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No gong.
“She made it.” Vivi shook Coop’s arm. “What am I going to do? I should have tried harder to learn the routines in class.”
Dotty hugged Xuri, turned to the remaining crowd and shot her hands in the air as if she’d just scored the winning goal, and then she spun around and strutted up the gangplank, working the jacket like any good model would.
Coop was suddenly struck by a thought. “What’s the likelihood Dotty forgets about the coat thief once she’s on board?”
“Fifty-fifty.” Vivi let go of him and wrung her hands. “It depends on how hungry she is and how distracting the other passengers are.”
“Squirrel,” Coop murmured, nodding.
Dotty took something from a tray a waiter was holding. She ate it at the rail, apparently ready to watch the rest of the competitors instead of finding the coat thief and her anniversary ring. Coop thought that was a good thing.
Guests who hadn’t passed the test stumbled out of the inflatable boats at the shoreline. A few flunkies towed the rubber life rafts up the beach so they wouldn’t be taken back out to sea.
“This is quite the production,” Coop noted.
“That’s why Xuri’s fashions are so popular. She’s a spectacle.” Vivi tossed a few jabs in the air, shadow boxing.
“Hey, Rocky.” Coop claimed her hands. “We’re dancing, not getting into the ring.”
“You don’t know how this will end.” Her words had multiple meanings—the dance-off, the ring recovery effort, their fledgling romance.
“I know how one thing will end,” he told her, kissing her knuckles. “We’re each other’s fate.”
Before he could tell her about a decade’s old kissing test, Kelcie and Simon stepped onto the dock and started dancing. Kelcie was a beast, really hitting all the high notes in whatever moves she was making. Meanwhile, Simon did the Dad Dance behind her, moving as if he were just a backdrop to highlight Kelcie’s talent.
Whatever they did worked. They made it on the boat.
“I feel better now,” Vivi told Coop, gazing at him from under the faux fur trim of her hood. “Hopefully, Simon can find my grandmother’s things.”
“I’ll feel better when we walk up that gang plank.”
Several other dancers didn’t make the cut. Gong-gong-gong-gong.
They tumbled into the life rafts without seeming to be too upset at losing. The beach was now littered with rafts and the carefully groomed grounds above the beach were dotted with rejected dancers and other hangers-on, all waiting for a grand finale. Whatever that was.
Soon, it was their turn.
“Hoods up.” Vivi flipped Coop’s hood in place. “We need attitude to make the cut.”
“Follow my lead.” Impulsively, Coop planted a kiss on Vivi’s nose.
“Shakespeare,” she warned.
He didn’t wait to hear more. He launched them into the two-step.
It wasn’t a popular choice.
They were booed.
A quick glance toward the yacht revealed the coat thief as a chief boo-er.
Grrr.
Coop kept on dancing, leading Vivi toward their destination.
A gong sounded, reverberating over the boos.
