Rock the Boat: A Griffin Bay Novel (14 page)

.17.

D
espite her resolve to get to know Davis on their last day together, Jordan found herself unable to face him—too embarrassed by her outburst of anger, and too frightened of her looming sadness that soon he would be gone for good. Instead of spending any time with him, she had spent the whole day sequestered in her cabin, reading books and trying to avoid Davis as if he carried the black plague. She did her best to keep her mind off him, too… but knowing that they were alone on the boat together for the third time wracked her body with shivers of longing and made her heart beat frantically with the need to resist his pull.

She had listened with rapt intensity as he moved quietly about the boat, coming and going from the deck or helping himself to the food in the galley’s small fridge. But not once did she hear his pumping music. Davis seemed to have found some peace after all, and was enjoying the silence—a change Jordan never would have believed if she weren’t hearing it for herself.

As the sun sank lower in the western sky, Jordan finished the last of her paperbacks. She tossed the book into her locker with a sigh of defeat. Now she had no more excuse to stay hidden away. She really needed to stretch her legs and back, anyway. Her body was cramped and aching, and her long lack of movement made her feel crabby and gross. There was nothing for it: she had to go up to the boat’s deck. She just hoped any conversation Davis started wouldn’t feel too unbearably awkward.

As she cracked open her cabin door, Joran smelled something delicious wafting from the galley. Her stomach rumbled. Davis must have made himself dinner; Jordan would soon need to fix a meal of her own, since she had read straight through lunch.

She peered around the interior of the
Coriolis
, but Davis was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was eating in his cabin—against Jordan’s rules, but if it kept her from having an uncomfortable conversation with Davis, she was prepared to forgive him.

Quietly, on bare feet, Jordan snuck through the boat’s interior to the ladder. The hatch above was open to the sky, which was tinted in the rosy blush of the approaching sunset. Jordan eased herself up the ladder—and stopped dead.

The little portable table was set up in the cockpit, just as it had been on their first night of the voyage. Davis lounged on the cockpit’s bench on one side of the table, his arms spread casually behind him along the deck’s edge, one ankle propped on his knee. He was watching the sunset with an air of perfect peace. Jordan’s eyes flicked from his face to the table. Davis had laid out two place settings, complete with wine glasses, half-filled with a dark red. He had even found a couple of tea lights in the galley’s junk drawer. They were lit, the small flames dancing, adding their tiny, fitful lights to the glow of the sunset.

Jordan froze halfway up the ladder, staring.

“Hey,” Davis said nonchalantly. He leaned forward, lifted the lid from a pot he’d set on a trivet, and stirred the contents. The pot steamed, and Jordan’s stomach growled loudly.

Davis smiled at her. It wasn’t the cocky grin Jordan had grown so accustomed to over the past nine days. The soft vulnerability on his face, the air of friendly welcome, almost made her like Davis. Almost.

Jordan licked her lips and tried to avoid looking at the two plates, empty and waiting. “You… you made me dinner?”

“Of course. You’re not the only one who can cook, you know. Though I’m afraid dinner isn’t very exciting tonight. I just boiled some of that pre-made, pre-packaged mushroom ravioli and opened a jar of sauce. The salad was already washed and cut up, too. So… maybe you
are
the only one who can cook, after all.”

Jordan gave a small, reluctant laugh. “Thanks. That was really nice of you.”

He gestured to the seat across from his own. “Care to join me?”

Jordan climbed out of the hatch and went to the bench opposite Davis. She sat slowly, not daring to meet his eye. “Listen, Davis… I really need to apologize to you. I’m sorry I yelled at you this morning. It was so—”

“It’s water under the bridge,” he said as he dished up the ravioli. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I
will
worry about it. I’ve behaved so unprofessionally this whole trip.”

He raised his eyebrows and his smile turned from friendly to wolfish. “I won’t file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, if that’s what you’re worried about. Promise.”

She shook her head, laughing, then stuffed some of the ravioli in her mouth. “I hope not. I’m pretty sure I’d lose my captain’s license. Oh my god, this is so good. I was starving. I’ve just been so confused about everything that’s happened… everything we’ve done. It’s not like me. And now here we are, alone again… and you’ve even sprung a candlelight dinner on me.”

“This candlelight dinner is of the no-obligation variety, I swear. This is all I want—just to share a meal with you. Though conversation would be nice, too.” He poked at his salad with his fork for a moment, then said slowly, “I think I need to apologize to you, too. You’re your own woman, Jordan, I know that—you’re in control of yourself. But I still feel a little badly for… pushing you. Or leading you. Whatever you want to call it. If you were unprofessional, it was at least half my fault. I egged you on and made you go beyond your comfort zone. And I’m really sorry I compromised your values that way.”

“You are?” She’d never heard anybody talk about her
values
this way. Usually her rigid self-control was the subject of good-natured jokes among her family and friends. But nobody had ever treated Jordan’s quirk as a trait to be honored and respected. A warm flush crept along her limbs. Maybe Davis was likeable, after all.

“I really think it’s great that you take life so seriously,” he said, “that you know where you’re going, and you follow your star.” He gazed off at the islands, silent and thoughtful. At last he said, “That’s something I wish I could do. I really,
really
wish I could do it.”

“What do you mean? You have this amazing career—I mean, you’re world-famous! How did you get where you are now, if not by following your dreams?”

“Oh, that’s what
got
me here. Kind of.” He took a long swallow from his wine glass. “I think.”

Jordan laughed softly. “I don’t follow you at all.”

“I wanted to be a big-time musician since I was a kid… in spite of my parents’ protests. But the truth is, I never really
worked
for this. I never had a game plan; I never struggled or worried about my career, until now. The Local Youths lucked out; that’s how we got as big as we did. We happened to play in the right places at the right times. We happened to put the right demos up on the right web sites at just the right moments. Everything fell so neatly into place for us that it seemed natural that we’d make it to the top of the heap. And once we did, and other bands with better business plans and more strategic approaches to the industry started to edge us out.”

“But you’re still a big deal.”

“Big-
ish
… for now. But the other guys in the band can see what direction the wind’s blowing. They’ve all lined up other gigs—safety nets. And here I am, on a ten-day mission to figure out what my next career move should be, and I’ve got nothing. No idea whatsoever. No plan, no safety net… and no idea how to begin making one.”

“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t realize you were facing such a big hurdle.”

“If I had your talent for identifying what I want in life, and then sticking to my goal like glue, I don’t think I’d be in this predicament. Or at least I’d have figured out my next move by now. But as it is, I’ve got to go back home tomorrow night and look Tyler in the eye, and tell him that in ten days of R&R, I never rested or relaxed once, and I have no clue what I should do about the downward swing of my career.”

Jordan set down her fork. Sympathy for Davis’s situation settled in her stomach and made her feel too stuffed to eat any more. “So what
are
you going to say to Tyler?”

Davis shrugged helplessly. “There’s nothing I
can
say to him—not anything he’ll like to hear. I
don’t
have my life figured out. I’ve got
no idea
what’s next. I should have used these ten days to figure myself out, but I ran from my problems and turned to distractions instead.”

“Distractions,” Jordan said archly, raising one brow.

“Pleasant distractions, for sure.” His crooked smile sent a thrill racing up Jordan’s back; she returned it shyly. “But I’m still in a bind. No plan, and no idea how to even start making one.”

“When I can’t figure out what I should do, I turn to my family for help.”

Davis’s smile shifted. Now it seemed rather sad. “It sounds like you have a really great family, Jordan. I can tell Storm thinks the world of you.”

She sipped from her wine glass. “I think the world of him.
All
of them. I’ve got five brothers and sister, and I know I can rely on them for anything, even if we are all as different as can be. And then there are all my cousins—Storm and his brothers and sisters, and my aunt Susan, who taught me how to sail…. And my mom and dad.” She stared off into the distance, seeing nothing of the islands—only her mother’s warm eyes and her father’s goofy, endearing grin. “You know, it’s kind of stupid to feel this way, but I miss them when I’m out on these trips. The summers have been hard on me since I started this business. Chartering was all I ever wanted, my only goal in life… but I work so much that I don’t get to see my family during the summer. We’re all getting older now—all going in different directions. I worry about all the things I’m missing out on. I’m afraid that we’ll all drift off in different directions, and leave each other behind.”

“You all sound so close, though. A family like that can’t just break apart.”

“I hope not.” Jordan’s throat burned. “It would break my heart if we did. I owe everything to them—all of them. They’ve been so supportive of my dreams. I love them all to death, and I always have, even when I’ve fought with my brothers and sisters, and even when my parents drove me absolutely nuts. However much you admire me for my business skills and my drive, Davis, I can tell you that I wouldn’t be who I am today without my family. They’re everything to me. I know they’ll always help me out if they can, and they’ll never give me bad advice when I’ve got a problem that needs solving. So that’s why I’d ask my family for help, if I were in a situation like yours.”

Davis absently stabbed a ravioli on his fork, then pushed it around and around in circles. “I’ve always wanted a family like yours. Big and warm and maybe a little bit rowdy, but full of love. What I’m stuck with instead doesn’t feel like much of a family to me. If I told my mom and dad that I was up against the wall career-wise, they’d just sniff and say ‘I told you so.’ They never wanted me to be a musician—said it was too unstable and unpredictable. And I guess they were right.”

Though Davis had donned his cool, uncaring rock star disguise, Jordan could hear the pain and defeat in his words. Impulsively, she reached across the table and took his hand. His blue eyes flashed up at her, startled but pleased.

“I’ve always felt like we can choose our families,” Jordan said. “I’m lucky that I was born into such a good one—I know how lucky I am, believe me. But we’re not suck with what life deals us at birth. We can decide who we’ll spend our time with, who will be important to us. We can make families of our own, if we want to. That’s what I think.”

Davis’s eyes shifted subtly, from startled and pleased to searching, intense. A stillness that felt weighty and significant came over him. Wondering if she’d said something wrong, Jordan thought back over her words. Then she blushed.
Make families of our own
.

“You know what I mean,” she said quickly, and stuffed her mouth with ravioli.

“Yeah,” Davis said. The rock star mask vanished; his warm smile—his genuine smile—returned. “I know what you mean.”

When they’d finished their supper, they both turned to the west, quiet and content as they watched the sun set. Jordan felt peaceful, comfortable, perfectly
right
on her boat, bobbing gently at anchor. She realized with sudden wonder that it wasn’t just the
Coriolis
that made her feel so good and whole. It wasn’t just sailing, or the perfect sunset, or the ethereal beauty of the islands.

It was Davis.

Being still and quiet with him—being happy with him—felt so natural and easy. In all the days of their voyage, Jordan had noticed plenty of times how gorgeous he was, how his voice and his smell made the blood race hot and fast in her veins. And that was to say nothing of his kisses, his touch, his body melding with her own. But she hadn’t noticed how
pleasant
he was. How
nice
. And she certainly had no clue until now how complicated this was. Beneath the carefully constructed front of the effortlessly cool, arrogant superstar, Davis struggled just like anyone else. She never would have suspected how deep his feelings ran—how he hurt over his parents’ rejection, how his honesty about his career made him so vulnerable, so
human
.