flight here.
“Oh babe,” she says, lifting up my pocked arm. “Didn’t you bring any bug spray?”
“Good to see you, too, Jules!” I joke.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “They’ve gotgallonson board. All reef-safe—I made sure of it!”
Jules hooks her arm in mine and leads me down the dock, her staggeringly high wedges clicking against the wood as we walk.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” she squeezes me even tighter. “Isn’t this place a dream?”
“It’ssobeautiful Jules. I didn’t realize theymadewater this color. How was your flight?”
“Ah-mazing. Flying private is crazy. The seats in there arepractically beds. And the flight attendant made us Bavarian pancakes for breakfast. With a STOVE!”
I scan the boats, wondering which of these is the Vela Bianca. Maybe I should have read the twenty-page welcome document Harry forwarded me the moment I agreed to come. I count twenty boats here, not including the monstrosity at the end of the dock: a vessel the size of a small cruise ship that stretches out so long I can’t see where it ends. It looks like something seized from a Russian oligarch.
“Ok,” I say quietly enough that Jim won’t hear. “The craziest thing happened yesterday.”
Jules gasps.
“One day in Fiji and already there’s tea! Spill!”
I lean in close and tell her, in no shortage of ab-tastic detail, the story of the hot runner who dragged me out of the ocean. When I’m finished, her jaw practically hits the dock.
“Are you serious?” she asks. “That’s straight out of a rom com! Did you get his number?”
I shake my head.
“Why not!”
“Because we’re onyour family vacation,remember?”
Jules waves her hand dismissively.
“True love waits for no one, Stella. Besides, we’re literallyinthe marina.What if he’s here right now?”
I roll my eyes. There’s only room foronehopeless romantic in the family, and that spot’s been taken since Jules discoveredPride and Prejudiceat seven years old.
“Well, the crew knows practically everyone here,” she assures me. “Once we get settled, I’ll do a little sleuthing and see what I can dig up.”
I hesitate. Hot runner didn’t give me his number. He obviously doesn’t want to be found.
“Please don’t,” I beg her. “I already feel like the seventh wheel here. I don’t need to draw any more attention to myself.”
“Stella,” she says, smoothing out her bright coral mini-dress. “Relax. I am nothing if not the picture of subtlety.”
“Ahoy, ladies!” a male voice interrupts us, and look up to see a familiar face standing at the end of the dock in front of an absolute wall of boat, his arms waving like a grounded albatross.
