Below Deck

I give him a smile and a nod, unable to believe what the hell just happened. After he leaves, I stand in the same spot he left me for several minutes, trying to collect my thoughts.

The happiness and calm that settled over me is short-lived when I hear an annoying, whiny voice behind me.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

With a sigh, I turn away from the wheelhouse windows to find Ashley standing in the doorway the captain just exited, staring at me with her hands on her hips.

Shit. I promised Zoe I’d talk to Ashley and I forgot all about it.

While I’m busy trying to come up with something to say, Ashley closes the distance between us, wiping the irritation from her face to smile at me as she rests her hands against my chest.

“I know you’ve been busy with this charter, but that’s no reason to ignore me.”

I try not to look at her in disgust, even though that’s exactly what I’m feeling as I grab her hands and remove them from my chest, taking a step back.

“I’m not ignoring you, Ashley. I’ve got a job to do on the exterior, and yours is in the interior. It’s nothing new that our paths don’t cross all that much during a charter,” I remind her.

“But we still get breaks and time off and you’re never around. It’s because of Mackenzie, isn’t it?” she asks, flying right back to being irritated so fast that it gives me whiplash.

“Miss Armstrong is a guest on this ship. My free time has nothing to do with her, and it’s none of your business, Ashley,” I tell her in a low voice, hoping she drops this before I say something I’ll regret that will have her running to the captain.

It’s bad enough she somehow picked up on my obsession with Mackenzie, even though we’ve done nothing out in the open and have barely said two words to each other in front of the rest of the crew. I don’t need her running to the captain with her suspicions. I’m lying right to her face, but like I just told her, it’s none of her business.

“But I want it to be my business! We’re so good together,” she tells me, taking a step in my direction as I take yet another step back.

“We weren’t together,” I argue through clenched teeth, finding it harder and harder to keep my voice down and not yell at her. “We had sex a few times after drinking too much. I told you at the end of the last charter season that it wouldn’t happen again. Have I ever given you any indication I wanted more from you?” I ask, not wanting to hurt her feelings even though she’s lost her fucking mind, but unable to come with any other way to get my point across.

“You’re going to screw everything up,” she tells me, shaking her head and glaring at me. “She’s not like us. She comes from a completely different world and would never understand you. Not like I do.”

She makes another move in my direction and I’m too pissed, my muscles too clenched in anger to move away this time.

“Does she have any idea you’re studying to be a captain? Does she even care that she’s distracting you from that? I would never get in the way of your dreams like that. We’re the same, you and I. We both know what it’s like to struggle and to work hard for what we want. She doesn’t have the first clue about that. She hasn’t worked a day in her life and would just laugh at you and your dreams”

“You don’t know anything about her,” I growl, realizing my mistake as soon as the words leave my mouth.

Ashley’s mouth drops open and her eyes widen, and it occurs to me that all this bullshit she just spewed was a guess and not based on fact, and I just fell right into it.

“I never thought you’d throw everything away for a piece of ass who was out of your league,” Ashley whispers with fire in her eyes.

With my hands clenched to my sides so I don’t grab her by the shoulders and shake the shit out of her, I lean my head down closer to her face, keeping my voice low and level.

“I’m telling you this for the last time. What I do is none of your fucking business. Move on. Do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

We stand here staring at each other silently, both of us fuming. Before I can tell her to get the hell away from me and stay away, I’m saved from fucking things up worse than I already have.

“Ashley? We’ve got everything ready to take over to the beach for the picnic. Jessica and I are just having a hard time finding the picnic baskets,” Zoe interrupts from behind her.

I give her a small smile of gratitude over Ashley’s shoulder as she turns around to face Zoe and hustles out of the room without a backward glance.

When she’s out of earshot and I hear her feet pounding down the stairs to the crew quarters, I let out a huge sigh.

“Thanks for that,” I tell Zoe. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had one more second alone with that woman.”

Zoe laughs, cocking her head and giving me a small smile.

“She’s wrong, you know. Mackenzie’s not out of your league, and you’re not throwing anything away by being with her.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod.

“I know.”

“Good,” she nods as I walk over to join her in the doorway and we both head downstairs together. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to do anything else assholish.”

She smacks me on the back and we both laugh, even though my world suddenly feels like it’s been turned upside down after everything that happened up in that wheelhouse.