Page 39 of The Cruiser
ChapterFifteen
Morgan’s handclamps hard onto mine, and he whisks us away from all the staring faces. Away from my humiliation. I scramble to keep up with him.
“Where are we going?”
He shoulders past a huddle of suited men with stubby cigars and sunburnt faces. “Somewhere private,” he says, his voice low.
At the end of the hall, Morgan takes a sharp right onto a staircase rising into darkness. The thick carpet underfoot is like stepping on pillows and with each step, the ambient hum of the stalled-out party fades.
“Are we allowed up here?” I whisper. I’ve snuck around enough to know when something feels off-limits.
“If anyone complains,” he says, “I’ll deal with it.”
There is only one door on this level, and Morgan guides me through it, shutting it firmly behind us. The evening’s last light is fading but still slanting low through a bank of windows, illuminating a bedroom the size of a tennis court. Another man’s cologne spikes the air. Next to the fireplace, a stripper pole and mini stage sit dark under show lights. Dry-cleaned shirts draped in plastic hang like ghosts on the closet door handle. Morgan beelines for the ensuite, tugging on my arm like I’m a misbehaving puppy. I’m half-expecting he’ll read me the riot act, about protocol at a yacht party full of potential clients and peers. But I’ve never been talked down to in such a vulgar manner, so he can save the speech.
I reclaim my hand while he searches for the light switch. “Please don’t treat me like a child. Remember what we talked about? Communication? And running away makes us look like cowards.”
“Coward?” he scoffs. “Is that what you think of me?”
The overhead pot lamps burst on with an assault of brightness. He’s breathing heavily, hair and tuxedo in disarray although it’s the contained fury in his eyes that puts me on guard.
“That’s not what I meant. He should stew in his own behavior. Leaving makes it look like he’s in the right.”
With a dismissive shake of his head he says, “Life isn’t about being right, Vandana. Sometimes you walk away.”
From a pyramid of rolled facecloths sitting on the vanity, he grabs one, cranks on a sink tap, and saturates the towel. Light pink rivulets stream off his knuckles down the drain. Truth be told, he makes bloody and disheveled look pretty damn good.
“How’s your hand?” I ask.
“Good enough to go another round if need be.”
“You didn’t strike me as a fighter.”
“Only when provoked.”
I meet his eyes in the mirror because it feels safer, his anger one step removed. Energy sparks off of him like solar flares. “I’m sorry. I feel like—”
“Why are you apologizing?” he demands. “You did nothing wrong. A man should never strike a woman.”
“I know but—”
“Shh,” he interrupts, a hand in the air to punctuate his point. “You need something cold on your cheek. The last thing you want is a bruise.” He wrings out the towel and hands it to me. “Put pressure on it.”
I wince as the cold stings my raw skin. He tidies up in the sink, an opulent basin big enough to bathe a healthy two-year-old. The grandeur of the bathroom décor leans heavily on Baroque, not that eighteenth century nobles had massive fish tanks installed above soaker tubs with baby sharks gliding back and forth in an eerie figure eight.
As Morgan rearranges his hair in the mirror, futzing with bangs no longer held in place with crispy gel, I take ownership of the situation.
“I do need to apologize,” I say. “To you. I provoked that man, throwing my champagne in his face. Maybe he took exception to the vintage?”
Morgan glances at me with a wry smile. “Very funny. And highly unlikely. Renan wouldn’t know a Brut from a Demi-sec.”
I blink, thrown for a loop. “That guy was Renan? The yacht designer?”
“He likes to call himself that.”
This news sobers me right up. Derek once explained the hockey rule of offside to me, but I never quite understood it in the context of the word. Watching Morgan and Renan go at each other tonight, their violence felt intimate. Men don’t battle like that unless wounded pride is at stake. All of a sudden, a whole new world unfolds, and it smells offside … as I know the word. “He’s not just a random designer. You know him on a personal level.”
Morgan, arms crossed tightly, says, “We were friends growing up.”
