“Probably a muskie.” Taylor came up from beneath the dash and stopped in the doorway, resting his leathery hands on his waist. “Or…could’ve been the Lake Michigan Mermaid,” he said softly, glancing over his shoulder like he had just heard something coming from the front of the boat.
Jon’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Lake Michigan Mermaid?” he asked, taking a seat on a wooden bench running along one side of the rear deck. Sky shivered in the breeze rolling over them and joined him.
“Aye.” Taylor looked out across the water, stroking his shaggy beard. “Folks say Lorelei still haunts the shipwrecks at the bottom of this lake, searching for her drowned husband.” He turned to them with warm eyes. “Legend has it she’s as beautiful as a newborn’s first breath.” His face hardened into something solemn, leaving dark shadows around his eyes. “But that creature is not to be trusted.”
Dean’s agitated gaze pierced the captain without mercy. “Would you just get the goddamned boat started?” he barked, cleaning his jeans with a towel that only smeared the whipped cream in more.
“What happened to her husband?” Sky asked, scooting closer to Jon, who scooted further away.
“He was aboard a great wooden steamship, called the Doty, transporting a large cargo of corn from South Chicago to Ontario in October of eighteen ninety-eight when she sailed into a terrible storm.” Taylor studied their faces in the lantern’s faint light. “Cuz it’s a freshwater lake, it’s believed the vessel – and the crew’s seventeen corpses – are all well preserved down below. So she searches for him to this very day.”
“Awww,” Kat cooed, taking a seat next to Sky on the hard bench. “That’s so sweet.”
“Aye. Unless she finds you and you’re not her husband.”
Dean rolled his eyes, now scrubbing his shirt.
“What happens if you’re not her husband?” Will whispered.
The captain jerked his eyes to Will without moving his head. “Then…she has sex with you.”
Shaun bent an eyebrow. “Now, that’s my kind of mermaid.”
“Then she cuts your dick off with the razor sharp teeth lining her privates.”
“I stand corrected,” Shaun replied, taking a long swig of beer.
Dean popped out of his folding chair so fast it toppled to the deck behind him. “Will you cut the fairytale bullshit and figure something out!” He checked his watch. “We need to get back to the marina! Now!”
Captain Taylor’s bushy eyebrows rose into his forehead. “Only one thing we can do.”
Dean threw his hands out. “And what’s that?”
“Wait for help.”
Dean turned away and leaned against the side of the boat, hanging his head between his shoulders. He let out a tired breath and looked up, staring out across the water running into the pitch black surrounding them. “They’ll never find us out here. Not at night.”
“Aye, but they will when the sun comes up and we haven’t reported back.”
Dean spun around. “And what? Spend the night out here? Are you fucking crazy?”
“I’m sorry, lad, but we ain’t got much choice in the matter.”
Dean stepped into the captain’s face, his chest rising and falling beneath his soiled t-shirt. He locked eyes with Taylor and spoke in a heated whisper. “Call me lad one more time. I fucking dare you.”
Shaun took his arm and pulled. “Dean, take it...”
Dean yanked his arm away. “Fuck you, Shaun! This is all on you!”
“That’s fine, but getting all pissed off about it and making a huge scene isn’t going to solve anything. This is out of our control now.”
Dean pointed an accusatory finger at the girls. “This got out of your control the moment they stepped foot aboard this boat.”
Kat dropped her face into her hands and started crying.
Sky wrapped her skinny arms around her coworker. “It’s okay, Kat. We’re going to be fine.”
“No, we’re not!”
Sky flinched with the outburst.
“I’m cold and there’s a fucking killer mermaid on the loose!”
“He’s just kidding around, aren’t you Captain?” Jon said.
The captain blinked blankly at Jon, stroking his beard for a few seconds too long. “Aye.”
Kat scanned the captain’s weathered eyes and burst into tears again. Taylor lifted a bench seat against the other wall, pulled a blanket out and offered it to Kat. She didn’t take it but Sky did.
“Great,” Shaun said, tossing Dean an are you happy now look as Sky wrapped the blanket around her and Kat. “You don’t have to be an asshole about this.”
Dean set his jaw, his face turning bright red. “Oh, I’m the asshole? I’m not the one disrespecting my fiancé! Who, by the way, will be standing on the dock waiting for us when the coast guard or who-the-fuck-ever tows us in tomorrow.” He looked to the girls. “Which should go over real well.”
Will popped up from his chair. “All right, all right, everyone just calm down. Everything is going to be fine.” He turned to the captain. “What do we have for food and water?”
Kat looked up, rivers of black eyeliner running down her cheeks.
“They’ll find us in da morning,” Taylor replied, evading the question. “Afternoon at ta latest.”
Jon got up and approached the captain under the helm’s small roof. “I’ll give you twenty bucks to let me use the bathroom.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I’m about to shit my pants.”
Taylor looked down at the twenty in Jon’s hand and then looked back up. “Forty.”
Jon stopped shifting and gritted his teeth before digging out his wallet. “I’d like to punch your mama right in the mouth.”
Taylor chuckled as he took the money and slipped it into a back pocket. “Hey!”
Jon stopped and turned in the tiny doorway leading below deck.
“No funny business down there now, laddie.” Taylor wagged a finger back and forth at him.
Jon pressed his lips together and turned for the stairs, grumbling under his breath.
Chapter Fifteen
The smoke alarm went off and Brooke sat bolt upright in bed. Rolling smoke rushed into her lungs and she immediately began coughing. “Ben!” she screamed, reaching over to find his side of the bed cold and empty. Her bare feet hit the hardwood and pattered around to the master bath.
“Ben!”
She pulled her night shirt over her nose to block the smoke, eyes watering. Her hand found the bathroom light switch but nothing happened when she flipped it on.
“Ben! Where are you?”
The incessant smoke alarm answered her with its panicked series of high-pitched beeps, fueling her terror. Her vision blurred. Her chest burned. Brooke made a beeline for the hallway and stubbed her toe on the bench at the foot of the bed. She cried out in pain and skipped across the room on one foot. Her hand found the doorway to the hall. She stopped to cough, the smoke alarm above her, blasting her eardrums with its urgent cry. Fire pooled around her bare feet and quickly climbed her legs. She tried to run but couldn’t move – a witch at the stake.
“Ben!”
Brooke’s eyes popped open. She sat up in bed, chest pounding beneath the Star Wars shirt she had stolen from Ben, who was just as gone as the smoke. Her cell phone rang again on the nightstand next to her. She snatched it up in a shaky panic, her breath shooting out in warm bursts and fogging the screen.
Evy.
Three forty-six in the morning.
Brooke answered it, glancing at Ben’s untouched side of the bed again. “Where are they?”
Evy’s heavy breathing came through in hitching waves, her voice little more than a whisper. “They’re not there?”
Brooke wiped sweat from her brow with her shoulder and threw back the covers. “Hang on,” she said, hopping out of bed and being careful to avoid the bench on the way to the master bath. She hit the lights, her eyes reflexively shutting out the harsh glow. The bathroom was empty, just l
ike in her dream. Her ears rang in the quiet. She staggered into the open kitchen and hit the lights, clutching the phone to her chest. Her heart sank.
“Ben?”
The panic in her voice reminded her of the nightmare she had just escaped only to find herself trapped in another. Her heart beat against the cell phone. She called out his name again.
Nothing.
Brooke brought the phone back to her ear. “They’re not here.”
Evy didn’t respond and Brooke pressed the phone tighter against her ear.
“Evy!”
“Where could they be? It’s almost four in the morning!”
Brooke tried to think of a smartass answer to alleviate her sister’s anxiety but her own apprehension squashed that plan to bits. “I don’t know,” she said instead.
“Dean doesn’t answer his phone. None of them do.”
Brooke frowned, a foreboding feeling blooming in the pit of her stomach. “None of them?”
“No.” Evy sighed into the phone, silently processing events. Decision flickered across her face. “Find out who the limo company was. I’m coming over to your place. I’ll call Carrie on the way.”
“Evy!”
Silence gripped the line with both hands and squeezed and, for a moment, Brooke thought her sister had hung up.
“What?” Evy said weakly.
“I’m sure they are fine – probably just swimming off the beers and smell of fish at Shaun’s house.” She paused. “You drive carefully.”
Evy took a deep breath and released it. “Okay.”
Chapter Sixteen
The faint light of dawn crept over the eastern horizon, gradually illuminating the tranquil water all around. It was so quiet Dean could hear something jump from the water a hundred yards away. The thin strip of moonlight skipping off the water’s surface gradually faded into the chilly morning. Dean checked his watch again and sighed.
Five twenty-three.
There was only one way this could end now: Badly. They were already over three hours late and past the point of no return. Evy would be sick with worry, if she was even awake. He nearly convinced himself that she had slept through the entire night and hadn’t spent the last three hours worried out of her mind. But that was too easy and he knew it. Dean glanced at the strippers huddled up next to Jon and cringed. Lawyer or not, there would be no talking his way out of this one. She’d never believe him. And even if she did, there would always be a tiny part of her that...
Shaun tapped him on the arm with a fresh beer. Dean stared at Shaun’s smiling face on the side of the can and turned away. Shaun pressed his lips together and handed it to Will instead.
Will cracked the can open and took a slow pull, eyeballing the solemn group before him. “Anyone see Sharknado?”
Leaning back in his chair with his big arms folded across his black jacket for warmth, Ben cracked his eyes open. “Awesome flick.”
Will nodded, gazing up at the purple sky. “That could really happen, ya know.”
“If we’re going to die out here in the middle of nowhere, I think we should go around and admit one regret we never told another living soul.”
Their eyes slowly wandered to Shaun.
“Be like a confessional.” He shrugged. “Just in case.”
“We’re not going to die,” Ben said, closing his eyes again.
“Says you, Ben.” Shaun ran a hand through his sandy brown hair, scanning the fading stars above. “The sun will be up soon and we’re dangerously low on water.”
“Oh my God,” Kat whimpered, eyes bulging. “How much water do we have left?”
“I once put Visine in my coffee to get out of going to my wife’s company Christmas party.”
Everyone turned to Will, bewilderment smeared across their faces.
He responded with a shamefaced nod. “Visine gives you the runs.”
Ben arched an eyebrow into the middle of his forehead. “You must really hate your wife’s Christmas party.”
“The CEO is a recovering alcoholic so there’s never a bar.”
Ben leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. “That’ll do it.”
“I was into squashing for three months last year and never told anyone.”
The entire group fell silent, slowly rotating their heads around to Jon.
Shaun bunched his face up. “Say what now?”
“Squashing,” Jon repeated. “It’s when you let a heavyset chick sit on you in their underwear.”
Water gently slapped the sides of the boat for a few taken aback seconds before Kat and Sky busted up laughing from beneath the blanket.
“That is so wrong!” Kat said.
“I had to give it up when one of my ribs cracked.”
A shocked laugh somersaulted from Shaun’s gaping mouth. “I thought that happened playing basketball!”
“That’s what I told everyone.”
“That is really weird, man,” Ben said.
Sky shrugged, smiling up at Jon. “Hey, we all have our things. I won’t judge you.”
“Thank you, Ty.”
Her smile fell. “It’s Sky.”
Will cleared his throat. “Every time I go into the kitchen after midnight I hear a puppy whining in the basement.”
Silence mixed with their puzzled looks.
“What?” Ben finally laughed.
Will lowered his voice to a grave whisper. “And here’s the weird part...we don’t even have a puppy.”
“That’s not a regret,” Jon said flatly. “And you already had your turn.”
“Sorry, I just needed to tell someone. Laura thinks I’m getting dementia, but I know what I heard.”
Ben leaned his chair back on two legs. “Have you gone downstairs and checked it out?”
“I don’t go down there anymore, which is a shame because we just remodeled the basement bathroom. Bowl sink and everything.”
Jon stretched his arms out and yawned. “Bummer.”
They studied each other in the faint light while Dean stared off into space.
“I’m pretty sure our house is haunted,” Ben said.
Will frowned. “Don’t mock me, Ben.”
“I’m serious. I found out from a neighbor that the guy who used to live there died in his sleep in the master bedroom. Brooke wants to switch to a different bedroom now.”
“Get out,” Will replied dully.
“Lot of weird noises and stuff,” Ben continued with a yawn of his own.
“Probably just the wind,” Will said, tipping his can back. “That’s Laura’s explanation for everything and she’s probably right.”
The calmness of the lake slithered over the edges of the boat like tentacles, pulling them into a subdued state of mind. A crane leisurely flew past, its legs dangling through the air behind it, a prehistoric silhouette against the brightening sky.
“I once jerked off on a girl who had passed out ten minutes earlier,” Shaun said.
“Will you just shut the fuck up!” Dean said, concern flooding his tired face. “All of you! Quit acting like nothing is wrong here because I can assure you that could not be farther from the truth.” He shook his head. “Fuck!”
They did as he asked, avoiding his searing eyes as well for good measure.
“Dean,” Will said softly, “I will help explain everything to Evy. I am her father and she knows I would never lie to her. It’s always easy telling the truth when you did nothing wrong.”
Ben nodded. “He’s right, Dean.”
Dean leaned forward in his chair, hitting Will with a pointed glare. “You and I both know that no matter what we say to Evy, she will always have this…doubt in the back of her mind after this.” He glanced to the girls and then looked down to his stained clothing.
“I’m not so sure about…”
“You know she will! She may act like she doesn’t but she will. I know her and so do you.”
“Listen, Jon is the only one who had sexual relations with those women.” Will ca
st a cold look Jon’s way that made him shift positions on the hard bench. “And no one will ever admit to that. Will they?”
No one answered him.
“Will they?” he repeated in a louder voice.
Kat held up a hand. “Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t do anything.”
Sky glanced at Jon and turned back to Will. She nodded, naked embarrassment blanketing her face. “I’m sorry, I should’ve never agreed to come. I feel horrible.” A tear rolled down her red cheek. “My mother would be so hurt if she found out I was giving blowjobs to complete strangers for money.” Her sniffling snowballed into a rush of tears. “This isn’t the life I wanted!”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered under his breath.
“It’s not too late to make a change, Sky,” Will told her, resting his elbows on his knees, beer can clutched between his hands. “It’s never too late to make a change in your life.”
She shook her head vehemently, her short blond hair bouncing with the motion. “I have a two-year old daughter and an ex-husband who never even calls let alone pays child support. I have to take care of that baby girl and waiting tables at Applebee’s isn’t going to get it.”
“You could go to college,” Will said. “Get a fresh start.”
“I tried that,” Sky said morosely. “It didn’t last long and I can’t turn back now. Not with Layla in the picture.”
Will opened his mouth but slowly shut it again, surprised by his own loss of words. A star streaked above them in a blur before melting back into the now orange sky.
“Ya plugged up my damn toilet!”
They turned to Captain Taylor as he emerged from below deck. His heated gaze found Jon in a heartbeat and turned to a boil. “Yer payin for a plumber when we get back ta shore.”
Jon frowned. “Wasn’t me, dude.”
Sky placed a hand on Jon’s, drawing his alarmed eyes. “I want you to know that this was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that.”
His frown deepened.
“For money, I mean.”
Kat leaned forward. “She just started last week, but you can’t blame her anyway. She didn’t hire out this party. You did!”
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