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"I meant what I said yesterday," Grace said. "I want my pants back."
No one else said anything. Not a shocker, the pants stealing had been her idea. Liv had even tried—unenthusiastically—to talk her out of it. But the prank was too much fun for Aubrey to deny.
"No clue what you're talking about, and anyway, this is a cruise, live a little." She took another sip of the world’s best no frills coffee. "I'm sure whoever stole your pants will mail them back to your house as soon as we get to port in Orlando."
With a little snort of disbelief, Grace swiped Aubrey's mini chocolate croissant and—while maintaining unblinking eye contact—took a large bite. It reminded Aubrey of watching her gran's bakery cat give her the what-the-fuck-you-gonna-do-about-it glare as she pushed the canister of flour off the counter. Grace was out of pants and fucks apparently, which meant nothing but good things. Aubrey's lips twitched as the giggle built up. She smashed her lips together and tried to stay quiet. It wasn’t gonna work. It never worked. Really, she should know better by now. Lucky for her, Grace was doing the silent chuckle, well, at least her eyes were because her hand was covering her mouth to keep the half-chewed croissant from flying out.
"You're the worst, Aubrey," Liv teased, shaking her head.
"And that's why you love me best of all," she shot back at her best friend from college.
Oh my God, the trouble they used to get in. Unlike her life now, everything then was all late nights, good times, and hot guys. Now she was early mornings, old guys who were regulars at the bakery, and cold brew coffee. But she was done thinking about that for the next six days. Instead, she was just going to bask in the awesome of getting to hang out with Kendall, Liv, Grace, and Benjamin as they enjoyed the eye candy, margaritas, and sunshine. Nothing was going to mess this up.
"There you are!" a man called out in a way-too-cheerful country bumpkin tone.
Shit.
She knew that voice. Awkwardly enough at the moment, she'd gotten off to that voice as he planned an arctic rescue mission in The Admiral: Permafrost, which she'd watched way too many times to ever admit out loud. Even worse, she'd probably get off to it again even though she now kinda knew him and he wasn't just the amazingly hot, chiseled guy who did that Salmon Ladder exercise shirtless and sweaty in every movie. Did that make her a bad person? Probably. She'd find a way to live with that.
"Aubrey, I've been looking everywhere for you." Carter slid into the booth next to her.
"You have?" she asked, trying to sound cool and normal and not like a woman who was picturing the naked sideview of that ass.
It was official. She really was the worst.
He leaned in close and lowered his voice. "Omaha. Three o'clock."
In a move that would have done The Admiral proud, she snuck a peek without making it obvious. A trio of women were clumped together, frozen in place as they stared at Carter. The other twenty billion people in the morning buffet getting their carbs and coffee on swerved around them like a school of fish dividing and coming back together around some mid-ocean impediment. It was wild.
"Did you put a spell on them?" she asked.
"No, they're just confused about who I am," he said, giving her an unmistakeable help-me-out-here plea with his blue eyes.
At the table, Benjamin looked like he was about start asking questions and Kendall had her tell-me-everything face on. Add that to the women who were starting to move closer to their table and it had all the potential to be a total disaster on the high seas.
"Oh for the last time, you do not look at all like The Admiral," she said, her voice loud enough to carry over to the port side or bow or whatever part of the ship they were farthest away from and most definitely carry to the ears of the women about to ID Carter. "Oh my God. The ego on this guy." She rolled her eyes at her friends before turning back to face Carter, her features set into a passive-aggressive and yet sympathetic mask. "No offense, but your nose is more bulbous at the end than his, your build not quite as perfect, and—bless your heart—my panties didn't immediately go up into flames when you walked by. You're cute and all but you're just the poor gal's Admiral not the real thing. There's no way you could get away with telling people you were Carter Hayes."
Watching out of the corner of her eye as doubt walloped the trio who were taking in every word out of her mouth, she smiled sweetly at her friends, who'd stopped eating and were giving Carter a closer perusal.
"So," she said, her brain spinning in an effort to get a kinda plausible story out fast enough to cut off any inquiry. "It turns out in a very seven-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon way that we’re connected. Can you believe that? He went to college with my older brother and they were in the same fraternity."
"Which one?" Benjamin asked, leaning forward so his forearms were on the table.
And that's all it took to turn the inside of her head into a total void. She had nothing. Oh God, she sucked at this whole subterfuge thing.
"Alpha Lamba," Carter let out a cough, holding up one finger in a non-verbal plea for a moment. "Duck."
Aubrey's eyes went wide. Duck? Really? Okay, she'd had a total brain coma but he'd gone with duck?
Too bad she didn't have any choice but to go with it. "It's an Iowa thing."
Kendall, Benjamin, Liv, and Grace didn't ask a follow up but she had no doubts they would later—and it would be epic.
Nice going, Aubrey Dean. You're world class.
"What was that?" she asked, leaning in close to Carter and keeping her voice as quiet as possible in the loud dining room.
"I froze." He shrugged. "My big nose must have gotten in the way of my brain."
