Page 296 of The Romance Adventure

CHAPTER 19

Eyes not quite open all the way, and still wearing my watermelon pajamas with seed-like eyelet lace around the hems, I wander into the kitchen at dawn to get Luke his morning milk. At the old studio apartment, all I had to do was roll over and it was practically in my hand. It’s almost the last of my breastmilk I pumped and he’s nearly a year with his birthday coming soon.

Lost in thought, I hardly notice the gathering around the kitchen island. Blinking a few times, I squint. “Good morning? I don’t have my glasses on, so if you’re a bunch of pirates, we don’t have what you’re looking for.”

“Friends, not foes,” Lally says.

Ryan puts a coffee mug in my hand and I quickly realize everyone is here. “What’s the occasion?”

“This is the only time we could all meet.”

“Don’t let me interrupt.” I go about warming up Luke’s milk, but by the time I get upstairs, he’s wide awake and hears everyone talking. We head back down to join the group, where he makes his rounds as the most popular member of this treasure-hunting crew before happily sitting on the floor with the dogs.

“It’s not happening.” Magnus’s tone is firm and final.

“It’s not entirely up to you,” Lally says.

“Should we vote?” Ryan asks.

It takes me a moment to catch up and wake up, but I glean that they’re talking about Lally going to play pineapple poker on the Dark Seas, the brigantine ship that appears offshore now and then.

“We’ll all go with her,” Isla says.

“Over my dead body,” Royal retorts.

“That’s because you don’t like going on the ocean.”

“But I went when we had to rescue Lally from imminent peril,” Royal counters.

“I’ll go by myself, same as before. I don’t want to spook the captain,” Lally repeats.

“Is he a ghost?” Isla asks.

“It’s a ghost ship, meaning it’s unregistered,” CJ says.

“No way,” Magnus says.

“We’ll all go,” Isla insists.

“Captain J sent you an empty bottle of Sempre Spirits with a note that said, Rematch. Whoever he is can come to us.” Magnus remains unyielding.

“Wouldn’t that put us at a disadvantage?” Lally says.

“You know what they say about home turf,” Ryan says.

They go back and forth until CJ appears.

“Sorry that I’m late. I had, uh, stuff.”

Royal grunts. “That’s a first.”

“Him apologizing or that he had stuff—whatever that is?” Ryan asks.

Lally gets to her feet. “Listen, the clock is ticking. This is happening tonight or maybe not at all.” Her shoulders lift and lower on a breath. “I haven’t wanted to mention this because it could be nothing, but when we were at your wedding reception, Royal and Isla, I saw a guy with a unique pair of cufflinks. Well, I didn’t see him, just the cufflinks, because they were distinct. I’d seen them not long before.”

Everyone leans in.

“Captain J had a pair with two cards, aces. So did the guy at the wedding.”