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“Can you talk to me?” Avery asked. “You do have to put up with her eventually, you know.”
“Dear, dear Avery.” He waved his hand as he talked. “Don’t let yourself be bewitched by her. Sure she has hair and eyes and lips and other girl things, but you have to remember, there’s a devil in there mixed under all that.”
“I just want some names,” I said.
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you anymore.” Doyle picked up a packet and pulled out a single cigarette. He put it to his lips but didn’t light it. “I don’t speak crazy.”
“Avery,” I said, turning to him, “can you go fetch Blake? He’s the only one who can make him do anything.”
Avery moved to the doorway. “Wait here. I’ll go find him.”
Once Avery was gone, I stood near the door, trying to breathe in cleaner air from the hallway. I stood my ground, staring down Doyle.
He folded his arms over his chest, cigarette hanging from his lips, not blinking. It turned into something of a staring contest, each of us glaring at the other. My eyes were burning from the smoke, but there was no way I was giving in to him. It wasn’t pretty.
A few minutes later, there were footsteps in the hallway. Doyle didn’t flinch. I didn’t either.
“What’s going on in here?” Blake’s voice came to us before he entered. When he stepped into the room, he got between me and Doyle, turning on Doyle. “Can you tell me why I had to come up from the bottom of this ship to tell you to behave?”
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I’m not the one who shot you.” He leaned over enough so he could look around Blake and stare at me accusingly. “You do know that’s a sin, right? You’re going to hell.”
“Will you cut that out?” Blake asked. He shuffled until he was between me and Doyle again, blocking my view this time. “Just give me whatever she was asking for.”
“You don’t want to get in the middle of this. I was about to win. She was about to cry like a two year old when you stomp on its foot hard enough.”
“Why do you joke about things like that?” Blake asked. I leaned over so I could see what was going on. Blake pointed at Doyle, who was frowning. “You’re acting like a two year old. This is going to get tiresome if I have to come up here every time she needs to talk to you.”
“There’s an easy way to handle this,” Doyle said. “Fire her.”
“Doyle, don’t start. You knew she might come along.”
“And you’re in charge, not her.”
“She’s a co-lead now,” Blake said. “You’re going to have to listen to her. Get over it.”
“Tell me one good reason why I have to?”
“Do it or there won’t be any more cigarettes or Coke or pizza or...”
“The kitchen is full of those things,” Doyle said. “I’ve already checked.”
Blake planted his hands on the table, leaning in on Doyle and glaring at him. “Or you may find they’ve magically been thrown overboard unless a certain Doyle learns to get along.”
“You mean me, don’t you?” Doyle asked. “I’m that Doyle?”
Blake stood up again, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I seriously need my head examined. I don’t know why we keep having these arguments.”
“It’s because you love me like a brother,” Doyle said, plucking the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and putting it behind his ear. “And you refused to eat your vegetables as a kid. Your mom always said you should eat your greens or you’ll...grow hair in odd...break a nail...pointless arguments...plague...bad things happen. All the bad things.”
I could only stand back and smile at this back and forth between them. They were both crazy. When I wasn’t in the middle of it, Doyle was pretty funny. “I just want to know who we’re dealing with,” I said. “Names. Photos. Any criminal histories.”
“That’s how it always starts,” Doyle said. “You want just a name and then I end up held at gunpoint in a smelly car.”
“Just tell her what she wants to know, Doyle,” Blake said.
Doyle rolled his eyes and fiddled with his pack of cigarettes, pulling out another, despite the one already behind his ear. “Michelle runs a shelter for lost hoodlums.”
“I mean Nightingale,” I said. “Who is coming aboard? What do they do?”
“They’re rich people,” Doyle said. “They’re like all rich people. Spoiled brats.”
“Hey, hey,” Blake said. “I’m standing right here.”
“So?” Doyle asked. “Tell me you’re not spoiled?”
“You’re a spoiled brat and you’re not rich, so what’s your excuse?” Blake rolled his eyes and stepped away from the desk, starting to pace. “Just print up a roster with photos of each of the people coming onboard tomorrow.”
“I already did that for Ethan and security. Get it from them.”
“I’m asking you to do one more for Kayli and myself.”
Doyle wedged his cigarette between his knuckles and started typing at the keyboard in front of him. A few seconds later, a printer sounded behind him, somewhere I couldn’t see. He turned, ripped pages from it as they were spit out and when it was done, he whipped around and passed the wad of pages to Blake. Blake dropped a few, and had to bend over to pick some up.
“Now listen,” Doyle said, looking at me now. He partially stood, bending over his keyboard. He gestured for me to come closer.
I took a half step forward, warily. “What?”
“Closer,” he said, moving his fingers again.
Blake straightened out the stack of loose pages. I stepped in his space to get closer to Doyle. “Yes?”
“Two things,” he said. “You can go running around this ship pretending to be all bossy-pants all you want, but I only do two things. Number one, I listen. To everything. If you make a phone call, or whisper in a corner, or fart in a closet, I’ll be the one to hear it. So don’t fart too much. It’s distracting.”
“Ugh,” I said, groaning. “Really?”
The palm of his hand caught the back of my head. It wasn’t rough, more like an attention-seeking move. “Don’t interrupt me,” he said. He put the cigarette behind his other ear and then continued to wave his hand as he spoke. “Can’t you count? I said two things. Number two... shit. I forgot number two.”
“Don’t do that to her,” Blake said. “And your number two is you smoke too much.”
“No, that’s not it,” Doyle said, removing his hand from me, scratching at his chin. “Seriously, I forgot what it was.”
“You don’t work in the morning?”
“Yes, but not what I wanted to say.”
“You’re not allowed to drink because then you become even more of an ass.”
“Will you stop stating the obvious?” Doyle threw his hands up and then sat back in his chair. “Forget it. Important information you both should know, and I can’t even remember because you two want to horse around like...like gorillas or rabbits or whatever stupid animal.” He waved me off. “Just remember, I listen and...number two.”
Whatever that was.
I nodded slowly, afraid to say anything and repeat the cycle of back and forth chaos between them. Maybe I’d been a little too optimistic about all of this.
