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“How did you end up an academic?” I eventually asked, breaking the silence.
“The rookie copper who gave evidence in my trial also gave me some good advice.” Flynn’s smile had me shifting so I could see Tristan’s face. His own smile was soft, almost wistful. “He told me to clean up my act and use my time productively or I’d never get what I wanted. I’d had no idea until that moment what I wanted, but it was like a light had been switched on. So I did. When I was released, I was partway through a degree. I went to live with my grandparents, finished uni, and dived straight into another degree. By that time I was doing research and tutoring, and it naturally evolved into becoming an academic.”
“Wow,” Flynn murmured. “Totally not what I expected.”
“Yeah, not the typical route, that’s for sure,” Tristan responded with a small smile.
“What about you, Flynn? Where do you see yourself in a few years?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head and gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “I don’t know what I want, except to be secure. I don’t need much, but enough for the odd brunch would be great.” Flynn grinned, and this time his shrug was one of self-deprecation. “I can brunch with the best of them.”
“Oooh, favourite brunch food?” Tristan asked, sitting up straighter, as if the fate of the world was resting on the answer to his question.
Flynn laughed, happiness lighting up his face, his blue eyes sparkling. “Anything on the menu as long as it doesn’t involve pumpkin. Bad experience as a kid with them.” He shuddered and gagged. I remembered the experience he was talking about. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever heard of. “So yeah, no pumpkin.”
“Not even pumpkin scones?” Tristan asked, aghast.
“Nope.” He shook his head and shuddered again. “Anythingbut pumpkin. Heck, I’d eat only coriander and kale for a month before I ate a single mouthful of pumpkin.”
“That’s beetroot for me.” Tristan grimaced. “What’s your favourite food, Zali?”
“Anything Asian. Ryder cooks the best Japanese and Thai food. Vietnamese and Malaysian—I love it all.”
“Is he a chef?”
“No, he’s just really good in the kitchen.
“How long has he worked for you?”
“From the moment I started looking for the yacht.” I smiled, remembering the day I’d asked him. He was seriously shocked, but he couldn’t contain his grin. It was his dream job. “I was sixteen when I told Dad I wanted one, but I didn’t get it for two years.”
“This one?” Tristan asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “This is my second yacht. My first was about half the size.”
“And Ry takes you wherever you want to go?”
“He does, but I can pilot it too.” Every possible gadget to make moving the yacht around was included in the wheelhouse. There was still a hell of a lot of skill involved in piloting something so big, but Ry had taught me enough that I could manage it. Of course, I didn’t actually have a boat licence, but that had never stopped me before.
“He’s really good with anything mechanical,” Flynn added proudly. “He looked after the restoration of the ’stang.”
“Yeah, the mechanic was a dick, and Dad doesn’t know anything about cars. Give him cranes and boats and he’s good, but cars never interested him. Ry offered, and I jumped at the chance not to have to deal with the mechanic. Ry ended up pulling the restoration and doing half of it himself. Anything he couldn’t handle, he gave to his friend who’d just opened his own company. They were so much better.”
“How did you come up with Noble Steed?” Tristan segued. “It’s not exactly a typical name for a yacht.”
I barked out a laugh and shook my head, still grinning. I was doing that a lot. I was enjoying myself. I hadn’t been unhappy, but I was lonely. I liked having them in my space, just hanging around shooting the shit. “It started off as a joke. Ry found a huntsman sitting on my car in the marina car park. He shooed it away and bragged, saying he was my brave knight. I asked him where his noble steed was. Then I found the design for my girl online and before they could name her, I told them I wanted her. We performed the naming ceremony in Italy before Ry and his other pilot friend brought her home.
The sun was much lower in the sky, and my skin had turned pruny. “How are you feeling?” Tristan asked.
“So relaxed.” I smiled again, leaning into his embrace. “But we all have work to do, so we really should get some of it done.”
We eventually made our way back to the stern to sit on the couch. Wrapped only in towels, we curled up together and got to work, Tristan on his laptop once more, downloading reports, and Flynn compiling spreadsheets of information both from our own sources as well as Tristan’s. I was finishing my read of the diaries. There were lists of sources that we needed to follow up on, a mountain of things to do, yet I was distracted. I was having trouble focussing. I wanted to put this research to the side and bask in this feeling, this relaxed happiness that had stolen over me.
But something was telling me not to completely let down the walls. Truthfully, I was scared.
I didn’t want Tristan to just fuck us over the moment his job was at risk, and it would be if anyone ever found out about us. The uni had no-fraternization rules in place for a reason, and we all had jobs to do. The other students were working on gathering enough information to prove Mum’s guilt. It was up to me to prove her innocence. I couldn’t take my foot off the gas. I needed evidence, insurmountable, inarguable, rock-solid evidence.
The only way I could do that was to focus.
