The Company by JA Huss

Author:JA Huss [Huss, JA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Science Future Press
Published: 2017-10-16T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-Three - Harper

Do as she’s told?

Can he be any more of a caveman? I sigh as I watch his ass walking to the back of the restaurant. It’s a nice ass. Then I notice several women checking him out right along with me and an unfamiliar feeling creeps up.

Jealousy.

One woman notices me watching and quickly averts her gaze, so I just turn around and walk outside. The dinosaur is on the other side of a large parking lot and just this trek has my shoulders burning from the morning sun. It’s so hot here. I’ve spent most of my life in the tropics, so I’m used to hot. But the heat out here in the desert is suffocating. It zaps the life from you. And there’s no water to ease your discomfort. Our biggest yacht, not the sailing one, actually has a pool. But even if there was no pool, the spray of the sea kept you cool most of the time. I’m only halfway across the parking lot when another emotion hits me.

Homesickness.

I have to admit, I miss the ship. I miss that life. I was not abused or treated badly. I miss the ocean and the salty wind. I miss the crew too.

I am almost upon the big gray beast when I spot Sasha sitting underneath. At least it’s shady. I walk under, bypass an empty stone picnic table, and cop a seat on the brontosaurus toe next to the one she’s occupying. “What’re you doing?”

“Thinking,” she says as she rolls her flip flop over some stones on the concrete.

“Oh.” This is going great. “I think James is ready to leave. He wanted me to come get you.”

She’s silent for a few seconds and I’m racking my brain trying to think of something else to get her feet started when she finally pipes up. “Did you ever miss living in a house? With parents and school and stuff?”

“Ummm…”

“We lived in an RV until I was almost ten. I kinda liked it.”

“Oh.” I consider this for a second. “Well, that’s sorta like living on a ship, isn’t it? You move from place to place and see lots of stuff.” I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and turn, automatically looking for danger. But it’s just James. Leaning up against the dinosaur leg, smoking a cigarette. He shrugs at me and I turn back to Sasha. She’s not paying any attention to James. “The best thing about living on the ship was the whales.” Sasha looks up at me, her eyes bright with curiosity. “The humpback whales migrate in certain places every year, so we’d have to be in that part of the world to catch them moving in groups like that. But we saw them enough for it to leave an impression, ya know? Like—it became a part of my life. It was something special when I woke up in the morning and discovered a whale outside.”

Sasha laughs as she pictures it. “Did you ever swim with them?”

Now it’s my turn to laugh.

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