Waters Edge

Chapter 8

Edgeli Addison

"Edge dude, can you work for us everyday?" Javi asked me as I finished counting out the contents of the stuffed tip jar. It had been a really good day for both sales and tips, and I'd been so proud of my boys watching them be successful outside of gang life doing something they love.

"You realise I do have other jobs, right?" I checked with him, "like running my own family business with EJ," I added, moving the final pile of notes into the cash box and locking it then putting my share into my wallet to deposit next time I went past my bank. "Think this plan will work?" I asked them as King put a plate of chorizo and quest taquitos down in front of me.

"Teo is still crazy in love with you, and kept asking for our advice on what to do when you came back in a relationship, if it was ethical to use our connections to disappear him or if it would make you hate him rather than go back to him," King assured me, "his staff bonding thing wraps up by seven, which means you should rock up at five minutes past to make sure they've all left before you show up at his house to mount the man on the couch like the good old days," he informed me and Javi slapped him around the back of the head.

"That's gross, they're going to make sweet love all night long in the privacy of a bedroom," Javi told him and I just looked at them both. Sometimes, often, I worried that these two didn't interact with people other than each other enough.

"We're just going to talk," I told them both as I started eating my dinner. They didn't seem to believe me, "okay, we'll probably make out but we're not having sex," I told them, "I just got out of a long term relationship, and I love Teo, more than I've ever loved anyone but we've both grown a hell of a lot in the last 5 years, our insane sexual chemistry will not the cornerstone of who we will be as a couple this time around," I said, "the intense romantic chemistry will be," I added as I flipped to the next page of the notebook, continuing to write out numbers; I was no Lola but I could do some basic tips maths from the living the yachty lifestyle.

"I'm just glad you two are getting back together now rather than Teo being miserable and never moving on from you, and you being with someone who doesn't know the real you when you still love Teo, Edge," Javi said, helping himself to one of my taquitos when he could just go make his own in the truck.

"Except, I don't even know the real me," I countered, "I thought I'd found her when I became EJ Addison the super yacht steward supreme, and now I've gone back to being Edge Addison, who is completely clueless and often floundering emotionally," I said and sighed, "I look put together but I still feel like I'm drowning," I admitted to them, pushing the loose strands of hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ears.

"We know."

I thought I'd done a better job of hiding it from the people who I cared about, "you can hide it from EJ, Ever, Lola, your employees but you could never hide it from true Estrellas," King told me and I put down the pen.

"If you guys have all the answers, what do I do to stop it?" I asked them, needing answers because I couldn't stay in Neptune Waters if I was going to start drowning again, no matter my new found commitment to my family and the hotel.

"Talk to people when you feel like that," Javi said and hugged me, "let us help keep you afloat," he said and kissed my forehead. "We know who you are at your core, Edge, and we'll always be here to remind you that you're selfless, loving, dedicated to the people you love, an old sailor as well as a young woman looking for a better future and above all, a good person despite what the universe threw at you," he told me and I really felt like I was being seen when he said that. It was another reason that I was happy I'd moved home, I was around people who really knew who I was and not just accepting who I had pretended to be.