“You yanked me on purpose. I felt it.”
“I-I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
“Bullshit,” Erica spat. “I saw him looking at me, and I know you did, too!”
Alex stepped closer, hands up, palms out. “Whoa, whoa, hold on.”
“Shut up, Alex.” Erica swung a pointed finger at him. “Your girlfriend here got jealous that you were paying more attention to me.”
“No, I didn’t,” Jenn lied.
Alex tried to rationalize the situation. “Erica, for God’s sake, you were naked for like, thirty minutes. Of course I was looking at you.”
Chet shrugged. “Yeah, it’s not like we could miss it,” he said, and the others agreed with nodding heads. “I mean, damn, I hate to admit it, but if anybody has a right to be jealous, it’s the married ladies.” He looked at Karen, and then at Terri. “Am I right, or am I right?”
Terri crossed her arms and looked out toward the ocean. “Mark knows better.”
Karen put her hands on her hips. “I’m not. You’re free to look, and it’s not like we haven’t seen her naked before. She does it every time she’s around, and besides, we were all egging her on.”
Terri snorted. “I wasn’t.”
Alex took off his windbreaker and wrapped it around Erica’s shoulders. “Okay, look, we’re all tired, it’s late, we’re drunk…all that bullshit people say when the party’s over. Let’s just call it a night, and we’ll have some fun tomorrow, okay? You know where your rooms are, so just let me know if you need anything. I’m gonna take Erica down to the main cabin to get the first aid kit. I’ll put her to bed, and that’ll be the end of it.” He turned Erica away and led her toward the stairs, but before they descended, Alex looked over his shoulder at Jenn. “You stay right there. I want to talk to you when I get back, got it?”
Jenn tucked her hands into her armpits and rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever.”
Alex disappeared into the yacht, guiding Erica down the steps as the group broke apart, picking up their things and trying to avoid eye contact with Jenn, but when she met each of their gazes, they were full of blame.
PART FOUR
Slowly, Alex led Erica into the main cabin. She was drunk and dazed from the fall she’d taken, and he helped her along with one of her arms around his shoulders while he held her up, underneath an armpit. He guided her into the bathroom, deposited her on the toilet seat where she flopped limply against the tank. His windbreaker had fallen away from her shoulders, revealing her soft, tanned skin and everything else.
But it wasn’t desirable. It didn’t stir anything within him, not at the moment. She was injured, confused, with a lost look in her gaze. He wondered if she’d gotten a concussion. What were the symptoms? He couldn’t remember. Vomiting, right? Wasn’t vomiting one of them? How would he be able to tell the difference between that and too much alcohol? Should they head back to shore?
She seemed okay—about as okay as one can after a nasty knock on the head. And besides, he didn’t want to ruin the trip for everyone else. He made a mental note to keep an eye on her, and maybe later, after he’d finished scolding Jenn, he’d look up concussion symptoms, just to be safe.
He washed the wound with warm water, and followed it with hydrogen peroxide. She winced and whimpered as he patted it dry, then covered it with a bandage, finally wrapping gauze around her head.
“Not too bad,” he said. “It’ll probably be fine by the time you get to Hawaii. Just make sure the photographers shoot you from the front.”
Erica blinked and mumbled, “Jenn…such an asshole.”
Alex bent over and hooked his arms underneath hers, lifting her off the toilet. “I’ll talk to her,” he said. “You can pass out on my bed, okay?”
“Stay with me.” Erica opened her mouth slightly and tried to kiss him.
He turned away, and her lips landed clumsily on his neck. “You know I can’t do that. It’s too risky.”
“But why? She’ll find out about us eventually. Let’s get it over with.”
“On the bed, Erica. Now.” Alex dragged her across the room and laid her down on her back. Not gently, either. He grabbed a corner of the sheet and draped it across her body, then bent down so close to her face that their noses almost touched. “Go to sleep. I’ll come check on you in a bit. And seriously, I don’t care how drunk or pissed you are, not a word to Jenn.”
***
Erica woke up sometime in the middle of the night. The lights were out and it took her a few seconds to recall where she was. She glanced around the room, trying to find the time on a digital display somewhere, and then remembered that Alex never kept a clock handy because with all his money and freedom, time was simply a non-factor in his day-to-day life.
She rolled over and sat up, fighting back the nausea. Her skull pounded inside and out. She groaned, tried to stand, and then plopped back down onto the mattress. Moving her hand up to the back of her head, she pressed slightly on the knot and winced when a lightning flash of pain shocked her awake.
Erica rubbed her eyes and got up slowly, holding her arms out for balance. Was the yacht rolling or was she still drunk? She was thirsty. She knew that much and stumbled over to the mini-fridge, hoping to find some water. Thankfully, there were a number of full bottles, and she took long, deep gulps. She wiped her mouth, went into the bathroom, and found the aspirin that Alex had left on the bathroom counter.
She swallowed two pills and stared at herself in the mirror. She saw bloodshot eyes squinting into the light, heavy, puffy bags underneath, the white bandage cutting a swath around her head.
Looking back at her was a guilty woman.
Six months ago, after another unrewarding trip to Europe with Jenn, Alex had invited her to dinner one evening, wanting her advice. “You know Jenn the best,” he’d said. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Two bottles of wine later, she found herself straddling him in the passenger seat of his Ferrari, on full display in a Wal-Mart parking lot. They met in secret whenever she was in town, and whenever he wasn’t off in some far corner of the world trying to get inside Jenn’s head—and her pants. She didn’t have feelings for him, not enough to permanently steal him from Jenn, not even enough to want him simply for his money, but the sex—damn, the sex was amazing, and she’d been trying to delicately suggest to Jenn what the poor girl had been missing by fighting him off with her chastity belt and true-love fantasies.
The guilt was there, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself, and she remembered thinking, This is how people do it. This is how they cheat. Your body wants what it wants.
In her line of work, it was almost commonplace, getting propositioned by married photographers and magazine editors as she modeled in luxurious locations.
Most of the propositioning men were sleazy and pathetic, and she had never considered the possibility of going to bed with one of them, even if it meant less work or the loss of a cover photo. She’d made it on looks alone, a rarity, and besides, she was in high enough demand that there would always be someone else lining up for a chance to work with her.
Saying no to all of them—being a good girl, most of the time—helped her balance the guilt of what she and Alex had been doing behind Jenn’s back. At least I have some morals, she’d often thought. Plus, Jenn didn’t even want him. Did that make it better? Did that make it right?
At first, she thought yes, that made it okay, and after a while it molded into not necessarily, and lately, when she’d noticed that maybe Jenn was coming around to Alex—before Jenn realized it herself—it had definitely become not okay, and she’d begun urging Alex to tell the truth.
The shame grew. She’d been friends with Jenn since they were babies and wanted to protect her, because if Alex had been fine sleeping with her…once a cheat, always a cheat.