I pull my scratched sunglasses down to my nose.
“Harry?”
Holy ship.I scan the boat again, my stomach sinking as I realize what Harry’s presence at the end of the dock must mean.
That white monstrosity isn’t blocking the Warren’s boat. Itistheir boat.
“Um, Jules,” I whisper coolly as soon as my shocked vocal chords regain function. “You told me the Vela Bianca was anormal-sized boat.”
“Did I?”
“I believe your exact words were, ‘nothing crazy.’”
I look up at the yards and vertical yards of bonafide superyacht. This isnotwhat I signed up for.
“Stelly, relax. It looks much bigger from the dock.”
Above Harry’s flailing form, I see a group of people hovering on the back deck in green uniforms just like Jim. Suddenly the “nice outfit” I picked out for our arrival feels like something I fished out of an alley dumpster. I make a useless attempt to smooth the wrinkles out of my faded sundress as the crew looks on. They’re probably all thinking the same thing: who is this slob who washed up on their dock?
“Stella!” Harry’s deep baritone booms as we approach, and he spreads his arms to wrap me in a huge hug. At 5’7, Harry is a good two inches shorter than me, which puts me at the perfect height to see his sunburnt almost-bald spot. He’s dressed in his characteristic polo, but this time is sporting a pair of greypaisley shorts that have my sister’s groovy taste written all over them.
“Hi, Harry,” I mumble, still trying to scoop my jaw off the floor.
“No ‘hi’s’ allowed, Stella!” he tells me. “They say Bula, here. It’s like aloha, but for everything!”
His eyes take on a horrified expression as he glances at the duffel on my shoulder.
“Jim, why is Stella carrying her own bag?”
Jim looks at him sheepishly, and I realize that I’ve made a mistake.
“It’s my fault, Harry,” I cover quickly. “I insisted.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Stella, we’re full service here! The only bags you’ll be carrying on this trip will be from the boutiques!”
Harry motions for Jim to come over, and I let him slip my bag off my shoulders to reveal the sweaty skin underneath. Harry turns, waving his arms towards the rest of the ship like the circus ringmaster.
“Welcome to the Vela Bianca!”
Jules grabs me around the waist, squashing my frame to hers, and we follow Harry up the carpeted ramp that extends from the dock to the boat’s massive swim step. It’s aliteralred carpet, and it’s no surprise why: from this close, the Vela Bianca is even more insane. It towers four stories above us, as if to remind the other boats it could easily swallow them whole. Twin staircases from the back lead up to what Harry calls the aft deck (apparently that’s ‘back,’ in boat speak) flanked by spotless dark glass. I feel like I’ve stepped out of real life and into Conde Naste magazine.
“I hope your flight wasn’t too bumpy! We hit some turbulence on the way in that had your sister squealing!”
“Oh, please,” Jules shakes her head. “You were the one death-gripping my hand!”
“It’s true,” he says conspiratorially. “Any excuse, am I right?”
But I’m too busy short circuiting to listen. Because girls like me and Julesdo notbelong here. But unlike me, she’s walking up the shimmering steps like she was born for this.
“Where are your parents?” I ask Harry, steeling myself for the inevitable encounter with the King and Queen of Warren Media. But there are no mummified billionaires in sight. Have they decided stay home? Could the sea gods be so generous?
“Delayed by a day, unfortunately,” Harry says. “My father had an emergency board meeting he couldn’t miss. Didn’t you read the welcome document I sent?”
Harry is, to put it kindly, a planning fanatic. I should have known that skipping the welcome guide would give him more anxiety than it was worth.
“Of course I did!” I lie unconvincingly. I have a bad habit of raising my voice an entire octave when I’m making something up. Jules used to call it my QVC voice—the one I used when I was trying a little too hard to sell her on something. “There was so much to take in, I guess I must have forgotten that part.”
I look down at the electric purple jellyfish that float through the crystalline water below us. So swimming back is probably not an option, then.
