I’m right behind Vaughn now. His two companions are singing what sounds like “Happy Birthday,” but to the tune of a sea shanty.
Perfect. Vaughn getting publicly humiliated on his birthday is even better.
All I need to do is “trip” and spill some syrup on him.
I open the cap of the syrup bottle.
“Walk the pancake!” a mechanical parrot to my left shrieks just as I pretend to stumble.
Shit. My stumble turns from fake to real, and my hand jerks, meaning I squeeze the bottle harder than I meant to. The syrup doesn’t pour—it fucking projects. I wanted a drizzle, but what I get is closer to an arterial spray.
It hits the back of Vaughn’s head, and when he whips his head around, it plasters him directly in the face.
“What the—” He shoots up from his seat, hands clawing at his eyes, syrup dripping from his hair in amber ribbons.
One of his friends starts laughing. “Mate, you’ve been?—”
Vaughn stumbles back, his shoulder slamming into the parrot’s perch. The parrot crashes onto their table. Plates and shot glasses explode, and both of his friends dive sideways.
I feel a savage satisfaction watching Vaughn stagger away from the destruction, syrup still streaming into his eyes. That’s what you get for?—
His foot catches on the decorative netting draped along his booth.
“Wait, let me—” I lunge forward to grab his arm. Not to help him. Just to… Okay, maybe to help him a little. I wanted embarrassment, not actual injury.
That’s when the floor tilts.
Of course. The half-hour ship-rocking feature for the ship’s deck. Shit.
I didn’t factor a simulated maritime event into my revenge plan. It appears to be an oversight, in retrospect.
The floor angles sharply to the left, and Vaughn, already off balance and tangled in netting, goes down, but his foot stays caught.
The crack is audible.
“Fuck!” He hits the floor, his ankle bent at an angle that I’m pretty sure violates several laws of anatomy.
The floor tilts the other direction. He slides with it, but the netting holds his foot in place, twisting everything more.
“Don’t move!” I drop to my knees next to him, syrup bottle still somehow in my hand like evidence at a crime scene. “Your ankle?—”
The floor starts to slide the other way again.
“Could someone turn off the boat?” Vaughn gasps. “This is like being seasick and broken at the same time. Zero stars, would not recommend.”
Every muscle in my body locks.
Fuck.
That’s not Vaughn’s voice.
As Trevor and his fellow servers move to shut off the boat, I stare down at the guy, writhing around on the floor in pain, covered in syrup.
He’s got tousled dark-blond hair, hazel eyes, and an aristocratic nose that are familiar to me. But his face is softer somehow, the same features rearranged with a gentler hand.
He’s not Vaughn.
Oh holy shit.
