After scraping up the last of the sauce from his plate of duck a l’orange, Griffin set his fork down and took a deep breath. “Now I see why people choose to live on a cruise ship. If this is the way you get to eat every night, why would you ever want to cook for yourself again?”
“Tell me about it,” Indina said. “I already decided that I can eat nothing but kale and air next week.”
“Just get in a little exercise. You’ll be fine.”
Her right brow lifted in the sexiest arch. In a slightly lowered voice, she said, “You do realize my main workouts involve you, right? You think you can handle more?”
Holy. Shit.
Griffin had to take another sizable breath after that one. And now all he could think about was his and Indina’s own brand of working out.
The waiter had just taken their desserts when a tall guy who looked vaguely familiar walked up to the table with a gorgeous, honey-toned beauty tucked to his side.
“Evening everyone. Sorry we’re a little late,” the guy said.
“A little late? Try an hour,” Toby called from the other table.
“Sorry about that. We were busy,” the guy said.
“I guess they were ‘napping’ too,” Monica said with a snort.
Indina leaned over and whispered in Griffin’s ear, “That’s Jonathan Campbell. A friend of the family.”
The name instantly registered. Jonathan owned a high-end sports bar in the city.
“I’m not sure who the woman is,” she continued. “His newest flavor of the month, I guess.”
He heard the hint of disgust in her tone. “I’m guessing you don’t approve?”
Indina shrugged. “I was rooting for someone else. It’s a long story.”
Jonathan came over to where they were sitting and placed a kiss on Indina’s cheek. “Been a long time since I’ve seen you,” he told her. He stuck a hand out to Griffin, introducing himself.
“Nice to meet you,” Griffin said. “I’ve been to your sports bar a few times. It’s one of my favorite spots in the city.”
“I appreciate it,” he said. “You can thank this lady right here for the decor.”
He turned to Indina. “You decorated The Hard Court?”
She nodded. “It was my first foray into something other than residential interior design.”
“Speaking of nightclubs, I hear the adults are planning to hit the club here on the ship,” Harrison said.
“Except for the pregnant adult, who is planning to hit the sheets,” Sienna called from the table next to theirs.
“Well, there’s free babysitting until one a.m. on this boat, so I’m definitely hitting the club,” Monica said. “I can count on one hand the number of times Eli and I have had a night out dancing since the twins were born.”
Indina looked over at him. “What do you say? You up for some dancing?”
Griffin hesitated. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
“Neither am I, but this is supposed to be vacation, remember?”
He grinned. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The ship’s onboard discotheque was as cheesy and outdated as one would expect a discotheque aboard a cruise ship to be, but for Indina it only added to the charm. Just as the first bars of the Bee Gees’s “Stayin’ Alive” began, several spotlights zeroed in on the gaudy disco ball above the dance floor. Members of the cruise’s entertainment crew came out of a side door, all dressed in 1970s garb. They congregated underneath the glittery ball and struck the John Travolta pose from Saturday Night Fever.
The crowd went wild.
The dancers broke apart and came for the crowd, encouraging passengers to join them. When one of the crewmembers dragged Ezra to the middle of the dance floor and started doing The Bump, Indina laughed so hard her knees started to buckle. She and Monica had to hold each other up to prevent themselves from collapsing. Her poor brother looked like an injured crane as he tried to keep up with the dancer, who didn’t fare much better.
She laughed even harder when Griffin became the dancer’s next victim. He was so bad he made Ezra look like a top contender on Dancing With The Stars.
“I can’t…take this,” Indina said. “Every…time I try…to catch my breath…I start laughing again.”
“I’m gonna piss my pants,” Monica said, which set off even more laughs.
By the time Griffin managed to free himself from the dancer, Indina could barely stand. She held onto her side.
“When you said you weren’t much of a dancer, I thought you meant you just didn’t like to dance, not that you don’t know how to dance. That was painful.”
“Hey, at least I tried,” he said. “I don’t see you out there.”
Indina took a step back and sized him up. “Is that a challenge?”
He looked her up and down. “Either you get out there and shake that fine ass, or admit that you don’t know how to dance either.”
“Oh, it’s on.” She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him back onto the dance floor as the deejay started a string of KC and The Sunshine Band hits. By the time “That’s the Way I Like It” ended, Indina thought she would pass out from exhaustion.
Just as she was about to suggest taking a breather, the crowd formed a Soul Train line. Monica and Eli went first, dancing to Chic’s “Le Freak.” She and Griffin were up next. Indina knew she looked like a fool, but she didn’t care. It had been so damn long since she’d had this kind of fun. The entire Holmes clan seemed to be having a good time, with the exception of Harrison, who sat with his elbows on the bar and a blank expression on his face.
The flicker of unease she’d felt at dinner over Harrison’s cool dismissal of Willow’s headache returned. Indina wasn’t sure what to make of it.
The disco’s theme segued from ’70’s to ’80’s music—the music of her childhood. She jammed to The Gap Band, DeBarge and Teena Marie. The deejay played a stretch of Michael Jackson hits, and the room went wild yet again.
