“Your wish is my command.” It took him a few short minutes to place her order and return with the food and water. He dropped into the chair across from her and slid the water over. “First, water. Drink slow.”
“I’m not an amateur, Alex.” She bent down for the straw and missed. “Silly straw.” Kendall cupped her drink in two hands and brought it to her lips with the carefulness of a person just realizing how shit-faced they were. “I’m drunk.”
“Yes, sweetheart, you really, really are.”
“I never get drunk. Ever.”
He leaned forward and propped his elbows on the table. They’d got her out of the sun and she was taking small sips of water without any issue, so he could afford to relax a little. In theory. “Why not?”
“It’s messy.”
No arguing that. “Sometimes it’s good to let loose.”
Kendall’s face fell. It might have been amusing if it didn’t break his heart the tiniest bit. “I don’t know how to do that. I’m too uptight. A planner. The responsible one that everyone depends on.” She rattled off the descriptors with the familiarity of someone who heard them enough times for the traits to be printed on her soul. As if they made her a little sad.
It wasn’t his business. This woman wasn’t his business. He had every intention of leaving the ship tomorrow when they docked in Orlando. If Alex was smart, he’d hand her off to one of the staff and go on his way without looking back.
But would that staff member be invested in her safety? They’d drop her in her room and that would be that. Or, more horrifying to even think of, they might… take liberties. No. Fuck that. Alex would ensure she sobered up safely and then he’d go to his room and double check that he hadn’t forgotten to repack everything. At least if he knew Kendall was delivered safely to her bed, he could stop worrying about her.
Probably.
But that was later, after she’d eaten something and got a little more water into her. He slid the slice of pizza across the table. “That’s bullshit.”
“What’s bullshit?”
“You’re on a party cruise and drunk before noon. I would hardly call that responsible and uptight.”
She gave him a slow smile that lit up her face. A man could go blind from the way she beamed at him, the same way he could go blind by staring into the sun. Kendall picked up the pizza. “You really think so?”
“I know so. I run a bar. I know exciting when I see it.” Even if that was exactly the thing he tried to avoid in Pop’s. Excitement usually translated to drama and bullshit and, when his luck was particularly bad, into bar fights. Alex worked hard to draw in a different clientele, to boost the reputation of Pop’s and bring it into this new hipster era that seemed like it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It meant fewer bar fights and more drinks thrown in assholes’ faces on first dates, but that was a trade-off Alex was more than happy to make.
She ate for a few minutes, and he thought she’d moved on, but when Kendall finally set her half-eaten slice down and sat back, she blinked at him. “You own a bar?”
“No.” The word burned like a physical thing on his tongue, but he ignored the sensation just like he ignored it every other time he answered this question. “My grandfather owns it. He’s just enjoying his retirement in Mexico and so I run it for him now.”
She tilted her head to the side, her long fall of dark brown hair sliding over her shoulder. “It’s hard to let go of them, huh?”
The empathy in those big green eyes hit him like a shot to the chest. He absently rubbed the spot as if he could soothe away the sudden ache there. “What are you talking about?”
“Grams died while I was in college.” Her full lower lip quivered before she steadied herself. “It’s not the same thing, but I miss her every day.”
Alex sat back. What was he supposed to say to that? Yeah, he missed Pops, but the missing was all tangled up in abandonment and responsibility and other shit he wasn’t about to dig into. He didn’t begrudge the old man his retirement. Not exactly. “I miss him, too.” That, at least, was the truth. The rest of it could stay internal. This woman needed to be taken care of right now, not to have him pour his emotional bullshit all over her.
He nodded at her plate. “You good?”
“If I eat any more, I’m going to burst.”
Somehow, he doubted that, but from the way her blinks kept getting longer and longer, if he didn’t get her out of that chair immediately, she’d pass out right here and now. “I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”