Adrift

by K. M. Galvin

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other titles by K.M. Galvin

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Adrift

  Copyright © 2017 by Kelsie Galvin

  Cover Design by Champagne Book Design

  Editing by E and F Indie Services

  Formatting by Champagne Book Design

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review—in writing from the author.

  Events in the work are fictitious. Any similarities to any persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental and not intentional by the author.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other titles by K.M. Galvin

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Playlist

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Twenty–Something Series

  Going Nowhere

  Going Forward

  Coming Home

  Moving On

  Beauty and the Book Boyfriend

  “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),

  It’s always our self we find in the sea.”

  E.E. Cummings

  WHEN MY FATHER PASSED THREE months ago, I felt adrift. Nothing made sense. Not working for the job I continued to hate. Not dating someone for the sole reason of being afraid to be alone. Not continuing to be friends with people simply out of habit.

  Habit.

  That word became a bigger enemy than the cancer my father battled and finally lost against. Because even in the almost seventy years he had, some of them harder than others, my father lived every second. He lived. He did everything he wanted and nothing he didn’t. I often felt he lived a selfish life, and when I was younger I begrudged him for it.

  But now…now I understand.

  I get it.

  I watched my father waste away over the course of a year while he watched me do the same my entire adult life. I lived my life like there was some kind of checklist. Go to college, get a boring degree, work a secure job, date, eventually marry a stable man and pop a few kids out.

  I’m sure for some people that’s fine, but I was living my life with my eyes firmly shut. It’s like those times when you drive and you arrive at a destination, and then wonder how you got there. You try to remember, but your mind must have shut off and your body operated on autopilot because you’ve done it so many times.

  That was how I lived my twenties.

  It took my father passing a week before my thirtieth birthday for me to completely wake the hell up and realize I wasn’t happy and I didn’t want to be lying in that bed someday, regretting not doing one thing for myself. He died without a single regret and had nothing but love in his heart. Even for the mistakes he made. He loved all of it.

  I wanted that.

  Which is probably why, while heavily influenced from wine post-breakup with Jamie, boyfriend of six years, and watching Bravo’s Below Deck, I went into full-on midlife crisis mode and signed up to work for Signature Charters.

  Imagine my shock a week later when I received a request for a Skype interview.

  That was three months ago.

  I quit my job as an accountant for a securities firm in Seattle, sublet my apartment, said goodbye forever to Jamie, and buried my father. Now, as a crewmember on the Naiad, a forty-foot yacht touring the Virgin Islands, I could be whomever I want.

  “Taylor!”

  I jump, nearly dropping the freshly laundered sheets I just finished folding as Chief Stew George Laken comes marching down the stairs to the laundry room. Shaking off my thoughts of the past, I turn to my boss.

  “Yes?” I blow a few strands of my hair out of my face and try to present myself as a submissive employee. Difficult when your boss is a tiny tyrant.

  Three inches shorter than me and nearly thirty pounds heavier, it’s clear the Chief Stew has a bit of a complex and, unfortunately, as the newbie on the yacht, he’s singled me out for his special attention. This has pretty much alienated me from the rest of the crew; everyone wants to avoid his wrath, so they’ve avoided me too. All my plans of boozing it up and having fun in the Caribbean went out the door the second this guy asked me for a proper salute.

  “Why are you not dressed yet? The guests will be up soon! We need fresh towels in all the bathrooms. I can’t believe I still need to tell you this after three months.” His round face is flushed with anger and the humidity of the room we’re in, giving him the appearance of a pissed-off tomato.

  I bite the inside of my cheek, nodding in what I hope looks like a subservient way. “I’ll go get dressed right away,” I tell him.

  Not that it matters, I think to myself, since I’m kept out of sight the moment the “guests” arrive on board. I try not to take it personally. I am definitely the oldest stew on board, at thirty, while the rest of them are fresh-faced, eager, and in their early twenties.

  I want to argue that it feels a little like they are pimping the younger stewards, or Stews as everyone around here called them, out but tips are pooled at the end of the trip, and if they could bring in more than the old hag I apparently am, who am I to argue? I’m just glad they’ll share with me, the resident Quasimodo.

  I grab my basket of neatly folded linens—seems my OCD comes in handy somewhere—and head back to the small cabin I share with an older woman who works in the kitchen.

  I slip on the starched white Oxford, which Laken called obscene on me the first time he saw me, as if I can help being chesty. I pull the khaki pencil skirt over it, tucking the shirt into the waistband. After slipping on my white sneakers, I scoop my long blonde hair into a low ponytail. Glancing
into the mirror glued onto the wall over our small sink, I wince at my pale reflection. So much for the tan I thought I’d be rocking.

  I grab some concealer to hide the dark bags under my brown eyes but decide to leave off with the rest of the makeup. No one else is going to see me, so hiding the circles under my eyes is really for my own benefit. I never expected to be working this hard in my life, but these near twelve-hour days are killer. I don’t want to give anyone the idea I can’t get the job done, not even through the appearance of the exhaustion I feel.

  Running a hand over my ponytail and smoothing down my skirt, I briefly touch my father’s wedding ring tucked into my shirt and exit the room, ready to start another long day.

  This job may not have been what I expected, but that’s the point of upending my life, I remind myself.

  “HI, CHEF ANN,” I GREET wearily, taking a seat at her prep table six hours into my shift. It’s my first break and the first time I’m eating today. Chef Ann is a portly woman with the most lovable face you’ve ever seen. Sweet and rosy-cheeked, hair swept into a bun, she instantly made me want to hug her. Plus, she always had food ready for me. A better woman, I’ve never known.

  “Honey, you look exhausted.” She tsks and slides some apple juice in front of me. I gulp it down greedily, eager for the sugar it provides. My eyes water slightly at the explosion of flavor and I will the shaking in my hands to go away. “Is this the first time you’re eating or drinking anything today?”

  I nod my head, smacking my lips, and set the cup down with a grateful sigh.

  “He works you too hard. He must like you,” Chef jokes, reaching into her large stainless steel fridge and pulling out my favorite curry chicken salad to make a quick sandwich.

  I stay silent as I eat, knowing I won’t have long before the angry troll finds me and berates me again for “resting.”

  As two deckhands come bustling into the kitchen, one of them squeals to her friend, “Oh my God, Sarah, he’s so effing hot, I swear. How do you stand it?”

  Sarah blushes and shrugs coyly. “Just lucky, I guess. He asked me to join him on St. Maarten when we dock for dinner.”

  “That’s so romantic!” The other girl gives another excited squeal, and I can’t help but snort.

  Both girls look over and Sarah narrows her eyes at me. “Do you disagree?”

  I take another bite of my sandwich and say nothing, blinking innocently. They both stare at me hostilely for a moment longer before flouncing right back where they came from. I roll my eyes and focus back on Chef. “To be young and idiotic again.”

  “Were you ever young and idiotic?” Chef raises a brow and I blush at the subtle reminder that she’s probably the only person who knows the truth. She found me down here a week into the trip, crying and emotionally eating, and coaxed the story out of me.

  “I’m just saying, the only reason he wants her off the boat is because relations between guests and crew is like, number one strictly forbidden. In both the contract the guests sign and the one we sign—but what happens off the boat, stays off the boat. The guy sounds like a sleaze.”

  “Have you even met the guests?”

  I shake my head and continue to eat.

  “Easton VanHouten, as in the VanHoutens—”

  “Ooh!” I wiggle my eyebrows, pretending to be impressed.

  Chef smiles. “Think Kennedys, but without the tragedy and politics. He’s here with several business associates celebrating the close of a large merger. I heard they worked on it for close to a year.” By heard, she clearly means eavesdropped.

  “Fascinating,” I say, completely bored, picking at the crumbs I dropped on the table.

  “I forget you Seattle folk are bored by things such as wealth.”

  “Bzzt.” I shake my head. “Wrong. I just prefer more salt of the earth people, you know? Not some silver-spooned, preppy prince. My dad was a mechanic and a nature guide. I spent my early life getting my hands dirty and learning about the people and places around me before going to school, and then I was exposed to even more people like him. I’m fine down here in the dungeon.”

  “My, my, bit of an elitist attitude!” She raises her eyebrows at my tone.

  “Uh, did you miss the part where he’s trying to bone Sarah off the boat?” I frown, wiping the crumbs off my hands.

  “No, but did you miss the part where they’re two consenting adults?”

  “Fine, guess I’m just—I don’t know. I shouldn’t judge off the experiences I had in the past.”

  Chef nods and takes my plate from me. “You better hurry; lunch is getting ready to be served. God forbid Chief Stew doesn’t have all the fresh linen napkins he could possibly want.”

  “I live to serve!” I salute her and hurry down the hall, filling the waiting carts the servers will use with freshly washed and starched white napkins.

  I’m back in the laundry room later that afternoon, washing the sheets, when the captain comes over the intercom.

  “Good afternoon, guests and crew of the Naiad. This is your captain speaking. Because of severe weather to the west, we are making a slight deviation to our course to avoid coming into its path. We will be back on course tomorrow evening. As such, we will be docking five hours later than normal tomorrow night and will have to make up the time in the morning. We apologize, as this doesn’t leave much time to explore the island. Please direct any and all questions to my First Mate John Henley; he’d be happy to assist you. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

  I instantly think of Sarah and her mystery dude, wondering if it’s this hotshot Easton or one of the other snots he’s probably with. I think back to my time at Wharton and grimace. Though I’m thankful for my education and the job it provided me with afterwards, it opened my eyes to people I would have never come into contact with otherwise. Being the scholarship student at a school like that certainly put a target on my back, even if it was only a partial scholarship. Though taking out student loans didn’t help me blend in. Owing someone money wasn’t something these people were familiar with.

  Or hard work, for that matter.

  God, I wreak of bitterness, but I worked nearly fifty hours a week in a windowless office, staring at a computer so long my eyes were bloodshot by the time I left to go home to a man that I never wanted to have sex with, and I was fine with it. I was constantly tired. And he was ok with it because he was tired too.

  God, Jamie.

  Jamie Marks is a resident physician at Seattle General and works even more hours than I used to at my office job. Towards the end, we hadn’t been intimate in over seven months and neither of us complained. He’s a nice guy; he deserves someone who would make demands of him, someone who would force him to have balance in his life. Not someone who only saw him when they both fell exhausted into bed.

  When I broke up with him, it was the first time I recalled seeing him blink in ages. I can’t tell if it was because it was the first time I’d actually looked at him in forever or because he was finally waking up too. Either way, he blinked, as if surprised, and then blinked again, looking more alert than I ever remembered him being.

  He listened to me ramble about my dad, hugged me when I started to cry, and helped me collect all my stuff. Six years ending that abruptly shouldn’t have such an amicable breakup and it told me everything I needed to know.

  I did the right thing.

  “Did you hear it’s a hurricane?” someone whispers as they hurry past the laundry room door.

  I shake off my memories and move closer to listen.

  “Yes. Captain doesn’t want to alarm the guests. It did a complete one-eighty. It was supposed to head towards Puerto Rico, but it’s like it turned around and is coming right for us. I’m not sure we can get out of the way or dock in time.”

  I hurry out into the corridor and see two young men—cabin crew, if I remember correctly—walking away from me. “Hey, wait!”

  They stop abruptly and turn around; the dark haired one raises an eyebrow as if to say, �
��Yeah?”

  “What did you hear?” I whisper.

  He smiles reassuringly. “Don’t worry about it; the captain has it under control. You’re the new girl, right?”

  “Taylor McKay.” I wave a little.

  “I’m Brett.” He points to his blond, silent friend and says, “This is Chuck. You can ask for us later if you want an update. We’re friends with the first mate so we know what’s up before everyone else.” He stands up a little as he says this and grins broadly.

  I narrow my eyes and cross my arms over my chest; what a self-important little douche. “Will do. Thank you so much!”

  “No problem, ma’am.” Brett winks and I roll my eyes as I return to my duties.

  Ma’am.

  I’m maybe five years older than him, for God’s sake.

  Later that evening, I wait until my roommate is asleep and all is quiet before I sneak upstairs. I don’t get to come up during the day often, but late at night when I’m sure the guests have gone off to bed or when everyone is gone on land, the deck is mine.

  The second I clear the stairs and step onto the deck, I breathe easier. The sound of the yacht cutting through the water eases the tension in my body and I inhale the scent of the ocean, letting it fill my lungs.

  It’s in these quiet moments that I feel closest to my dad. He loved the water and often, whenever I kissed his cheek, the taste of the sea would linger on my lips. I walk towards the back of the boat and tug my hair tie from my hair, relishing the wind tugging the strands loose.

  I massage my scalp, grateful to have my hair down. I unbutton my shirt a little, wanting to feel more of the wind on my skin, and tug at the bottom of my shirt, hoping to loosen it from the confines of my skirt.

  Sighing, I lean against the railing and watch the water, calm and motionless except for the movement our yacht makes as we glide along. It makes me wonder if all this talk of the incoming storm is just that…all talk.

  I reach inside my shirt and pull my dad’s ring out, fingering the wide band of silver. The moonlight glints off it, the warmth and weight of it comforting in my palm. My dad made this ring, as well as my mother’s. They were married three years before she got pregnant with me. It was not an easy pregnancy; she was bedridden for most of it and in the end it was too much.