“Nope.” Lucas shook his head. “You’re going to have fun, even if I have to drag your ass around behind me.”
He snorted. “Pretty sure it doesn’t count as fun if you’re dragging me anywhere.”
“The end result is all that matters.”
Hard to argue with that, and he’d been friends Lucas long enough to know better than to try. The man hadn’t taken them to state in high school and leveraged a successful college football career into a full-time coaching gig because he was a pushover. When he decided he was going to do something, he did it. Which was probably why Pop had sent him with Alex on this vacation. If anyone could ensure Alex got out of his own head, it was Lucas.
Maybe they were both right. It was only eight days in the grand scheme of things. He couldn’t do a damn thing now. The ship had literally sailed. Either he could bitch and moan and be the asshole that ruined Lucas’s vacation, or he could try to relax a little and try to enjoy it.
Try being the operative word.
Alex managed a smile. “Does this mean you want to do shots?”
“Fuck no, man. We’re too old for that shit.”
His grin widened. Nothing like a little payback to brighten his day. “Shots it is!”
Chapter 2
“What I don’t understand is how we ended up on a singles party cruise.”
If the ship split in two and the sea swallowed Kendall, she wouldn’t feel anything but grateful in that moment. She clutched her drink with both hands and tried to smile. Of them all, she would have thought that Liv would be down with a singles cruise, but her friend looked as shocked as Kendall felt. Plans were everything, and this trip was already off the rails. It made her twitch. “I finally managed to get a hold of the travel agent before we left port. She, uh, misunderstood me.”
The understatement of the century. Somehow in listening to Kendall’s carefully detailed list of what she wanted to accomplish on this vacation with her old friends and possible locations she wanted them to hit, the travel agent heard something totally opposite of relaxation. She knew she should have double- and triple-checked all the information—or, lord, booked the freaking trip herself—but then things had gone sideways at work and she hadn’t had time.
She clutched her drink tighter. It was something pink and sickly sweet, but halfway through the glass it had numbed some of her panic. “I’m so sorry, guys. I swear I thought I was booking us a nice relaxing trip. Not this.” She jerked her head toward the rest of the room. Even this early, the dance floor was crowded, and the energy in the room made her fear there was another orgy-in-waiting happening.
Aubrey was the first one to smile and reach over to squeeze her shoulder. “We’ll make the best of it.” She looked as tired as Kendall felt, which only made Kendall feel worse. Aubrey’s life hadn’t gone how she planned. This should have been the very trip to take her mind off the fact that her dreams kept getting pushed beyond her reach by life circumstances.
Kendall looked at the rest of them. Grace and Liv and Benjamin. They’d all put their faith in her, and she’d failed them. “Maybe we can disembark on the first stop and jump onto the next real cruise ship that comes.”
Grace shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”
She knew that. Of course she knew that. She just couldn’t help grasping at straws. “Then maybe—”
“Maybe we make the best of it,” Benjamin interrupted. He shrugged broad shoulders and gave her a small smile before casting a look around the table. “Sure, this isn’t what we planned, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves.” He cleared his throat and a blush worked its way over his cheeks. “Maybe this is exactly what we all need.”
As much as Kendall wanted to argue that a party cruise was not what she wanted or needed, this wasn’t about her. She’d messed up. She didn’t get to be the one to whine about it. So she pasted a bright smile on her face. “Benjamin’s right. Let’s, uh, promise to make the best of it.”
She didn’t miss the look Liv and Aubrey exchanged, but she couldn’t decipher it. Were they just humoring her? Did they think she was overreacting? She didn’t know, and because she didn’t know, panic wound tighter and tighter around her. It didn’t help that Grace’s eyes were as wide as a deer in headlights, and she looked about two seconds from bolting from the room. Only Benjamin seemed to genuinely believe that this trip could be anything other than a disaster, and while she appreciated his support, she really, truly couldn’t draw a full breath. “I’m—I need some fresh air.”