AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kai raised his hands in surrender. “I hear you loud and clear. You’re not uptight at all. I don’t know where I could have gotten that crazy idea.”
I lifted my chin and nodded as if I hadn’t noticed the thick sarcasm dripping from his words.
“When it comes to being chill, I’ll give you an A for effort,” Kai said. “Come on. My uncle's waiting for us on the boat.”
I fanned my face as I followed Kai to the dock. There was no need for a member of his family to see me red-faced and embarrassed.
“Uncle Leo!” Kai called out to a large man lounging in the motorboat at the end of the dock. “Fire up the engines. We’re ready to go.”
"Let’s get this show on the road,” Uncle Leo said as the boat roared to life. He walked to the back of the boat and crouched out of sight behind some sort of equipment.
Kai hopped into the bobbing boat from the dock, and I froze. No way could I make that jump onto a moving target.
Before I could work up a sufficient panic, Kai spanned the gap with a board that worked perfectly as a tiny, anxiety-inducing bridge.
How kind of him.
I was ready to shake my head and tell Kai to go enjoy the bay without me when he reached his hand out to me. “You’re totally chill… right?”
Drats—foiled again by my own words.
I smiled and took his hand. No pirate ever walked the plank as quickly as I did that afternoon. I practically flew across it!
Once my feet were planted firmly on the unsteady deck of the boat, Kai quirked a brow at me. It was obvious he wasn’t convinced I was as laid-back as I claimed.
“What?” I asked, walking across the deck to choose a nice seat along the railing.
“So, you like boats now?” he asked as he tucked my bridge over troubled waters out of sight, beneath a row of seats.
“As far as boats go, I like this one a whole lot better than that flimsy thing we were in yesterday,” I said.
“You hear that, Uncle Leo? She doesn’t like your outriggers.”
A basketball-sized head popped up from behind the apparatus attached to the back of the boat. He tossed black curls identical to Kai’s out of his eyes and said, “Ehh? You don’t like my boats?”
The man couldn’t have looked more wounded if I’d told him his newborn son resembled a miniature version of Master Yoda.
“No, no.” I had some serious backpedaling to do. “Your boats are lovely. I’m just not a huge fan of the water.”
His hurt expression turned to confusion, and his large onyx eyes ricocheted between Kai and me. He ran his fingers through his hair and scratched his head. “You don’t like water?”
“I’m not a huge fan, but you do have a lovely boat. I like it much better when there’s something more substantial between me and the ocean.”
“You don’t like the water?” he repeated the question, and Kai ran a hand over his mouth to hide his grin. “Why is she here if she doesn’t like water?”
Ope! I’d done it now. I’d offended the man. I leaned close to Kai and spoke in a low tone. “I don’t want to upset your uncle. I can go back to shore and—”
Kai threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, no, you’re not getting out of this so easy. He’s not upset with you. He’s confused.”
I shot a longing glance toward the shore as Kai’s uncle cast off and pointed the nose of the boat out into the open water. “I can understand that. I’d probably wonder why someone like me would sign up for a boat ride, too, if I were him."
“I don’t think that’s what he’s confused about,” Kai said. His sly grin held secrets—secrets I needed to know but wasn’t sure I actually wanted to know.
“Really?” I asked, hoping for a hint.
“Nope.”
“Well, what is it then?”
