Fate Interrupted 3 (10 page)

Chapter
Sixteen

The faint light
of dawn crept over the eastern horizon, gradually illuminating the tranquil water
all around. It was so quiet Dean could hear something jump from the water a
hundred yards away. The thin strip of moonlight skipping off the water’s
surface gradually faded into the chilly morning. Dean checked his watch again and
sighed.

Five
twenty-three.

There was only
one way this could end now: Badly. They were already over three hours late and
past the point of no return. Evy would be sick with worry, if she was even
awake. He nearly convinced himself that she had slept through the entire night
and hadn’t spent the last three hours worried out of her mind. But that was too
easy and he knew it. Dean glanced at the strippers huddled up next to Jon and
cringed. Lawyer or not, there would be no talking his way out of this one.
She’d never believe him. And even if she did, there would always be a tiny part
of her that...

Shaun tapped him
on the arm with a fresh beer. Dean stared at Shaun’s smiling face on the side
of the can and turned away. Shaun pressed his lips together and handed it to
Will instead.

Will cracked the
can open and took a slow pull, eyeballing the solemn group before him. “Anyone
see
Sharknado
?”

Leaning back in
his chair with his big arms folded across his black jacket for warmth, Ben
cracked his eyes open.
“Awesome flick.”

Will nodded,
gazing up at the purple sky. “That could really happen, ya know.”

“If we’re going
to die out here in the middle of nowhere, I think we should go around and admit
one regret
we never told another living soul.”

Their eyes
slowly wandered to Shaun.

“Be like a
confessional.” He shrugged.
“Just in case.”

“We’re not going
to die,” Ben said, closing his eyes again.

“Says
you, Ben.”
Shaun ran a hand through his sandy brown hair, scanning the fading stars above.
“The sun will be up soon and we’re dangerously low on water.”

“Oh my God,” Kat
whimpered, eyes bulging. “How much water do we have left?”

“I once put
Visine in my coffee to get out of going to my wife’s company Christmas party.”

Everyone turned to
Will, bewilderment smeared across their faces.

He responded
with a shamefaced nod. “Visine gives you the runs.”

Ben arched an
eyebrow into the middle of his forehead. “You must really hate your wife’s
Christmas party.”

“The CEO is a
recovering alcoholic so there’s never a bar.”

Ben leaned his
head back and closed his eyes again. “That’ll do it.”

“I was into
squashing for three months last year and never told anyone.”

The entire group
fell silent, slowly rotating their heads around to Jon.

Shaun bunched
his face up. “Say what now?”

“Squashing,” Jon
repeated. “It’s when you let a heavyset chick sit on you in their underwear.”

Water gently
slapped the sides of the boat for a few taken aback seconds before Kat and Sky
busted up laughing from beneath the blanket.

“That is so
wrong!” Kat said.

“I had to give
it up when one of my ribs cracked.”

A shocked laugh
somersaulted from Shaun’s gaping mouth. “I thought that
happened
playing basketball!”

“That’s what I
told everyone.”

“That is really
weird, man,” Ben said.

Sky shrugged,
smiling up at Jon. “Hey, we all have our
things
.
I won’t judge you.”

“Thank you, Ty.”

Her smile fell.
“It’s Sky.”

Will
cleared
his throat. “Every time I go into the kitchen after
midnight I hear a puppy whining in the basement.”

Silence mixed
with their puzzled looks.

“What?” Ben
finally laughed.

Will lowered his
voice to a grave whisper. “And here’s the weird part...we don’t even have a
puppy.”

“That’s not
a regret
,” Jon said flatly. “And you already had your turn.”

“Sorry, I just
needed to tell someone. Laura thinks I’m getting dementia, but I know what I
heard.”

Ben leaned his
chair back on two legs. “Have you gone downstairs and checked it out?”

“I don’t go down
there anymore, which is a shame because we just remodeled the basement
bathroom. Bowl sink and everything.”

Jon stretched
his arms out and yawned.
“Bummer.”

They studied
each other in the faint light while Dean stared off into space.

“I’m pretty sure
our house is haunted,” Ben said.

Will frowned.
“Don’t mock me, Ben.”

“I’m serious. I
found out from a neighbor that the guy who used to live there died in his sleep
in the master bedroom. Brooke wants to switch to a different bedroom now.”

“Get out,” Will
replied
dully.

“Lot of weird
noises and stuff,” Ben continued with a yawn of his own.

“Probably just
the wind,” Will
said
, tipping his can back. “That’s
Laura’s explanation for everything and she’s probably right.”

The calmness of the
lake slithered over the edges of the boat like tentacles, pulling them into a
subdued state of mind. A crane leisurely flew past, its legs dangling through
the air behind it, a prehistoric silhouette against the brightening sky.

“I once jerked off
on a girl who had passed out ten minutes earlier,” Shaun said.

“Will you just shut
the fuck
up!
” Dean said, concern flooding his tired face.
“All of you! Quit acting like nothing is wrong here because I can assure you
that could not be farther from the truth.” He shook his head. “Fuck!”

They did as he
asked, avoiding his searing eyes as well for good measure.

“Dean,” Will said
softly, “I will help explain everything to Evy. I am her father and she knows I
would never lie to her. It’s always easy telling the truth when you did nothing
wrong.”

Ben nodded. “He’s
right, Dean.”

Dean leaned
forward in his chair, hitting Will with a pointed glare. “You and I both know
that no matter what we say to Evy, she will always have this…
doubt
in the back of her mind after this.”
He glanced to the girls and then looked down to his stained clothing.

“I’m not so sure
about…”

“You know she
will! She may act like she doesn’t but she will. I know her and so do you.”

“Listen, Jon is
the only one who had sexual relations with those women.”
Will
cast a cold look Jon’s way that made him shift positions on the hard bench.
“And no one will ever admit to that. Will they?”

No one answered
him.

“Will they?” he
repeated in a louder voice.

Kat held up a
hand. “Hey, don’t look at me. I didn’t do anything.”

Sky glanced at
Jon and turned back to Will. She nodded, naked embarrassment blanketing her
face. “I’m
sorry,
I should’ve never agreed to come. I
feel horrible.” A tear rolled down her red cheek. “My mother would be so hurt
if she found out I was giving blowjobs to complete strangers for money.” Her
sniffling snowballed into a rush of tears. “This isn’t the life I wanted!”

Dean rolled his
eyes. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered under his breath.

“It’s not too
late to make a change, Sky,” Will
told
her, resting
his elbows on his knees, beer can clutched between his hands. “It’s never too
late to make a change in your life.”

She shook her
head vehemently, her short blond hair bouncing with the motion. “I have a
two-year old daughter and an ex-husband who never even calls let alone pays
child support. I have to take care of that baby girl and waiting
tables at Applebee’s isn’t
going to get it.”

“You could go to
college,” Will
said
. “Get a fresh start.”

“I tried that,”
Sky said morosely. “It didn’t last long and I can’t turn back now. Not with
Layla
in the picture.”

Will opened his
mouth but slowly shut it again, surprised by his own loss of words. A star
streaked above them in a blur before melting back into the now orange sky.

“Ya plugged up
my damn toilet!”

They turned to
Captain Taylor as he emerged from below deck. His heated gaze found Jon in a
heartbeat and turned to a boil.
“
Yer
payin
for a plumber when we get back
ta
shore.”

Jon frowned.
“Wasn’t me, dude.”

Sky placed a
hand on Jon’s, drawing his alarmed eyes. “I want you to know that this was the first
time I’ve ever done anything like that.”

His frown deepened.

“For money, I
mean.”

Kat leaned
forward. “She just started last week, but you can’t blame her anyway. She
didn’t hire out this party. You did!”

Sky smiled, a
fond look softening her gaze. “Who knows, Jon, maybe this was meant to be.” She
squeezed his hand. “You and me, I mean.”

Jon pulled his
hand back and scooted further away.

“Here,” she said,
digging in her bikini top and pulling out a hundred dollar bill. “It will make
me feel better.” She extended her hand. “Take it.”

Jon held up a traffic
cop-like hand. “I can’t take that back.”

“Yes, you can,”
she said, gesturing with the bill.

“No thanks.”

She stared at
him with her mouth hanging open, holding out the money. “Well, how about this?
How about we go out to dinner sometime soon and apply this to the bill?”

Jon’s eyes
lowered to the money before raising back up to find her sky blue eyes. “I have
a girlfriend.”

“That’s okay,”
Ben chimed in. “She don’t mind.”

Sky’s eyebrows
pulled together. “Is she pretty?”

Something bumped
against the bottom of the boat and Will froze. His eyes bulged from their
sunken sockets. “What was that?”

“Log,” the
captain said bluntly, playing with the wires under the dash again.

“Or the
mermaid,” Kat whispered coldly, pulling the blanket up to her chin.

Will’s eyes nervously
roamed the water around them. “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Dean got up from
his chair and gazed out the back of the boat, desperately trying to control his
tongue. He wanted to punch Shaun in the face and if he gave Shaun the chance to
open his big mouth it might just come to that. He inhaled a deep breath of
clean air and let it back out. “Which way are we drifting?”

The captain
poked his head up from the dash, curly white hair escaping his crooked hat.
“East.”

“Great,” Dean grumbled,
balling his hands into fists.

Ben massaged his
scalp, wincing a little in pain.

“Metal
plate bothering you again?”
Shaun asked.

“A little,” he
replied, dropping his hand and looking up into the sky.
“Must
be picking up some nearby alien transmission.”

“Did you know
that mermaids actually look more like rotting zombies than beauty queens?” Will
asked, lifting his eyebrows. “Saw it on Discovery.”

Jon leaned in
closer. “What if when we get back to shore…”

“Quiet!” Captain
Taylor ordered, scrambling out from beneath the small roof over the helm and tilting
an ear to the sky.

Dean squinted
into the pale light of dawn, following the captain’s line of sight.

Taylor ducked
back inside and came back out with a big black gun.

“Holy shit, it’s
the mermaid, isn’t it?” Will cried, frantically rummaging in his backpack.

Taylor fired a
single shot, sending a red streak bursting high into the sky where it bloomed
into a red mushroom that oozed back down toward the lake. He watched the small Cessna
fly overhead with his mouth agape, heavy breath tickling his bristly mustache.

Their heads
turned with the single engine plane, following it across the sky until it
disappeared into the dark western horizon.

“Holy shit,”
Shaun said, “you almost shot them down!”

Taylor lowered
the flare gun to his side. “If that captain is worth a lick of salt, he’ll be
callin
in our coordinates as we speak.”

Kat shivered
beneath the blanket. “What if he didn’t see it?”

“He saw it,”
Taylor said.