Trey grimaces. “Looks like it. Wind speed is ninety-seven miles per hour right now.”
“Category 2,” Piper offers from behind us, sounding uninterested in the whole thing.
Trey nods. “They’re tracking the cyclone path, and it’s turning toward North Carolina, but they don’t think it’ll make landfall.”
“Okay, but what aboutus?” Fiona hisses.
Trey looks aroundEmpress. “You’ve been in here for tropical storms before.Empresscan withstand Category 4 or 5 winds—”
“Untested!” Viv cuts him off. “That’s marketing bullshit, Trey, and you know it! We’ve never sat through a goddamn hurricane before! There’s a reason we only stay here on weekends during hurricane season.”
“Vivienne,” Trey says, and there’s a warning in his voice. “We are perfectly safe onEmpress.”
“Wait,” I interject. “You’re not saying we’re stuck here, are you?”
Trey’s throat works as he swallows. “Look outside, Charlie. We can’t get back to the Keys right now. Like it or not,Empressis the safest place we can be. Probably even safer than Islamorada.”
“This is a yacht,” I object. “Can’t we move it? Go back to land?”
Trey winces. “Uh, no. The caissons require quite a bit of engineering to operate, andEmpressis a big yacht that requires a skilled and qualified captain. I’m the owner; I know how it works, but I don’t have the ability to pilot it.”
This, to me, is an insane oversight. I literally bite my tongue to keep from saying so.
“What about the house on the island?” Rachel offers. “Being on land has to be better than being out on the actual water, right? Maybe we can get to the beach house on Ligia.”
Trey shakes his head. “Waves are too intense to get to Ligia safely right now. Plus, there are a bunch of palm trees right next to the beach house. Not sure it’d be safe to bunk there with these winds.”
“The winds aren’t at fatal levels. It’s not supposed to be very dangerous,” Carl adds weakly. His voice is froggy from his coughing fit, and he keeps clearing his throat.
“Oh, no, sure,thatlooks totally safe,” Fiona snaps, jabbing at the howling fishbowl of storm right outside us.
“The hurricane isn’t getting in here,” Trey assures us. “Everything on deck is weather-proof and bolted down. Nothing is going anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere. This won’t last long, markmy words. It came on too suddenly to have the stamina to go much longer.”
“Are you a meteorologist now, too, Trey?” Piper asks mildly.
Trey ignores her. “Let’s try to make the best of this. We’re all together. We’re all safe.”
“We don’t have a lot of food,” Rachel says, finally pulling her face away from her sister’s embrace. “I was waiting for provisions, remember? Unless you two brought them?”
“No, but we’ll be fine,” Trey insists. “I’m sure we have enough so that no one will starve. Maybe we have to go a night or two without dinner, but that’s no big deal.”
“We should check the crew mess.” Ashley speaks up. Like before, her voice is lower, more mellow. As if she can hear it, she continues, but now there’s a familiar serrated edge to her words. “Obviously. There might be food down there that was left behind when the stews moved out.”
“Good idea,” Carl says, glancing at Ashley’s chest before quickly looking away. “We can check later.”
Fiona clocks the softening in her boyfriend’s voice and glares at him. “Carl to save the day, everyone.”
Trey puts his hands up. “Hey, everyone take a breath. It will be fine. I’m sure there’s enough booze for us to enjoy our time anyway.”
“This isn’t a vacation,” Viv remarks. “We’re trapped here by ahurricane, Trey.”
“Then you should start filming.”
“Are you serious?” Viv looks at Trey like he’s asked her to extinguish a candle with her boobs. “‘Hey everyone, buy from Royal Yachts so you too can get trapped out at sea in a hurricane!’ Yeah, that’ll go over well.”
“Vivienne, this is exactlywhyyou should show that,” Trey says slowly, like she is very stupid and he needs to spell it out for her. “It highlights the strength and safety ofEmpress. And it’s authentic. Aren’t you always talking about how important it is to be authentic? Your followers want to see real-life stuff.”
Viv’s face twists at his tone, but as his words sink in, I can see her considering them. She purses her plump filler lips and finally nods. “You might be right. All right, girls, we don’t know how long we’ll have internet access for, so get to work. I want shots of the storm, shots of you, clips of you expressing your feelings, but being very clear that you feel overwhelmingly safe onEmpress.”
