Rock the Boat: A Griffin Bay Novel

by Starling, Lib

  That was why it hurt all the more when he found her in bed with Mark just a few months later.

  I was an idiot, he told himself, dropping his eyes from the sky’s vibrant glow. Whatever I felt for Christine, she never loved me. She only loved my money and my fame.

  And now that she and Mark had started up a band of their own—now that Can’t Never had eclipsed the Youths in a matter of two short years—Christine had all the money and fame she’d ever desired. Davis was just a footnote to her, a rung she’d stepped on to climb to her present height.

  He heard Jordan’s high but melodious voice drifting up from below, where she was helping Emily prepare the night’s meal.

  Now Jordan—she was the polar opposite of Christine. Storm had filled Davis in on the history of Sea Wolf Charters, and Davis was impressed with Jordan’s story. Fierce in her self-determination, she had built the contained world of her charter business on her very own terms… without using anybody else’s influence to achieve her dreams. That was the kind of woman Davis could really get into. Jordan was so in control of her boat and her crew, the mistress of her own realm, that Davis had no doubt she would have zero interest in riding his coat-tails to greater success—or anybody else’s coat-tails, for that matter.

  And God, she was so mind-blowingly hot. That trim, tight body, those long legs… even in her weird sailing pants with their ripply, baggy, whispery fabric he could tell she had some seriously toned legs. He couldn’t help wondering what they’d feel like wrapped around his waist. And as strange and unflattering as those pants were, he did appreciate the way they clung to her ass. She had some quality assets back there—Davis could just imagine the feel of that butt in his hands while he tangled with Jordan in bed.

  And just like that, Christine was gone from his head. The pain in his heart lifted. He stared at the sunset again, allowing his imagination to run wild with the naked and willing captain of the Coriolis as its main feature.

  What was it about Jordan that turned him on so much? It went beyond mere hotness—it had to. The Youths had once ruled the music scene; Davis had enjoyed more than his fair share of blindingly gorgeous women, singly and in groups. But Jordan had a more compelling draw.

  Maybe it had something to do with her stoic refusal to give in to her attraction. Davis knew Jordan found him sexy. He had noted her subtle responses to him—the the way she had swallowed hard when he’d moved in close to challenge her; the slight tremor in her voice. But she hadn’t budged—hadn’t given him a single one of those soft smiles or flirty, surrendering comments that said a woman was ready to give in, to give him just what he wanted. Jordan’s self-control was astonishing, especially for a woman so young. And as Davis allowed the peace of the sunset to wash over him, as he listened to Jordan and Emily talking softly in the galley, he realized he wanted to break through Jordan’s intriguing barriers as badly as he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

  The challenge of Jordan Griffin might just be a distraction from his shitty situation—career on the rocks, heart broken by his ex, growing older and less relevant every day—but she was a distraction Davis welcomed. The alternative—musing on the painfully slow crash-and-burn of his entire life—was nothing he wanted to contemplate, even if Tyler had ordered it.

  Jordan and Emily re-appeared on deck, each of them carefully bearing trays stacked with plates, steaming pots, and bowls full of delicious-smelling food. Storm followed them with a long, narrow folding table tucked under his arm. He set it up in the middle of the cockpit and the girls laid their trays on its surface.

  “Soup’s on,” Emily called brightly.

  Jordan sat at the table and waved for Davis to join them; he hurried over to the cockpit before anybody else could take the seat opposite Jordan. He wanted to watch her tonight—make eye contact—read her reactions.

  “We usually dine below,” she told him. “There’s a really nice pull-out table down there with comfy seats, but this sunset is just crazy. We had to take advantage of it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Davis said. “It is really beautiful, even if a bar would be more fun.”

  She rolled her eyes, but her smile had a hint of indulgence to it that told Davis she wasn’t entirely put off by his ribbing.

  “Linguini with crab-and-caper sauce,” Jordan said, lifting the lid from the largest pot. “Storm got the crab this afternoon at the fishermen’s pier, so it’s almost as fresh as if it was just pulled out of the water. And we’ve got a nice salad made with greens grown on a farm just outside Griffin Bay. Goat cheese made on the island, too. And over here, asparagus and mushrooms glazed with balsamic vinegar.”

  “Wow,” Davis said, thoroughly impressed. Emily dished up his plate first; when he took a bite of the linguini he shook his head in mute amazement.

  “Freshly prepared by your ultra-talented captain,” Emily said.

  “You cooked this?” He stared at Jordan. “No way.”

  “You didn’t think I just opened a can of Chef Boyardee, did you?”

  “No, I mean… this is incredible. I’ve traveled all over the place with the band, and eaten at some amazing restaurants. This is some of the best food I’ve ever had.”

  “Aw.” Jordan made a shooing motion with one hand, brushing off his compliments. “Cooking is just a hobby. It’s not like I’m a Michelin superstar.”

  Storm piled his plate high with salad. “Jordan’s mom is an amazing chef. A professional. She has a pretty well-known restaurant on the island.”

  Jordan shrugged. “Mom taught me everything I know. She gets all the credit here.”

  When she turned to her own meal, Davis noted her warm smile.

  “Your mom sounds cool, Jordan. You must really like her.”

  Jordan looked up quickly from her plate and held Davis’s eye. “I love my mom. She’s amazing. My dad, too. My family means the world to me; I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.”

  Davis smiled a little sadly and twirled another load of pasta around his fork. His own parents had never shown much interest in him. He couldn’t count all the times he’d disappointed them over the course of his life—and they’d let him know it, every single time. His dad had wanted him to become a lawyer. His mom didn’t care what he did for a living, as long as it was more respectable than being in a band. Over the past two years, as Davis had struggled to keep the Local Youths relevant in the music scene, he’d heard his father’s warning repeating in his head so often it was worse than any earworm. This isn’t a stable career, Davis. One day you’ll wake up and all your fame will be gone. What will you do with your life then? How will you hold your head up high?

  While his band was still climbing the charts, Davis had been able to laugh at his father’s warning. But lately he couldn’t deny that his dad might have been right all along.

  It must be great to have a family that supports you, he thought, hiding this new misery in a bite of asparagus and mushrooms—which really were incredible.

  But the sudden intrusion of thoughts about his unsupportive parents had opened up another vista of despair inside him. Suddenly there was nothing he wanted more than to shut out every dark thought that plagued him with the best, most reliable shield he knew: music. The louder, the better.

  When the amazing dinner was finished, Davis offered to help with the cleaning-up. But Jordan shook her head. “You’re not here to work. Relax. Enjoy what’s left of the sunset, and leave all the rough stuff to us. Besides, the galley’s small and you’ll only get in the way.”

  Davis claimed one of the folding deck chairs and stared at the colors fading from the sky while the crew busied themselves below. He had never been troubled by his wealth before—it had seemed the natural outcome of his hard work and talent, his just reward for following his dreams despite his parents’ objections. But now he felt a gulf between himself and the crew of the Coriolis. He had to spend the next nine days with these people—his only company, if Tyler got his way—yet they were all business, and to the
m he was just a job to be done.

  A terrible stab of loneliness ripped through him, an ache he hadn’t allowed himself to feel since the debacle with Christine. That jagged pain left him feeling hollow, disconnected, like some insignificant speck drifting on a wide, uncaring sea.

  That’s not me, he told himself. I’m Davis fucking Steen. I’m not insignificant; I’m a star.

  Tyler’s words from that morning came back to him. You’re going to come back to Seattle and tell me exactly who Davis Steen is and where his career is going.

  Davis’s breath caught in his throat. “I’m a star” isn’t enough of an identity. He knew that answer wouldn’t satisfy Tyler and Sky Records… and it didn’t satisfy Davis, either. What did it even mean, to be a star? He tipped his head back and stared up at the sky. The last wisp of orange had faded, and a night of dense, velvety purple was descending. This early in the night, only one star had emerged, sparkling silver-white. But it was alone in the sky, surrounded by an endless stretch of soft, violet nothingness.

  Emily giggled below and Storm’s laughter joined hers. The sound of it echoed faintly over the harbor, rebounding lightly from the night-blackened hills of Stuart Island. There was no other sound out here—nothing but the light patter of tiny waves against the Coriolis’s hull.

  God, Davis wondered, how do these Griffin Bay people stand this kind of isolation? How did they manage to live all the way out here in the San Juans, clinging to their rocky islands with the rest of the world—the real world—so far away? There was no sound of any freeway or roar of jets in the sky. There was no bump of music in the streets—there were no streets at all, save for the mysterious lanes that traced through dark water—routes only Jordan and her crew knew how to navigate.

  I can’t do this, Davis realized, his heart lurching with sudden panic. I can’t be alone. Fuck Tyler and his forced vacation.

  If he remained alone with his thoughts—with his fears, the repetitive scolding voice of his father, the memory of Christine in his arms—Davis was sure he’d go crazy.

  He jumped up from of his deck chair and hurried down the ladder into the heart of the Coriolis. Inside, the cheery glow of a few small lamps made the burnished teak wood of the boat’s interior glisten with warm light. Jordan and her friends stopped mid-laugh to stare at Davis as he pushed past them, moving quickly along the main cabin’s narrow corridor toward his own private quarters. He fumbled with the door’s tricky latch, but finally it popped open and he reached over the wide, richly made-up bed to where Storm had stowed his duffel bag in an wooden locker.

  Inside the bag, Davis found his iPod and its two powerful little speakers. He cradled them against his chest as if they were some life-giving token, some magical elixir—and then he headed back to the ladder.

  “What do you have there?” Jordan asked as he passed the galley. She was elbow-deep in a sudsy sink, washing the dinner dishes.

  “Music,” Davis said, and hurried back up to the boat’s deck before she could stop him.

  Somebody had turned on a small light affixed to the Coriolis’s rear mast. In the circle of its amber glow, Davis set up his speakers and flipped through his playlists until he found just the right music: classic rock with a heavy, confident beat and howling vocals—a sound that might as well have been his own half-lost, still-determined soul crying its defiance to the world. He let hips, knees, and shoulders swing loosely as the speakers blared, let the driving bass thump through him.

  It thumped through the Coriolis, too. Jordan popped up from belowdecks, frowning at him sternly.

  “Turn that off!” she said.

  Davis cupped a hand to his ear as if he couldn’t hear her. It was The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin; he sang along with the wordless, high-pitched vocal intro.

  “Waaah-waaaaah-waaaah!”

  “Oh my God!” Jordan scrambled the rest of the way up the ladder and rushed toward he speakers.

  Davis—his eyes on the wiggle of her hips as she ran, the enticement of her cleavage when she bent to seize his iPod—moved in close. He danced at her, circled her, surrounded her with the closeness of his body and the rhythm of his hips as they thrust at her subtly, in time with the music.

  “Waaah-waaaaah-waaaah!” he sang again.

  Jordan pulled the plug on his iPod; Davis’s last loud howl belted out across the water lone, without the accompaniment of Led Zeppelin. His voice and the final echo of the music rang loudly from the near-vertical walls of Stuart Island and filled the long, narrow bowl of the harbor.

  A voice from one of the boats anchored at the harbor’s end shouted back a faint response. “Shut up, jackass!”

  “What are you doing?” Jordan demanded.

  Davis kept dancing around her even though the music was gone. He moved even closer, his body swinging in time to the beat he heard inside his head. He held her dark brown eyes with his own, and though her glare spoke plainly of her irritation, she didn’t look away.

  “I’m dancing,” Davis said softly, so close to her now that he practically whispered the words in her ear.

  In the orange glow of the deck light, Davis thought he saw her cheeks color. But instead of giving him the sign he was craving—a melting smile, a sarcastic but flirtatious comment—anything to tell him he was winning her over—Jordan braced her hands on her hips. Her scowl only grew more stern.

  “Listen, Davis. You’re a client, and I take a professional approach to my business. I want to make your vacation a pleasant experience, but I’m the captain of this boat. You do what I say—that’s the rule of sailing. Got it?”

  All the dance drained out of Davis’s body. “Yeah, yeah. Jeez, I got it.”

  “Your manager sent you to me so you could relax, not so you could party. My boat isn’t a floating bar-room!”

  Davis heard a soft sound from the cockpit. Emily was there; she had gently cleared her throat, and Jordan rounded on her with a sharp, “What?!”

  “Can I speak to you for a moment, please?” Emily said.

  Jordan fixed Davis with one last glare of warning, then stalked across the deck to Emily’s side. As the two women put their heads together in quiet conversation, Davis bent to wrap up the cords of his speakers and iPod. He felt like an idiot. He’d made a total fool of himself, and pissed off the other boaters on the harbor, too.

  But it had been worth it, to get so close to Jordan. He’d practically been able to feel the heat of her skin—or maybe it was the heat of her anger. It didn’t matter which; Davis had enjoyed it. He bit his lip hard to stifle a victorious laugh.

  Soft footsteps crossed the deck toward him. He looked up to see Emily standing over him, smiling self-consciously while she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  “Hey,” Davis said.

  “Hey. Uh… listen, I want to apologize to you for being such an idiot when you first got here.”

  Davis straightened, speakers in hand. “It’s all right. Seriously, it’s fine. I’ve dealt with way worse before, believe me.”

  “I was just talking to Jordan, and I think I might have convinced her that a little music would be a good thing tonight.”

  “I don’t know,” Davis said, glancing over his shoulder toward the distant lights of the other anchored boats. “You and I might be alone out here in our appreciation for music.”

  “Jordan said it would be okay… as long as it’s quiet. And acoustic.”

  “Aha.” Davis chuckled. “You guys want a private concert—is that it?”

  Emily blushed. “I didn’t mean…. We don’t want to impose. And of course you can say no. But maybe playing your guitar instead of playing your iPod would be a little… tamer? A little more chill.”

  He smiled at her. “Don’t count on that. I can shred pretty hard, even on an acoustic.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But it won’t carry as far, so the captain won’t have any reason to go into cardiac arrest.” She leaned toward him and whispered with a conspiratory air, “Plus, I’ve convinced Jord
an to make a peace offering.”

  Jordan came up the ladder bearing a resigned air and four wine glasses, clutched by their stems in one hand. She held an opened bottle of wine in the other. Davis watched a she set the bottle carefully on one of the cockpit’s bench seats, then arranged the glasses in a neat row.

  He approached carefully. “I thought your boat wasn’t a floating bar-room.”

  She looked up at him with a level stare that said, Watch it, buddy. But a moment later those full lips twitched with the barest hint of a smile.

  “Emily can be very convincing sometimes.” She poured the dark wine into the glasses.

  A few minutes later, Davis sat with his guitar resting on his knee while the crew of the Coriolis huddled around him. The night had grown chilly, but the wine—an excellent, full-bodied red—took some of the edge off. Davis did his best to keep the volume down for Jordan’s sake. He coaxed soft chords from the strings, playing first one gentle, slow song, and then another.

  Perhaps it was to Emily’s disappointment that Davis didn’t play a single Local Youths song. His band’s stuff was just too harsh for this easy, quiet moment, too lively for the close proximity they all shared and the mellow taste of the wine on his tongue. Davis played through one ballad after another—other people’s songs, singing sweet and low. He gave a welcoming grin when Emily and Storm joined in—though nobody was brave enough to try until they’d finished a second glass of wine. The crew of the Coriolis wasn’t bad with a harmony—Davis had to hand it to them.