True. But it was telling how easily Jack fell into past tense when talking about his time as a SEAL. They’d never be teammates again, not the way it counted, and it sat funny in his chest.
“I’m still bleeding on a regular basis for my trident,” he countered quietly. “Kind of hoped for an uneventful vacation, you know?”
How would he get back his mojo if he was off looking for the GPS coordinates printed on the backside of a seashell? With Jack, no less. The guy probably didn’t break too many mirrors when he looked at himself, but he definitely had too much dude in him for Fitz’s taste.
“Yeah, okay.” Jack managed to look disappointed and casual about it at the same time. “I hear you. Oh, by the way. I forgot to mention that Thora’s doing it with us. And she brought a friend. Who’s hot.”
Thora? As in Jack’s gorgeous bestie whom he’d grown up with and sworn a thousand oaths to never think of as anything else but a friend because he was missing the majority of his brain cells? Fitz had lost count of the number of times the guys had harassed Jack for his laissez-faire policy when it came to the woman jazzing up all the pictures on his phone. The same woman who was apparently here in the Bahamas. With a friend.
Might be a lot of mojo recouping that could go on under those circumstances.
“Back up,” Fitz said as the cab stopped near the walkway to a large marina. “Maybe you could’ve led with that, genius. For a smart guy, you need some help in the persuasion department. How hot?”
Jack grinned and mimed zipping his lips with a smart-ass little twist of his fingers. “No, you said you didn’t want to do it. I’m just gonna tell Thora we’re too busy lying around like bumps on a log to team up.”
“Geez, man.”
This scavenger hunt slash race had gotten simultaneously more intriguing and more of a pain in the ass. He was going to have to do it if for no other reason than he suddenly wanted to see the fabled Thora of the Great Friendship for himself. And okay, he’d still lay down his life for a teammate, even though Jack had bailed on him.
A quarter of fifty grand wasn’t anything to sneeze at, but he’d rather have half. Probably. He’d reserve judgment until he got to evaluate the hotness level of the friend for himself.
Lilah was going to kill Thora if the stomach flu didn’t do the job for her.
For the third time, Thora ran off to the bathroom of their hotel room at the Duchess Island resort, and for the third time, the horrific retching sounds echoed off the tile walls until Lilah thought she might have to join her. Sympathy vomiting was not high on her list of things she’d wanted to do on her vacation.
“Was it the conch salad at lunch maybe?” Lilah asked as the pale, shaky specter of her friend emerged from the bathroom to fall facedown on the comforter. “Although I ate it and I feel fine.”
Of course she did. Lilah wasn’t the one who’d signed up for the Galloway Games or convinced someone else to fly thousands of miles from home to compete in it only to get sick.
Thora shook her tawny-colored head, and it might have been a no. Hard to tell when she was still using her face to prevent the bed from escaping.
“Where’s your phone? I’ll text Jack that we’re out of the games.” That would be one text she’d be thrilled to send.
This whole idea had been madness in the first place. When she’d moaned to Thora about the lack of creativity running through her veins, she’d expected advice to pick up an adult coloring book. When she’d mentioned that her photographs had seemed… off lately, jetting to the Caribbean wasn’t the solution she’d hoped Thora would toss out.
“No, you can’t.” Thora half rolled until the smallest corner of her face appeared from the nest of hair. “Don’t text him. I’ll be fine.”
“Too late.” Lilah palmed the pink-encased iPhone and scrolled through the contacts until she found Hyland, Jack and sent the message before anyone could point out that there was no rule that said there had to be four people on a team. Three could just as easily compete. But she didn’t know Jack or his friend, which just sounded dangerous. Also she’d have to leave Thora here all alone while she was sick, and that wouldn’t do.
Except now that she’d sent the text, the reality of the situation washed over her.
If she sat around a hotel room for the next week, she’d waste several thousand dollars that she didn’t have to blow, plus they were in the Bahamas. Nursing a sick person instead of being out in the sun and drinking a margarita did not rank as one of the perks.
This was her only vacation for the year. The only one she could afford. Being a freelance photographer was not a walk in the park. She had to hustle every day, though even hustling hadn’t proved to make much difference in the quality of her pictures lately. If only she could get her eye right, the photographs that paid her bills might warrant more than minimum wage.