Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 125140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Um.” I frown. “Oh, I think I do in that bag of stuff. Let me check.” I shuffle around in the plastic bag and find the white bikini. “Here it is.” I cringe as I hold it up and inspect it.
“Put it on.” She smirks
“Okay.” I slip into the bathroom and put on the tiny bikini.
“Hurry up,” Angela calls.
“Oh God, it’s fucking obscene,” I shout back.
“Let me see.”
I tentatively open the door as I look down at myself in the white, Lycra, barely-there, string bikini.
Angela raises her eyebrows in approval. “Very nice. Mac’s going to love you in that.”
I frown as I try to stretch the top to cover more of my boobs. “Do you think so?”
She smiles warmly. “I know so.”
I glance over at her. I want to ask her so many things about him. Like why is he on this God forsaken boat? How long has it been since he slept with Chelsea? Does he have someone at home waiting for him? Is he really nice and insanely gorgeous, or am I becoming delusional and developing Stockholm Syndrome? I know I shouldn’t care about any of the answers to my questions, and to be honest, the less I know about him the better. He is a means to an end. He will keep me safe until I get off this boat and that is all I need to know. The rest doesn’t matter. I wish it really didn’t matter to me… but somehow it secretly does. I grab my towel. Ten minutes later I am being led to the top deck.
“Here it is.” Angela holds her arms up. “Our own special kind of paradise.”
I laugh out loud. “Yes, I can see.” The area is about ten meters square and there are ten white deck chairs in a semi circle, and the floor is covered in fake grass. It is the epitome of the eighties. To the left is a large glass room that houses the gym. I can see a guy in there working out. Angela spreads her towel out on a chair and lies down. “Take a seat.”
I spread my towel out, sit down beside her, lie back, and close my eyes. The sun is warm and welcoming.
We lie for a long time in silence. “How long did you say you have been on this boat for?” I ask.
Angela screws up her face as she thinks. “A couple of years.”
I glance over at her. “Explain this two men thing to me.”
She smiles with her eyes closed as she inhales the sun. “If you had asked me ten years ago if this is the life I imagined for myself.”
I watch her.
She shakes her head. “No way in Hell would I have imagined being happy here, living the way I do.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Happy?” I frown, because I can’t imagine that she could be.
She smiles broadly. “I have never been so happy.”
I fall back and face the sun as her words roll around in my head.
“Once I let go of my childhood aspirations and let myself live in the moment, I stopped being disappointed with everything.”
I glance over at her. “What do you mean?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I thought to be happy I had to have the three kids and the white picket fence in the suburbs with the perfect husband.”
“That’s how I feel,” I murmur.
“It’s all fucking bullshit. All of it.”
I think for a moment. “I just don’t get…” I stop myself, knowing this is none of my business and I really shouldn’t comment.
“How I’m with two men?” she asks.
I bring my hand up to shield my face from the sun. “I guess.”
“Neither could I for a long time. I never meant for it to turn out like this and I still remember the night I met them. It was about four in the morning and they were walking down the street after coming out of a nightclub. My boyfriend had just beat me up pretty bad and I had a bleeding lip and was running as I tried to get away from him.”
I watch her as I imagine the scenario in my mind.
“Jack grabbed me and I was screaming hysterically.” She pauses for a moment.
“Who, your ex?” I ask.
“Yes. He went ballistic that Jack had me in his arms and kicked me hard from behind.”
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Sounds hectic.”
“It was. Rick went crazy and they started having a fist fight.” She pauses as she thinks for a moment. “He was a nasty bit of gear my ex.”
“What happened then?”
“Jack made sure I was safe and then he helped Rick fight him off.”
“God.” I watch her for a moment. I can’t imagine being bashed by a boyfriend. How horrible?
“Anyway, to cut a long story short, I didn’t want to go home because I knew he would come there looking for me. They offered to put me up for the night.”