She gagged, then whined again. “I’m mortified. And putting you and Bernard in this position…”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. I was distantly aware of the camera duo just outside the bathroom door capturing this whole thing. “We’ll figure it out.”
Leah nodded and sighed, then smiled just a little. “Thank God for Gisella, huh? Not often you have a deck/stew on board who can help when something like this happens.”
My insides coiled tight. I hadn’t even gotten that far yet, but Leah was right — I was going to have to talk to Captain and see if we could use Gisella for this charter.
Which meant not only were we rooming together, but we’d beworkingtogether — closely — for at least the next two days.
“Yeah,” I muttered, hoping my smile looked genuine. “Thank God for Gisella.”
“Don’t worry,mi reina. I got you.” Gisella squeezed my arm where I was filling the champagne glasses to welcome our next charter guests, her smile bright and filled with assurance.
I wished I believed it.
Captain had agreed that it would be best if Gisella worked mostly with interior this charter while Leah recovered. He felt confident the guys on deck could handle everything without her and call on the radio for special circumstances, like docking or blowing up the giant slide that was always a pain in the ass.
I’d felt relief at first, but after provisions arrived and every moment since, that relief had slowly morphed into worry.
Gisella was sweet. She would definitely be able to serve with a smile. She was laid back.
But she was maybe a bittoolaidback.
She’d moved at a snail’s pace with laundry, and Bernard told me he had to go in behind her to tidy up the laundry room and get uniforms where they needed to be. She hadn’t read the names on tags, so everyone had ended up with other people’s clothes — including Captain, who also gave me a stern warning look when his epaulets went missing in the process.
Then, she’d taken nearly three hours to set the guest cabins, fluffing pillows and adjusting throws while simultaneously missing important things like tucking the corners of the sheets properly and making sure the mirrors were spotless. I’d had to polish up every single room when I checked her work, fixing everything she’d overlooked.
When we were provisioning, she spent more time learning how to make an espresso martini — something the guests had specifically stated they’d want in their preference sheets — than actually putting anything away. And yes, I needed her to know how to make that drink, but what Ididn’tneed was for it totake half the afternoon. While the rest of us were knee-deep in organizing the fridges and dry storage, she was laughing at the mess she was making with the espresso machine like it wasn’t adding to our list of shit to clean.
Not to mention the amount of times just since this morning that I’d caught her flirting with Finn instead of working.
I felt like we’d all been duped — me most of all. Because where Gisella had seemed like a rockstar with the first charter, she was more like a rock in my shoe for this one.
I forced a smile at her now as I continued pouring the welcome aboard champagne, hoping for my and Bernard’s sake that it was just an off day. “At least these guests seem a little more relaxed than the last group,” I said.
“They’re certainly less picky eaters,” Finn chimed in as he swept past us, tucking in his chef’s shirt on his way to the main deck aft where the guests would come aboard. He smiled at me, making my stomach flutter like it was full of hummingbirds.
He’d almost made it through the sliding glass doors when Gisella grabbed his arm and whipped him back around, an expectant look on her face as she popped a brow into her hairline and leaned her weight on one hip.
“I know you weren’t just going to prance by me like that without a kiss,” she said.
Finn’s eyes flicked to mine, and then he dipped down to brush a quick kiss over Gisella’s lips, and all those hummingbirds in my belly died.
I swallowed, focusing on the task at hand and hoping my cheeks weren’t burning red. “You can go ahead and get in line,” I told Gisella. “I’ll be right out.”
“Sure you don’t need any help?”
“I got it.”
“Okay.” But she stayed, tapping her nail against the marble bar, a slow, rhythmic click that grated on my nerves. “I just want you to know I’m not upset or anything.”
I paused where I was pouring the last glass of champagne, arching a brow at her. “Huh?”
“About the whole Finn thing.”
All the blood rushed from my face.
Shit.