Page 8 of One Night in Paris
5
LOGAN
Six months later…
“Pull that strap off, and then you can just roll it off.” Looking over my shoulder, I saw Trevor struggling to get his jet ski off the trailer. How many times had we gone out for a day on the water together? Yet, every single time, Trevor’s inability to grasp even the most minute amount of mechanical ingenuity prevented us from simply starting the task. I might’ve actually laughed in different circumstances, but standing in knee-deep water at the end of the boat ramp with a ton of other trucks lined up ready to unload their watercraft didn’t quite make this particular instant amusing to me.
“I’m pulling! It’s not coming!” my best friend whined.
“Keep it down,” I hissed. “You sound like you’re jerking off.”
“Well then help me, asshole.”
Sighing, I let my own jet ski go for a minute and headed over to where he was struggling. In a matter of moments, I had him free, and he was floating idly in Long Island Sound while I headed up to pull my truck out of the way. Praying that he couldhandle both of the jet skis for a moment, I found the closest spot available and whipped my truck into it, then slamming it into park and heading back to see Trevor trying his best to keep both of our rides out of the way as a man backed his trailer down to unload a forty-foot pontoon boat.
“Thank God you’re back, dude,” Trevor said as I waded back into the water. “Everyone is glaring at me.”
“Next time, I’ll just let you move the truck.” Climbing aboard my jet ski, I watched his eyes bulge from his head.
“No way, man. I have no idea how you maneuver a truck with a trailer into a parking spot. I can barely get my mom’s SUV into her garage.” Trevor ran a hand through his blond hair and shook his head adamantly.
“Don’t worry. I won’t make you,” I assured him. We headed out to deeper water, away from the no-wake area, ready to fire these bad boys up. It was a brilliant summer day, the water was warm, and with the skyscrapers off in the distance, juxtapositioned against nature at its finest, I finally felt like I could breathe after several long weeks of work without any breaks.
“We really do have to plan these outings more frequently.” Trevor rode alongside me, only a foot or so away. “When are we going skydiving?”
He was right. It had been too long. We usually tried to go out on an adventure at least once a month, but lately, they’d been too few and far between. “I’m not sure. I’ve been so busy with work since we got that contract with Aubert.”
“Damn, that company is sucking your life away.” Shaking his head, Trevor lamented the fact that I, like most human beings, had to work to stay alive. Granted, I’d amassed a big enough fortune at this point that I could probably retire and leave the company in someone else’s hands, but I liked working.
“You just don’t know the pleasure of a satisfying day at work,” I teased him. “It’ll put hair on your chest.”
Laughing, Trevor said, “My chest is hairy enough. Just too light to see.” We were both wearing T-shirts beneath our life vests despite the sun beating down on us, but I knew he was right. It was just something my grandfather used to say to me when I was younger that I liked to taunt Trevor about. “Seriously. We’ve gotta get those plans solidified, or else you’ll keep making excuses as to why you can’t go.”
“Fine. Send me a date, and I’ll put it on my calendar. You know I want to do it. It’s been too long since I flung myself out of an airplane with nothing but some fabric strapped to my back to save me.”
With a wide grin on his face, Trevor said, “Sure has been. You never told me about Paris, by the way. Did you end up doing anything fun?”
“I didn’t tell you about Paris?” My skin suddenly felt a thousand degrees hotter, despite no change in the blazing sun overhead. Had I really gone six months without telling my best friend about the best sex of my life?
“Nope. You kept saying you’d fill me in, but then you got distracted. Kind of like this trip, dude. We’ve been waiting all summer to do this.” I could see the hurt in Trevor’s eyes. I had been putting him off.
“Well,” I began, not sure how much I wanted to say. Ordinarily, I’d tell him all of the details, even describing the woman’s body. But Harper had been special for reasons I couldn’t put my finger on. The last thing I wanted to do was be disrespectful to her, even though she’d never know. The woman was probably back in Boston now, having totally forgotten that I even existed. “I met a gorgeous girl in a bar and took her back to my hotel room.”
Trevor’s eyes bulged. “Nice, dude! Why didn’t you tell me before? How was she?”
“Amazing.” I chose to answer his second question and skip his first. “She was a lingerie designer, built like a model. Unbelievably hot.”
“Wicked!” Trevor clapped, a big goofy grin on his face. “You shoulda taken me with you, dude.”
“Yeah, maybe next time.” For a moment, I let my mind wonder what it would be like to introduce Trevor to Harper. Would they get along? She would probably think he was a big dope—which wouldn’t be too far from the truth.
We were free of the boat ramp now and could open up the jet skis and let them purr. Several other boats and jet skis dotted the sound in front of us. It seemed everyone had the same idea on such a marvelous Saturday. We’d have to be careful not to go too fast so that we didn’t hit anyone. I wasn’t worried about myself, but Trevor was a bit of a wild man.
“Be careful,” I told him before we revved the engines. “You remember what happened last time.”
“Hey,” he began, giving me a pointed look. “In fairness, that woman was in the way.”
“That eighty-five-year-old grandmother?” I asked. He nodded. “Who was sitting on the beach in a chair minding her own business?”