Off Plan

by May Archer

  “Wow. Pretty presumptuous of you to assume I’ll answer them.” I moved my hands to Mason’s hips, and my thumbs stroked the skin under his polo, just above the waistband of his shorts. “You know, most of those ladies give me tips when the tour is over. Just sayin’.”

  “Ah, darnity darn.” Mason bit his lip. “Now you tell me! And here I am with no small bills in my wallet!”

  “That’s too bad. But for you, I could consider accepting alternate forms of incentivizing.” I drew him even closer so I could run my nose along the bottom of his jaw and feel him shiver in the hot sun.

  “Incentivizing?” he said roughly. “Is that a real word?”

  “Mmhmm. Like I’m gonna incentivize you to go skinny-dipping with me by taking you out to dinner off island next weekend. And remember when you incentivized me to watch that stupid show of yours?”

  “Excuse you. Downton Abbey is not stupid. You love Downton Abbey nights!”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, though I was pretty sure I’d never seen an entire episode and didn’t care to. “I do love Downton Abbey nights.”

  His answering grin held a tinge of relief that made me shake my head and press a soft kiss to his lips. How the guy could doubt I loved our time together was beyond me. Little known, seriously disgusting, and highly scary fact? I would have incentivized him for the privilege of being there.

  “Heya, boys!” Big Rafe called from down on the dock and my head turned in his direction. He was sporting yet another MAYOR shirt. This one, a vision in highlighter pink.

  Mason straightened and took half a step back, like he’d forgotten we were in public. His hand didn’t move from my chest, though, and he didn’t pull away.

  I wasn’t sure why I kept expecting him to.

  Mason hadn’t spoken to his family about his sexuality yet, since he wanted to do that in person, but he was “out” on Whispering Key, and he was sure as fuck out in his bedroom late at night. After the evening on the beach and the next day in his office, he hadn’t hesitated to embrace this thing between us in private or in public. Not once. All of which was so very, very different from anything that had ever happened with Thad Chambers back in Texas, it didn’t bear comparison.

  So why the fuck did I keep comparing them?

  “Heya, Mr. Goodman!” Mason called to Big Rafe.

  “It’s Rafe, son. Did you get that message I left with Taffy? About the places that called me for references?”

  Oh, right. I kept comparing them because Thad had hurt me and Mason…

  Mason was gonna fucking crush me when he left. It was inevitable.

  And I’d known the score from the start—this was only ever meant to be short-term, fun while it lasted, so I had no one to blame but myself for letting things go further than that, for letting him burrow deeper into my chest than that.

  Mason nodded stiffly. “Ah, yeah. Got it. Thanks.”

  “I told ’em you were the second coming of Jesus, more or less, so I’d be shocked if you don’t get a call back—”

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” Mason interrupted hurriedly, closing that half step between us again. “Thank you.”

  Rafe looked back and forth between Mason and me curiously. “Boy oh boy, you applied for a lot of jobs, huh? Something’s bound to come through for you soon!”

  Mason smiled tightly. “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

  “I mean, with so many great opportunities—”

  “Rafe, did you just stop by to chat about this? I’ve gotta get the boat ready and see where Beale is.”

  “Ah. About that. Good news and bad news!” Big Rafe tapped his fingers against the dock railing. “Tour group canceled. I guess one of the ladies got heatstroke. So I told Beale he’s not needed here. But, the group paid their cancellation fee, so you might as well take Mason out anyway.”

  “Nah, we could—” I began.

  “A private tour,” Mason said, low enough so only I could hear. “Would inspire much incentivization.”

  “—we could definitely go out,” I agreed. “Good call.”

  “Good! Good, good,” Rafe said. He patted the top rail of the dock again and darted a look at Mason. “So. Shame about that tour group. I guess the heat can be real bad for ladies of a certain age?”

  “Heat can be dangerous to lots of people,” Mason agreed.

  “Like, Gloria,” Big Rafe said. “She’s been struggling with this an awful lot. She’s gone to see you a few times, right?”

  Mason’s fingers flexed slightly against my chest, but his smile never faltered. “You know I can’t tell you that, Rafe. You’ll need to ask her.”

  Rafe scratched at his nose. “Already done that, but the woman won’t tell me a damn thing.” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me anything personal about her, just tell me… is she okay?”

  Mason shook his head. “Ask her.”

  Rafe blew out a breath. “I know. I know. Alright, get along with you.” He rubbed his jaw. “I’ve got some planning to do.”

  “I’d ask what kind of plans, but I’m scared to know.”

  Rafe shot me a look, then darted a glance at Mason. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough, Fenn Reardon, don’t you worry. Enjoy your tour.”

  “I think that man has finally lost his last marble,” I said, watching Rafe’s back as he retreated up the dock. “What the heck is he planning now?”

  Mason stepped closer. “I think he and Gloria have a romance going on.”

  “Gloria?” I snorted. “Gloria Gloria? No. No way. They’ve known each other for decades. She was friends with my aunt Mary.”

  Mason made a noncommittal noise. “On this island, everyone is somebody’s friend. Pretty sure that doesn’t preclude people from having sex, Fenn. Or caring about each other.”

  “Okay, I never want to hear you talking about Rafe and sex at the same time,” I warned him. “Besides, if they’re together, why wouldn’t she tell him if she was sick?”

  Mason opened his mouth, then shut it again. He laughed shortly. “Right. Because people who are together always talk about hard things?”

  I frowned. “So there is something wrong with Gloria?”

  “I—” Mason shook his head. “You know, I have never had this problem before.”

  “What problem?”

  “Having to struggle not to share confidential information. In the past, my patients and my personal life never intersected.” He thumped me lightly in the abs. “But I’m not sliding down that slippery slope, so we’re changing the subject.” He took a step back and spread his hands. “You know, I boarded this vessel thinking I was going for a tour, but we haven’t even… kicked off, or whatever you call it. What am I paying you for?”

  I folded my arms over my chest. Shit. I never got tired of looking at him, especially when he looked back at me like that.

  “I wasn’t aware you were paying me at all?”

  “Pfft. Not with that attitude.” He set his hands on his hips and waved a hand imperiously, looking just like the guy I’d picked up from the airport back in April. “I want my ghost stories.”

  I grabbed Mason roughly by the front of his red polo shirt, dragged him a couple paces to the tiny cockpit, and pushed him against the back wall. His green eyes flared wide, and his mouth parted in surprise, but he didn’t object at all to the manhandling. In fact, the way his gaze kept darting to my mouth said he was very much into it.

  “Who’s the captain of this boat, Loafers?”

  He arched an eyebrow and bit his lip. “Oooh. Are we playing captain and naughty quartermaster now? I promise I didn’t mean to steal the treasure, Captain Godfrey. I’ll be good and share.”

  I made a vomiting noise and pushed away from him while he cackled. “Why would you do that, when I have to tell that story six times a week? Why?”

  Mason sat in the side chair looking all prim and proper in his ironed shorts and polo… until you saw his eyes, which were still filled with laughter.

  I couldn’t remember the last time
I’d liked someone this much. When I thought about it too much, it scared the shit out of me.

  “Alright, troublemaker. I’m casting off.”

  Mason sat there, mostly quiet, until I’d steered us out into the water just south of the island. He propped his feet underneath the front window and leaned back in his chair, his eyes roaming over the boats and the island with undisguised curiosity that made me try to see things through his eyes, just the way he had since the day we met. It made my heart melt, and—

  Okay. Seriously. I needed to stop.

  “Right, so!” I began.

  His eyes swung to me. “Oh! Treasure story time?”

  “Uh-huh. During the dark and quiet of a summer evening in 1803, a merchant ship called the Esmerelda, laden with goods from Belize, having passed between Cancún and the island of Cuba made its way across the Gulf of Mexico…”

  Mason watched me intently as I recounted the story of the hurricane and the shipwreck, most of which he already knew.

  “They were injured and weary, half-drowned when they washed up here, on the rocky point at the southern tip of the key.” I pointed to the island, where we could see the Five Star Resort and the walkway to the beach over the sand dunes. “Resolute Goodman had a badly broken leg and Jacob Godfrey, his dutiful captain, refused to leave his quartermaster.”

  Mason smirked at me, and I shook my head sternly. I was never going to get through that part of the tour again without thinking of sex, damn it.

  “They remained on the island for nearly eight months, healing, before they swam to the mainland. No longer desiring a merchant life after their brush with death, the men resolved to move their families down to the island where they’d washed up—the island that Jacob Godfrey swore had whispered to him in the depths of the storm.” I glanced in Mason’s direction. “This is the part where you’re supposed to oooh, FYI.”

  Mason wrinkled his nose. “Dude, I’m still back on him taking eight months to heal from a broken leg.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Their X-ray machine was down, Loafers.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, but that’s a really long time. Like, if it was set properly, it would get well in a matter of weeks. If it wasn’t set properly, it—”

  “Who’s telling this story, Loafers?”

  He pinched his lips together. “You are—”

  “Damn straight.”

  “—Captain,” he added breathlessly.

  “I’m gonna make you walk the plank,” I informed him. “You wanted to hear this, remember?”

  He mimed zipping his lips shut.

  “Now. Where was I?”

  “The island was whispering,” Mason said in an appropriately hushed voice.

  I resisted the urge to laugh. “Right! So, the Goodman and Godfrey families settled on the island. Resolute and Sarah Goodman built a large home on the northern half of the island, while Jacob and Daisy Godfrey built a home in what’s now the town center, just a mile and a half north of the spot where Goodman and Godfrey came ashore.”

  “Reeeeally.”

  “Marius Wynott never told you that his bookstore was the original Godfrey house?”

  “No! And wait, and where did they land? On the beach near where we, um… live in the motel?”

  That was so not what he was going to say. “Yeah, they landed by the rocks. Haven’t we discussed this already?”

  “Did we?” He lifted a shoulder in a way that would have seemed casual if his face hadn’t flushed pink. “One beach on the island was the same as the other until, you know… recently.”

  “Ah, until I kissed you on that particular stretch of beach, you mean?” I said smugly. “Yeah, then the two of them went about half a mile inland and cleared a spot in the woods we call the Original Homestead. They built a temporary shelter out of driftwood and palm trees. Made a fire pit. Even…”

  “Grew little plots of blackberries,” he said impatiently. “Yes, I’ve heard. But back up the bus. I totally kissed you, Mr. Reardon. Check Instagram if you don’t recall.”

  “I haven’t checked Instagram since… the one and only time I ever checked Instagram weeks ago,” I informed him. “Unlike some people, I don’t need to follow anyone, let alone have them following me.”

  The very idea was horrifying.

  Mason’s nose wrinkled. “So, you haven’t seen all the pictures I’ve posted of us?”

  “What all the pictures?”

  “Never mind. Not important. Back to your story. What happened after they moved their families here? They had a bunch of babies and populated the place? When did people start hunting the treasure?”

  “Jacob and Resolute each had three children before the day they boarded the Esmerelda.” I set the engine to idle, and the boat rolled gently in the chop. “The first recorded mention of the treasure came when Resolute Goodman died in 1850 and his family examined his papers—”

  Mason laughed and folded his hands under his chin.

  “What?”

  “Nothing! Sorry! Just… I understand why you don’t talk a lot because holy shit, you must get so tired of talking. But also? I’m gonna need you to use this tour-guide voice on all kinds of things now. It’s really hot. Please narrate the way you change the oil in the Charger, and how Dale Jennings eats his dinner, and how Beale’s cat hates everyone, including Beale, and—”

  “Ahem. I don’t require your commentary. Do I tell you how to doctor people, Loafers?”

  “No.” He pushed his lips together. “I beg your pardon. Pray continue.”

  I rolled my eyes but dropped my tour-guide narration voice. “I mean, looking back, how fucking stupid were their families not to realize Jacob and Resolute had to have some source of income? The soil here is shit for farming, and they didn’t have enough land cleared to make money anyway, but every once in a while, according to Resolute’s diary, they’d take a trip off island and ‘trade for supplies.’ He just never mentioned what they were trading. Plus, they arrived long after the time when you could just stick a flag down and say ‘mine.’ Florida was a Spanish territory at the time, and they had to have paid some serious bribes to someone in order to stay. And then paid again, when it became a US territory. And probably again when it became a state. There’s no record of any of that, but it just makes sense.”

  Mason nodded, a little frown between his eyes.

  “Anyway.” I propped my foot up on the arm of the chair and sat sideways, facing him. “Kids grew up. All but one stayed on the island, and they subdivided the land. Jacob’s wife died young, but he never remarried. He lived to be seventy-something, which was nice and old back then, and died in his sleep, easy peasy. And that’s when the story starts getting interesting.”

  “It’s already interesting.”

  “Yeah, but this is the part with…” I paused dramatically. “The ghost.”

  “Of course.” Mason nodded slowly. “I mean, it needed only this, really. I’m assuming this is the malevolent spirit you mentioned the day I met you?”

  “Did I?” I ran a hand over my forehead. “Wow, I really wanted you to get off this island, huh?”

  “Yeah, and why was that?”

  I dropped my hand and eyed him. “Why did I want the hot, straight guy to leave the island, instead of staying and making me insane with lust? I don’t know, Loafers. Guess.”

  Mason grinned. “Awww. But now you’re so glad I stayed.”

  I pursed my lips. “Marginally.”

  “Entirely!”

  “Occasionally. Mostly when I’m getting my dick sucked.”

  “Always! Even when I change the radio station in the car.” Mason stood and leaned over my seat, and his mouth was right there, so I took it, wrapping my hand in his shirt and yanking him forward to sprawl awkwardly on my lap.

  “You are determined to destroy this polo,” he said. He moved his leg slightly so he was facing me and nuzzled my neck. “Go on, then. Malevolent spirits?”

  “Seriously? Now?” I ran my hands up his thighs t
o cup his ass. “With you distracting me? Nuh-uh.”

  We hadn’t explored much sexually beyond oral sex, which was fine—seriously, who wouldn’t be satisfied with blow jobs?—but that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. I was committed to taking things slow, but when I’d run slick fingers over his taint the last couple of times I’d blown him, his eyes had glazed over with want, which made keeping my promise really difficult. I wanted to show the man everything… especially when he planted his dick this close to my dick.

  “Not sure why you’re so distracted,” he teased. He mouthed at the tendon between my neck and shoulder.

  “Really?” I squeezed the ass I held with both hands. “You can’t imagine?”

  He pulled back slightly. “Okay, fine. New plan. Spirits, then more distractions. Go.”

  “I enjoy your plans.”

  He cocked his head to one side, waiting.

  “Spirits. Right. So, Jacob Godfrey died with very little money to his name. He left a will with his best buddy, Resolute, as the executor. He left his land to his kids, with the stipulation that he didn’t want any of it to be sold off. He wanted Whispering Key to stay within the two families. And he told Resolute Goodman to make sure his family was cared for.”

  “Fair enough.” Mason’s fingers played with the hair at the nape of my neck, and I pulled him tighter.

  “By all accounts, Resolute went a little crazy not long after that. Started walking the island at all hours of the day and night, according to some letters his wife wrote. Claimed Jacob visited him in his sleep. Talked with anyone who’d listen about how Jacob was the best of men and deserved a better friend than Resolute had been to him.”

  “Hmm.” Mason’s brow furrowed, and I felt the urge to kiss the wrinkle away, but I manfully resisted it.

  This thing between me and Mason was not that. It was time to start instituting some boundaries I should have put in place weeks ago.

  “Resolute died of a fever just a few months later, and in his ranting period near the end, he was obsessed with Jacob Godfrey. Named every rock and tree on this island after him. Wrote a whole long confession in his diary about stealing the treasure from the Esmerelda and how he and his BFF Jacob had split it.” I toyed with the hem of Mason’s shirt, lifting it just a few inches so I could feel his skin under my palms. “A treasure he claimed he’d hidden in—”