Greek (Palm South University)

My heart is beating so furiously in my chest that I have to steal one of my hands from Brandon to press it against the bones, trying to soothe, trying to calm.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he begs.

I sniff against the tears welling in my eyes. “I’m thinking I can’t say no to you when you look like that.”

“So say yes.”

I laugh, nodding as tears slip free. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

Another laugh as I climb into his lap and kiss him all over, not even caring when he points out that I’m not supposed to lift my arm that high to rest around his neck. “Yes. Yes, right now. Yes, forever. What do I pack? When do we leave?”

He slams a kiss hard to my mouth, holding the back of my head in his palm as we breathe each other in.

The kiss grows deeper and more urgent the longer we sit there, until Brandon finally helps me up off the bench and we half walk, half run back to the condo. It doesn’t take long to pick the place, and though I know we’re forgetting things we’ll need, we decide we don’t care as we haphazardly pack our bags in twenty minutes’ time.

And then we’re boarding the yacht and sailing off into the horizon.

“SHIT,” I MURMUR TO myself as I scurry along the side of the dance floor being built. Or should I say, the dance floor that was being built… before the entire crew we hired for the event decided to go on strike.

Literally.

“Everything okay?” Brittany asks when I pass her. She’s looking over something on the iPad with our intern — likely the bride’s instructions for centerpieces or the seating chart.

The smile I force comes too naturally, and it scares me a little how easy the lie spills. “Yep! Right on schedule. You good here? Need me?”

She waves me off. “No, just going to wrap this up and then we’re both leaving. You should go, too. You’ll need rest for tomorrow.”

“I just have to check on a few more things and then I’m out.”

She nods to excuse me, and when she’s back in the works with the intern, I resume my cursing as I run back to the kitchen where the owner of the event company we hired is desperately trying to get her crew to stop packing up their things.

“We told you,” one of the guys says when I push through the swinging doors. “Meet our demands, or we’re out. You thought we were bluffing. Well, now you know we’re not.”

“Jeremiah, we can discuss this at the office on Monday,” the owner tries to say — calmly, especially now that I’ve made myself present. “But right now, we have half a dance floor to assemble, chairs and tables to set up, lighting, and—”

“And you can do it yourself,” one of the other guys says, which earns him some enthusiastic agreement from his comrades.

I watch in horror as this fight continues on, something about Christmas bonuses being canceled this year. as well as them having to work all through the holidays, plus some murmurings about what they’re being paid. Whatever is going on, the crew isn’t happy.

And no matter how hard the owner, Sammi, begs them, they don’t go back into the ballroom I need turned into a glamorous wedding venue by the morning.

They all just leave.

Sammi sighs when it’s just the two of us alone, pinching the bridge of her nose and muttering something that sounds like a prayer in a language I don’t recognize under her breath before she turns to me with a dazzling smile.

“Well,” she says, and I wait for the solution.

But instead, she just throws her hands up, let’s them clap down on her thighs, and starts crying.

Another curse word finds my tongue.

“It’s okay,” I soothe her, running a hand along her back.

She blubbers something about being a failure and how her father is going to gut her like a fish, and as much as I feel for her, as much as I would comfort her even more if I was her friend, the fact of the matter is that I’m the woman who hired her.

And now I’m in a bind.

“Why don’t you go home, talk to your dad, figure out what can be done to get your crew happy again, okay?”

She sniffs. “What about you? What about the wedding in the morning?”

I tongue my cheek, but force a smile against my urge to scream. “I’ll handle it.”

“Are you sure? I… I can stay to help, I can—”

“Go,” I insist again, already shoving her toward the back hallway that her entire crew left through. “Just leave all your supplies and I’ll… figure it out.” God help me. “Can I call if I have questions?”

“Of course, but—”

“You’re not going to be any help to me or anyone like this,” I interrupt before she can argue again. “Go work through whatever needs to be worked through. It won’t ruin our relationship with you, okay? We’ll give you another chance, but you’ve got to get your crew happy.”