Wilder

“Then why are you even taking this class?” she asked, her mouth still agape.

“I had room for an elective,” I said with a shrug.

She shook her head at me.

Fuck it. I leaned across the desk, grabbed the back of her neck, and pulled her into a quick, hard kiss, uncaring that I’d just gone ship-wide public with our relationship. That’s right, guys. The gorgeous, smart girl is mine. I broke the kiss before she could respond, and grinned. “I took the class because you did.”

“Oh.” She nodded slowly.

“Are we okay about the ship thing?” I had to know.

“Exactly how much money do you have?” she asked, incredulous.

“Would it matter if I didn’t have any?”

She shook her head.

“Then it doesn’t matter how much I do have, right?”

“It doesn’t matter. I just wish you’d told me. I hate finding out stuff secondhand, especially about you, and you know how important honesty is to me.”

My gut twisted. She didn’t even know the half of it.

“That’s fair. What are you thinking?”

She sighed wistfully. “The Athena. Your dad still loves your mom.”

I swallowed and looked forward as Dr. Douche took the podium. “Love. Yeah, well, it’s never done either of them any good, has it?”

She winced, but the lecture started before I could ask her why.

But there was something in the way she leaned slightly away that made me wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

That was a first.

…

“At least pretend to have a good time,” Bobby instructed before walking away. Landon rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his beer.

The pounding bassline in the ship’s club was usually enough to distract me, but this was the last place I wanted to be. Now the challenge would be if I could make it look like I felt the opposite.

“He’s still pissed that we had to cancel the Istanbul shoot when you bruised your ribs.”

“Yeah, well, not as pissed as I was.” I polished off my Newcastle, and when Landon ordered another, I opted for water. I only had to sit here another hour or so before I could spend the rest of my evening worshipping Leah’s body, and that deserved my full concentration.

Landon’s was on the two Sorority-Girl Barbies eyeing us. I wanted to say something to him about not fucking every girl on the ship, about not trying to feed the emptiness with meaningless hookups, but considering I was the one who put him in that situation, it wasn’t my… You know what? Fuck it.

“So have you thought about slowing it down on that track?” I asked, motioning to where one of the girls giggled at his come-get-me grin.

He shrugged and started peeling the label on his empty bottle. “Not really.”

“I know we don’t talk about it”—his eyes flashed in my direction—“but I’m going to say this once and let it hang there. You’re not going to find the answer to missing her underneath that girl’s dress, or the one after her, or the one right after her.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. I’m fine.” The hard I-will-kill-you look he threw at me said otherwise.

“Right. Well—”

“Drop it,” he growled. A second later his Casanova smile was in place, ready to woo another Band-Aid for his still-hemorrhaging heart.

“You’re Wilder, aren’t you?” Sorority-Girl Barbie number one asked me, leaning close to be heard over the pounding bass in the ship’s club.

“I am,” I answered with my expected grin.

Mischief Lounge was full because it was a Friday night, which meant no classes tomorrow. It was our only day in Athens, and I’d promised Leah we’d do all the artsy stuff she wanted, as long as we could pause to play a game of human Zorb Ball bowling in the Olympic Stadium for the cameras. And then, of course, we’d be holed up the rest of the weekend to get the massive amount of make-up work done that we’d missed while in Mykonos. Worth it.

But for now, I was on Wilder duty, playing the bad-boy card so Bobby could get his shots in.

“I’m Candy,” she said with a dentist-white smile and fuck-me eyes, then motioned over her shoulder. “And this is my friend, Jules.”

“Nice to meet you,” I answered. On the opposite side of the booth, Landon was looking at Jules like he’d discovered his weekend. Typical.

“Do you mind?” she asked as she sat on the spare three inches between me and the edge.

I moved over so she didn’t fall on her ass. “Not at all,” I answered, because that’s what I was supposed to do, especially given the microphones right behind us in the fake-as-hell lotus flowers.

Jules made herself at home on Landon’s lap.

If Candy thought she’d pull the same shit, she was sorely mistaken. Damn it, I should have had the talk with Leah today, but she’d been spastic over academics. I couldn’t exactly go documentary-public without her saying yes. Everything they’d caught in Mykonos I could have edited out with the right amount of leverage.

“Ooh!” Candy exclaimed, her boobs bouncing in her tight pink tank top as she flagged the waitress down. “Can we get shots?” She sent me a sideways glance. “Maybe some Sex on the Beach?”

Fucking spare me. It wasn’t like I could turn her down on camera.

“Sounds good,” I said with a nod to the waitress. “Thank you.”