Nova

“They call you a curse?” she asked.

I sneaked a fry and nodded. “Yep,” I said after I swallowed. “He fucked up every trick the first six months he was back, and the next thing I know there’s a blogger calling it ‘the curse of Rachel.’ Awesome, right? Even better knowing he’d pulled the quote directly from a Renegade.”

“Which one?”

“Penna.”

“Penna? But she’s so sweet!”

“Until you screw with her family. Then she hates you forever and ever. Anyway, Wilder doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Landon didn’t just get over me, he jumped, hurtled, warp-sped over me.”

“That’s not what Pax says,” she insisted.

“What do I say?” Wilder asked from behind us.

Kill me now. I turned slowly, mentally preparing myself for humiliation. The last thing I needed was Wilder telling me— Fuck my life. Landon was coming up behind him.

I spun so fast the ends of my hair smacked me in the face.

“Oh, nothing you need to worry about,” Leah insisted as Wilder took the seat next to her, which left the seat next to me open to—

“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered as Landon sat down next to me, an identical cheeseburger on his tray.

I pushed away from the table. This was why I’d eaten in our suite since I’d gotten here. The ship was too damn small to avoid him everywhere. Hell, maybe the earth was too small.

“Rachel, please don’t,” Landon said softly, his fingers lightly wrapping around my wrist.

That zing of current I only ever felt with him zipped up my arm, and I yanked away.

“Whoa,” Leah said as she caught the edge of my tray.

“Sorry.” I righted the tray, saving my quickly cooling cheeseburger.

“Rachel, we need you,” Wilder said quickly and quietly.

“What? Why?” I asked, locking my gaze onto him. He was safe. He didn’t send my hormones skyrocketing or turn me into a puddle of gullible goo.

“Because you haven’t signed the media waiver,” Landon answered.

God, even his voice, that deep velvet timbre, sent little chills over me. I crossed my arms so he couldn’t see the gooseflesh and kept my eyes on Wilder. “So what?”

“Since you haven’t signed it, they won’t bother filming us at lunch—they can’t use any of the footage you’re in until you sign it. We really need to discuss a few things, and unless we want to have the conversation in the bathroom, we can’t escape those damn cameras.” He motioned behind me.

I pulled my best not-too-obvious turn and saw Bobby with a cameraman shifting his weight from foot to foot across the room. “So you need to use me as a shield.”

“I’m getting sick of seeing them everywhere, Pax,” Leah whispered.

“I know. Do you want to eat in your suite?” he offered.

“No, I’d like to come down from the ivory tower every once in a while,” she said, shuffling her fries on her plate.

Guilt stabbed me in the chest. I’d been so selfishly concerned with running into Landon that I hadn’t thought of how this documentary had to be affecting my very shy friend. “I’ll stay. For her,” I clarified. “Not you.”

“Not me?” Landon asked.

“On the condition that he doesn’t speak to me,” I told Wilder. Sitting this close to Landon was hard enough. I wasn’t sure I could handle a full conversation without either throwing my food in his face or breaking down completely and begging for an explanation. Neither option appealed to me.

Wilder’s gaze swung between mine and Landon’s before he rubbed his hand over his head and sighed. “Fine.”

“Pax—” Landon protested.

“We have bigger fish to fry at the moment,” Wilder snapped. “We’ve got all of twenty-four hours to figure this stunt out.”

I finally dressed my gorgeous cheeseburger, moving my tomato to the right side of my plate and mourning the fact that I only had three pickle slices, as the guys started talking in low voices that I tried my best to tune out. “There’s no salt,” I muttered, pushing back from the table. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Leah before I headed for the condiment table.

“You okay?” Leah asked in a whisper as she caught up with me.

I started to say that I was fine, but the look in her eyes warned me against the lie. As much as I’d kept this part of my life to myself, Leah was in it now. “It’s just…really familiar,” I answered quietly. “Like really creepy déjà vu.”

Except I’d hurt one of them, the other one had broken me, and none of us were dating each other. This took weird to a whole new level.

“I’m so sorry you’re in this position.”

Looking over her shoulder, I saw the cameras make their way toward the table. “I guess we’d better rescue them.”

She squeezed my forearm and gave me an understanding nod. It felt like both sides of my life—both sides of me—were colliding, past and present crashing and combining in ways I wasn’t ready for.

The cameras backed away as I approached with the saltshaker, one of the crew blatantly rolling his eyes as they retreated. After sprinkling salt on my fries, I finally sank my teeth into lunch, savoring the perfectly cooked burger, the sharp tang of cheddar and twist of pickle.

“You’re going to have to ask them to loop back around, or we need to pick a different island,” Landon said.