Vick wiggled next to me like excitement was about to burst out of her. “We get to take in so much of the island. Look out that window!” She pointed as she practically shouted, “The fog hugs those mountains like a cocoon around a caterpillar. I love this! I could spend days doing this.”
I grunted. “No one has days to spend bouncing around a damn island.”
The tension in the van thickened. No one responded to my lashing out at Vick, and the woman just looked down at her phone as if she hadn’t heard me.
Suddenly, from her phone, I heard an excited weedy voice, “Vicky! You FaceTimed me finally.”
Her face lit up like a firefly in the middle of a warm summer night. “Steven,” she breathed and held her phone just far enough away from her face that he got a damn good angle of her neckline. The neckline I had ravaged the night before. “Kauai is gorgeous.”
“I told you it would be. How was the wedding? Brey and Jax with you?”
“Everyone’s here!” She swung her phone around to showcase all of us. Then she practically dangled her phone out the window. “And we are enjoying the freaking fantastic views. Isn’t it absolutely breathtaking?”
His low hum came out as a squeak over the phone’s speakers. “Vicky, I really wish I could have come with you. My apologies to you all. I’m sure the wedding was amazing.” Then he cleared his throat and said in a voice I am sure he hoped was casual, “And I see even Jett’s taking a break from work to sightsee.”
She angled the phone so we were both in the frame for Steven to see. “Jett’s still working. Laptop came along for the ride.”
Steven chuckled, but it was strained. “I see. Well, good to meet you through the phone, Jett.” He didn’t really think that. Anxiety bled out of his smile. “I know we may do business together soon.”
“Right. My lawyers and the financial team are reviewing some details before we reach out. I know you’ve been working closely with them and my investment reps. I’ll be sure to personally take a look before we make our final decision.” Because I hadn’t looked at all. I didn’t scope out every company we absorbed. I trusted my team to do that.
He looked relieved as he sighed into the phone. Then, his eyes shifted over, and I knew from the smile that stretched across his face, he was looking at Vick. “Well, that makes me so happy, Jett. Vicky, you are always influential and indispensable, I swear.”
Her friend Katie grumbled behind us about him calling her Vicky, but she ignored it and said, “I’m excited to get back to work. I’ll look over the contracts you sent me tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect. Call me once you do.”
“Sounds good. Talk soon.”
He smiled and then the video chat ended.
“Seriously,” Katie piped up from behind her. “Can he stop calling you Vicky? You hate that nickname, and I do too. It’s fucking gross.”
“It is not gross,” Vick retorted. “He doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Harm? Ha! He’s practically pissing on you by calling you something no one else does. He wants to bone you.”
Vick didn’t deny it. She smiled like she hoped that was the consensus. “I hope you’re right. We’ve been friends for a few years, but I think he’s starting to really make an effort. Brey was there last time we all went out for drinks and he totally looked like he was into me, right?”
Brey smiled and rested her head on Jax’s shoulder. “He seemed thrilled to see you.”
"And he sounded sincere when he said he wished he could have made it right?"
Brey nodded.
I went back to typing and cut their conversation short. "Is this ride ever going to end?"
My tone must have come off rude because Jaydon kicked my chair from behind. “Loosen up, you prick. We’re not working.”
“You’re not working,” I grumbled.
The conversation in the van went on without me. Rome, another one of the newlywed’s friends who’d flown in for the wedding, bothered Katie by continually calling her Kate-Bait. Jaydon complained that he should have been able to invite a few girls. Jax kept telling him to fuck off while Brey kept my two brothers from coming to blows.
I worked.
At one point, Vick leaned right over my lap to take a picture of the view. “You want to trade seats since you’re so intent on capturing every damn thing on your phone?” I asked quietly so we were the only ones privy to our conversation.
“We’ll never get a better view than this,” she whisper-shouted back at me.