Leashing the Tempest (Arcadia Bell #2.5)(4)

“Maybe you are just ignorant about Asians.”

“No way! My best friend, Jack, is Japanese—”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, cocking a brow as a breeze ruffled the collar of her designer jacket. “The old ‘I have Asian friends’ excuse.”

“What? No! I—”

She winked at him. “Only teasing, ‘little man.’ My dad’s a lawyer, not a fisherman. Lawyers in Hong Kong don’t own junks.”

“How am I supposed to know? I’ve never been outside the States. All I know about Hong Kong is from travel shows on TV.”

“Since he met you, he’s got his bedroom DVR set to record anything to do with Hong Kong or China,” I said.

“Hey!” Jupe complained.

Kar Yee grinned. “Don’t listen to her, Jupiter. She’s just jealous of our love.”

Jupe laughed, unsure if she was teasing him again, but too far gone to care. He pulled out his cell phone in a clumsy attempt to change the subject. “Picture time.”

“Snap away,” she said. “Left side is my best side.”

“Please don’t encourage him.” Shivering in the cool ocean breeze winding over the stern, I scooted closer to Lon and tucked my feet under my legs on the ivory cushion.

Jupe began snapping photos of Kar Yee, with the occasional pity shot of Lon and me thrown in to make it look aboveboard, I supposed. And never mind that his dad was a semi-famous photographer with a camera worth more than my car. He was going to fill up his phone with Kar Yee from every angle. God only knew where those pictures would end up. Probably on every online movie forum the kid patrolled, tagged with exaggerations about their nonexistent relationship.

“Who’s running the bar if you’re both here?” he asked after what must have been a few thousand photos.

“Amanda,” I said, referring to our lead waitress. “We’re breaking her in.”

Kar Yee polished a small apple on the hem of her shirt. “Hopefully she won’t run off with all the money in the safe.”

“Hopefully she remembers the safe combination.”

“You guys can call to check on her,” Jupe said, glancing up at the captain’s distant figure, which stood under a navy canopy on the topmost deck. He pulled his phone back oa,phone but. “Or maybe not. No signal. But you can send her a message—I remember Crazy Bandana Man’s Wi-Fi password.”

I groaned. “Don’t we all. Seriously, Lon. Where did you find this guy?”

“Someone I knew used to work for the charter company.”

Jupe stopped taking photos. “Oh, wait. Her?”

I felt Lon’s arm tense around my shoulder.

“Oh-ho-ho, it was her,” Jupe said.

I waved to get Jupe’s attention. “Who’s ‘her’?”

“Amanda.”

“Huh?” I was momentarily confused, picturing Amanda back at Tambuku.

“Amanda Morris,” he clarified in a fake posh voice. “So, remember when I told you about the only woman he’d snuck into the house before you?”

“Sneaked, and yes.” It was one of the first Butler family secrets he spilled to me. The first of many. Jupe would not only let the cat out of the bag, he’d set the bag on fire so that cat would be sure to roam free for the rest of its nine lives.

“Snuck, and that was Amanda Morris. She spent the night.”

“You weren’t supposed to know that,” Lon complained.

Jupe flashed Lon a sheepish smile. “Not my fault you couldn’t be quiet. I heard talking that morning, then I saw you hustling her down the stairs. I’m not dumb, hel-lo.”

“Yeah, hel-lo,” I repeated in the same sarcastic tone, grabbing Lon’s chin to turn his face toward mine. “Who was this woman?”

“No one.”

“He went out on a bunch of dates with her,” Jupe offered. “Then he brought her home that night, then she stopped calling.”

Kar Yee made a dramatic pity-filled sound. “It was probably your pirate mustache, Lon. Some women aren’t into that dirty rock star chic. You’re lucky Cady has low standards.”

“Hey,” Jupe complained with a cross face. “My dad makes the Lust List in the Village Weekly every year.”

“Bros before hos. Nice,” I praised. “Now, who is this Amanda chick?”

Lon sighed. “She met some guy vacationing in Big Sur. Ran off to Tennessee with him.”

“He was human,” Jupe said, as if it were soap opera–worthy.

“Crime against God, an Earthbound dating a dirty human,” I said dryly.

Jupe made a dismissive cluck sound with his tongue. “You’re more on our side than theirs. Did you guys just feel that? It’s starting to rain. That Captain Christie is a liar with that cloudbusting garbage. He said only sunny skies.”

A gust of wind ce=ust of blew strands of dark hair into my face. “Was he lying?” I asked Lon.

He shook his head. “He was confident about his ability.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Kar Yee said, looking up at the sky. “See, you can tell where the sky changes.”

She was right. It almost looked like we were sailing beneath an invisible barrier that kept the clouds at bay. Kind of cool. I’d heard of people with this ability, but I’d never seen it in action.