NautiCal (Forever Wilde 8)

Jade’s eyes blinked up from her phone. “Oooh, scandal alert.”

Nat and Mia shushed her at the same time. Jin took another sip of wine.

Lucas narrowed his eyes at me. “No, and he’s not going to.”

I held my hands up in surrender. “It won’t come from me. But you have to know you can get whatever time off you need when it’s your foundation that runs the charity.”

“Brady doesn’t know that,” Lucas reminded me. “And I refuse anything that requires special treatment.” He looked around to make sure Pres wasn’t in hearing distance. “If Pres knew, he’d make a fuss and insist on setting a date for the wedding. He’s losing his patience.”

“That’s not fair,” Mia said. “Besides, what’s the rush? You already live together.”

Lucas looked down at his hands, suddenly fascinated with a cuticle.

“Wait. You do live together, right?” Mia asked. “Pres mentioned the wine cellar thing.”

“I mean… we pretty much live together,” Lucas said. “It’s just that… with everything happening with graduating and starting work, I haven’t exactly been able to take time…”

His words faded out as something in my brain finally clicked, reminding me about the other night when Prescott finally got Cal alone and confronted him. Pres was nowhere to be seen inside, and he’d been gone too long for a simple bathroom break. I knew Cal could hold his own against the pushy asshole, but I also knew Cal was tired and hurt.

“Excuse me,” I murmured. “I’m going to check on Cal.”

As I walked inside, I heard all of them tease me about my devotion to “the kid.” I grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the galley fridge and noticed Julo had already cleaned everything up and set out some things for his breakfast prep in the early morning. I could hear him and Freya talking softly from the direction of the bridge where I knew Freya would be keeping watch even though it was unnecessary while we were safely moored in the bay.

When I got to the stairs, I was relieved to see Prescott coming up. “Good night,” I said as I passed him.

“Hey, Worth,” Pres said, reaching out to stop me. “I wanted to thank you for earlier.”

I racked my brain to figure out what he was referring to. “Earlier?”

“When you said you might be able to connect me to a job lead. That was generous of you. Thank you.”

I was taken aback by his gratitude. “Oh… well, certainly. I hope you find something you enjoy.”

He nodded. “I appreciate it. See you in the morning.”

When I got downstairs, I shook my head. Maybe I was overreacting about him, painting him as the villain when really he was just a run-of-the-mill guy who leaned a little too much to the selfish side.

But then I saw Cal wide-awake and spitting fire when I got to our room.

“What happened?”

“That fucker needs to go,” he hissed, obviously trying to keep his voice down for propriety’s sake. “He… he… argh! He’s such an asshole!”

I was ready to march back upstairs and throw the man off the ship, and I hadn’t even heard what he did yet.

I forced myself to sit down on the edge of the bed and clasp my hands together in my lap. “What happened?”

Cal paced back and forth. “He said I was lying to everyone about who I am and he was going to tell you the truth. Then he said he saw me selling drugs in the club the night we met? Jesus. I’ve never even smoked pot! I promise you I wasn’t—”

I leaned forward to grab ahold of his wrist and pulled him onto my lap so he was straddling me on the side of the bed. “Hey, hey. Slow down. I know you weren’t selling drugs at the club.”

His face was laced with concern. “I wasn’t. I promise. But how can you possibly know that?”

I smiled at him and brushed his crazy hair back from where it flopped in his face. “Because when I first met you, you’d been locked in a closet buck naked. All of your worldly belongings were on the upper deck and consisted of a pair of tight shorts, a sweaty and also tight T-shirt, rubber flip-flops, and a wallet with approximately forty-two dollars in it. Oh, and your phone which is worth more than everything else put together. Not a speck of drugs or drug money in the whole pile. Either that, or selling drugs isn’t nearly as lucrative as I imagined.”

He seemed to calm down a little. His body relaxed into mine. “How do you know the clothes were tight if you never saw them on me?”

I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I wanted to touch him everywhere. “One has to assume,” I said with a sniff. “Based on the fact you were there trolling for dick.”