Kenny was a life-saver and managed to move Hudson along quickly, allowing Ty to return to the spa where she found the girls had blessedly moved on from the topic of Hudson. Ty found her spot against the wall but refused to let her thoughts go to Hudson.

There would be time for that later. Instead, she tuned her ears to the girl's conversation and found herself quickly caught up in their dating drama.

By the time the spa day was over, all the girls looked blissfully relaxed and Ty had strong opinions about who should dump their boyfriend, who should marry their boyfriend, and who needed therapy. She was still dissecting Bianca's daddy issues as she left the spa and she didn't see Hudson waiting for her.

"Ty," he said, stepping out of a corner.

She froze for a moment, taking him in as he walked towards her with a smile on his face. Her brain jumped through a strange process of sadness to hurt to anger like it couldn't figure out what she should feel about him. But looking around she knew there was only one way for her to act in conversation.

She put on her most disingenuous smile. "Mr Hamilton. How can I help you?"

The use of his formal name had the opposite effect than she expected and his smile grew.

"You can help me with a lot of things," he said, walking closer, raising a flirty eyebrow.

He looked around to check their surroundings and she took the chance to take a few steps back.

"What can I help you with?" she said repeated, letting her smile go.

She would hate for him to get the impression that she actually wanted to be there talking to him. She looked at her watch like she had better things she could be doing.

"Well, I saw there isn't anything on the schedule for this afternoon or night. I thought maybe you would have some ideas on how I could spend that time."

He gave her a knowing smile, which if given yesterday would have thrilled her, but today all she wanted to do was slap the smile right off his face.

She clenched her hands and told herself to remain professional until the end. "We have a long list of events happening this afternoon and night. You can find a schedule for them at the main desk."

She watched something shift in his expression. She could tell he hadn't expected her to keep up the formal conversation for so long. Well, she hadn't expected him to have a girlfriend. They both weren't getting what they wanted.

He let out an awkward laugh and ran a hand through his hair. He looked at her closer, narrowing his eyes as he studied her. She gave him her blankest look. A small crease formed between his eyes but he shook his head and took another step closer.

"Ty, are you...?" he started.

"Mr. Hamilton, I have somewhere I need to be," she said, taking another step back.

She could see his confusion truly set in and she couldn't deny it was a little vindicating for all the confusion and frustration she had dealt with that morning.

"If you have any more questions about the schedule, anyone at the main desk will answer your questions." She didn't wait for a response as she turned to leave.

"Ty!" he called after her.

She could sense him following her just as someone called out his name.

"Hudson!" It was one of the girls. "There you are. We are all out by the pool. Come on."

"Yeah, just give me a minute," he said.

Ty stopped and turned around. "Actually, Mr Hamilton we can figure out that scheduling thing later. I would hate to keep you from your party. Please, enjoy the pool."

"Perfect!" the girl said, looping her arm around his. "Come on."

"But..." Hudson started, his eyes clearly begging Ty to rescue him from the situation.

"Enjoy!" Ty repeated and left.

She kept her feet moving until she reached an employee door three levels down. She pushed through the door and stopped, letting her body slump against the wall. Her insides were battling it out. Her heart aching from seeing Hudson and remembering how much she liked him while also facing how much he had lied to her.

On the other side of the war, her brain was telling her heart to toughen up because that boy she was upset about had lied to her and wasn't worth her sadness.

But Ty's heart never stood a chance against her logic and after a minute all the aching disappointment she had felt about Hudson had been shoved to the side by her anger. He didn't deserve another ounce of her thoughts or energy and she wasn't going to give him anymore.

She pushed off the wall and headed for the cafeteria. Her stomach was grumbling about the meager breakfast of cucumbers she had given it and she knew there was bound to be someone in the cafeteria that could provide her with some amount of distraction.

When she entered the cafeteria she had never been so happy to see Johnny sitting at their table with Jules. She couldn't have asked for a better distraction.

"...so I had to explain for the fourth time that diving with a shark is not an activity that we offer and that the ad she had seen on TV must have been for a different cruise line! I was this close to yelling at her," Johnny said, holding his index finger and thumb only a centimeter apart. "So then the woman responds and it sounds like she finally understands but then she asks about the camel rides!" Johnny throws his arms up in disbelief and the whole table laughs.

"It always surprises me how dumb some people can be," Ty laughed.

"It never surprises me," Johnny grumbled.

"But that's because you always assume you are the smartest one in the room," she countered.

He paused to scan the area around him before saying, "That's because I am."

This brought outcries from everyone at the table except Ty. She just shook her head. She had long ago established that when it came to her and Johnny, she was the smarter one and he had never denied it.

"Johnny, did I just hear you say you think you're the smartest one in here?" Nico asked as he took a spot at the table.

"Am I wrong?" Johnny questioned smugly.

"One hundred percent," Nico said.

"You're pretty smug for a lifeguard," Johnny countered.

"Well, I save lives. What can you say about your job? What is it you do again?"

"I'd like to see you try your hand at customer service. You would be crying at the first angry customer you dealt with."

"Alright boys," Ty gave each of them a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "You are both so smart and talented and handsome," she said in a baby voice. They both gave her scathing looks. She grinned. "Come on, you both know I'm the smartest one in the room."

They looked at each other for a moment before they shrugged like they couldn't argue with her. She smiled, feeling like something was right again.

Someone started telling another story and everyone's attention shifted except for Nico's.

"Hey," he said quietly to Ty. "How are you?"

"Smarter than you," she answered quickly, smiling until she realized the meaning behind his question.

He wanted to know how she was doing with Hudson kissing another girl.

"Yes, we just established that," he said flatly. "But after last night..." he let his voice trail off as he looked at her.

But she took all the concern he was throwing her way and handed it right back to him. "I'm great. I won almost one hundred dollars last night," she said, bumping his shoulder.

"Right," he said, still looking at her with concern.

"Are you alright?" she countered, putting her hand on his forehead. "You're acting strange."

"No, I just...It's just after last night I..." he stopped talking and frowned at her.

"I'm fine," she finally said, giving Nico's arm a reassuring squeeze.

She knew that he was concerned for her because he was her friend, but the last thing Ty wanted to do was talk about Hudson. The jerk had already caused her enough distress that morning and she wasn't giving him any more of her energy.

"I promise, I really am fine," she repeated.

"Okay," he nodded then turned his attention to the story being told.

As the lunch hour ended and everyone stood to clear their dishes, Ty was hit with anxiety as she realized she would have to face Hudson. As much as she wished that she had swept all her emotions away, she knew that was not how it worked.

Unfortunately. She also had an annoying feeling that Hudson wasn't just going to just let go. He seemed like the type of person who wouldn't put something to rest until he got all the answers he wanted.

She felt a sinking feeling starting to creep into her core as she thought about the afternoon she was about to face until Johnny threw his arm over her shoulders. "The dream team reunited!" he sang. "Are you ready for an afternoon in the Batcave?"

Ty felt a wave of relief wash over her as Johnny reminded her that she would be spending her afternoon with him in the offices, not with the Hamilton Party. Kate and Grant had planned for the group to spend the afternoon by the pool and Ty's assistance was not needed for that.

"Dream team back in action!" she said, giving Johnny a high-five. She had never been so excited to deal with customer complaints.

But it only took her an hour of answering phone calls and responding to emails to remember why she hated working in the Batcave. Ty had moved through several different jobs on the cruise ship and she had made sure her stint in the offices had been her shortest. There weren't any windows, the air was too cold and she was much better at dealing with customers when she was in the fresh air and moving.

It seemed an hour was also Johnny's limit of total concentration as he started talking and it was no surprise that he wanted to talk about the Hamilton Party. The very last thing Ty wanted to talk about.

"What insider knowledge did you get for me this morning?" he asked. Ty frowned at him. "Didn't the ladies have some spa day?" He clarified. "I'm sure you overheard some interesting things. Things I could use to bolster my bets."

"That's right!" Ty said. "I totally forgot that I was on a reconnaissance mission this morning and not there because it's my job."

Johnny scoffed. "Please, don't act like you can't multitask. You always say you're the smartest person in the room. Prove it."

She rolled her eyes but she couldn't deny Johnny had played that well. Under normal circumstances, she would have handed over the info she had gathered for half the amount of praise. But she knew if she started talking she wouldn't be able to avoid the topic of Hudson and she had been doing a pretty good job at doing exactly that since lunch.

"Come on oh wise one," Johnny cajoled.

"I'm only the 'wise one' when you want something from me."

"At least give me something on Hudson," he said. "He's our pal. He would want us to win." Johnny smiled hopefully but he had unknowingly said the one thing that made Ty not want to talk at all.

"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny," she sang, shaking her head. Her brain scrambled as she tried to think of a way to put distance between them and this topic.

"Ty, Ty, Ty," he sang back, looking at her with pleading eyes.

Then it came to her. "Johnny's daddy was taking him fishing when he was eight years old," she sang with a heavy country twang.

"No!" Johnny said firmly and Ty knew she had hit the right kind of distraction.

"A little girl came through the front gate..."

"Stop!" Johnny said. He fixed her with a serious look and it made her smile.

"Stop? You love when I do this!"

"No. You love doing this. I hate it."

"No you don't," she laughed.

The time Ty had spent working in the office she had worked alongside Johnny and one of her favorite things to do was sing to him. It turned out the name Johnny was used in a lot of songs and she sang them all, much to his displeasure.

"Why?" Johnny said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling as if crying out for mercy from a higher power.

"It's easy. Your name is used in a lot of songs. If you were named Frank we wouldn't have this problem," she said. "But then again, you would be named Frank."

"I'm sure there are plenty of people who are named Frank and have fine lives."

"Maybe," she conceded, "but they don't get to enjoy this." She threw her arms out wide as she skipped to the chorus. "And Johnny said, Take Jimmy Johnson, take Timmy Thompson, take my best friend Bo." She laughed as Johnny grimaced and covered his ears.

"Now there is a great name," she said. "Jimmy Johnson. You could call him Jim John."

"That's an awful name," he argued but he couldn't hold in his laugh.

"Timmy Thompson could be shortened to Tom Tom. My cousin Mia has a cat named Tom Tom." Johnny groaned. "More of a dog person?" she guessed.

"I'm more of a 'shut up and do my work' kind of person," he said, suddenly very interested in his computer.

Ty smirked. "Did you seriously just say that?" Johnny ignored her and Ty grinned, pleased to find her distraction had worked better than she thought it would. Now Johnny didn't even want to talk to her.

Silence settled over them as they got back to work. The boredom set in after only thirty minutes of working again but this time Ty accepted it as the lesser of two evils, boredom or talking about Hudson, and continued to slog through.

By the time she reached quitting time, Ty thought she might jump out of her skin. She was the first person to shut down her computer and the first person out the door, shouting goodbye to Johnny over her shoulder.

Stepping back into the main lobby felt like being released from prison. The air was a little less stall and she had room to move. She was so excited to be free of the office she didn't have a thought to spare for Hudson until she practically walked right into him.

"Ty," he said.

He didn't smile this time. He just looked at her intently, like if he looked hard enough he could figure out what was going on.

All the work she had done to push thoughts and feelings about him aside disappeared and she was hit with a wave of mixed emotions. Anger, sadness, hurt, regret, but the most annoying of all, longing. She looked down so he wouldn't see what she was thinking. Why did he have to be a lying jerk? Why had she let herself have feelings for him?

"Ty, can we...?"

There was a long list of 'whys' running through her head but none of them would change what he had done.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hamilton," she cut him off.

She didn't want to hear what he had to say. She had already listened to enough of his lies.

"I'm actually off the clock." She took a step back. "But anyone at the main desk can help you with anything you need." She waved him towards the front desk then stepped around him and kept moving.

"Ty," he called after her but she didn't turn around.

She headed for an employee door hoping to make an escape and was annoyed when he followed right after her, ignoring the 'employee only' sign.

She whirled around on him. "You can't be in here," she said, dropping any pleasantry from her voice. They weren't in front of the other passengers anymore and she didn't have to pretend.

"I don't care," he said boldly. "You have to talk to me."

She scoffed. "Really?" she said, crossing her arms.

His shoulders slumped as he took in the animosity radiating off of her.

"Ty," he tried, softer this time. "What the hell is going on? Why won't you talk to me?"

"Because I don't want to," she shot back.

"Why?" he responded, his voice getting as loud as hers. "I'm so confused. Yesterday, I thought you liked me. You definitely made it seem like you liked me on the beach and now you won't even talk to me? What game are you playing?"

This made Ty laugh derisively. "What game am I playing?" She laughed again. "I'm not the one playing games. You are."

"What are you talking about?" he said, raising his arms in frustration.

"Oh you're confused?" she mocked. "Why don't you ask Ally what I'm talking about? Better yet, ask your girlfriend."

"Ask my...my what?" he laughed. His whole face changed as he laughed. He was still chuckling when he asked, "You think I have a girlfriend?"

His laugh threw her off but she refused to let him see her flounder. She kept her arms firmly crossed in front of her. "That's what Bianca said."

This made him laugh even louder. "You believed what Bianca said?"

His laughter had been confusing at first but now Ty felt like he was laughing at her and it made her blood boil. After all he had put her through he had the audacity to laugh at her.

"I'm sorry," he said when he noticed her glare had deepened. "It's just...why would you believe anything Bianca said?"

"I have my reasons," she countered.

"Ty," he said taking a step towards her. "I don't have a girlfriend."

She took a step away as she stared at him. It felt like she had been flipped upside down this morning and now it felt like he was trying to flip her back but it didn't feel right.

"No," was all she managed to say. She didn't even know what she was saying 'no' to.

"Ty, I'm serious," he said. All his laughter was gone as he realized saying he didn't have a girlfriend had changed nothing for her. "I know why Bianca said that," he continued. "A year or so ago I went on a couple of dates with someone. My brother and Kate thought I was a lot more serious about it than I was and I let them think that. I let them think she was my girlfriend and even when I stopped seeing the girl, I didn't tell them."

Ty shook her head like none of it made sense.

"I know it sounds crazy," he admitted. "But you've seen Kate's friends around me. It made it easier to attend Grant and Kate's parties if all of Kate's friends thought I had a girlfriend. So I never corrected them. But I do not have a girlfriend."

He paused and it seemed to hit him for the first time that Ty thought he was the type of person who would cheat on his girlfriend.

"Ty," he said. She could hear the hurt in his voice. "I would never have kissed you or even flirted with you if I had a girlfriend. I'm not that type of person."

This made her laugh loudly and he looked at her in surprise. The words were so ironic coming from him after he had kissed her and Ally in the same day.

"Fantastic," she said sarcastically. "You don't have a girlfriend. I'm so glad you aren't the kind of person who would kiss two girls at once."

She could see her words ignite something in him as he clenched his fist. She braced for what he would say next but something strange happened. He frowned for a minute as he looked at her and then to her surprise, he smiled.

"What?" she snapped. There was nothing to smile about.

He nodded his head like he had just found the last piece of a puzzle. "You," was all he said for a moment. "You like me." He said it like there was no doubt. "You like me but now you are pushing me away. Something freaked you out. Don't push me away."

He crossed his arms and smiled at her smugly like he had just solved all her problems.

"Wow!" she breathed out.

She couldn't believe he was putting the blame for this fight on her. And did he really think calling her out was going to win her back?

"Don't say you don't like me because I won't believe you," he said. "I've seen the way all your co-workers look at us. They're surprised by me, which means you don't usually get involved with guys. And if they were surprised that must mean that you were a little surprised too."

The only thing she felt surprised by at the moment was Hudson's decision to psycho-analyze her. Did he think she would find this romantic? He was calling out her flaws. She couldn't help but laugh. It had been one of the strangest twenty-four hours. The guy she liked had kissed another girl and was now trying to say that it was all her fault. She was done. There was nothing left to do but end this conversation.

"Sure Hudson," she said, finding her calm customer service voice. She had learned to wear it like a shield when dealing with angry customers and she would wear it now. "It is my fault that you kissed Ally."

She watched as the words knocked the ground out from beneath him. His cocky manner disappeared as he stared at her in confusion.

"What? No. I didn't..." But he paused like Ty's words had unlocked some memory he had forgotten. He looked at her with uncertainty and that was the last thing she wanted to see.

"Goodnight, Mr. Hamilton," she said as she turned and walked away.

**********************************************************************

Well... That's just dumping buckets into a sinking ship.

*sits down and hugs legs*

I've given up. Yup, I've given up. It's the best thing to do because WHY IS IT ALL FALLING APART ON ME AND WHY DOES MY HEART HURT SO MUCH!!

Let me know if you've given up too. Or if you haven't, explain to me where this strength to keep going comes from.💬🗯💭🛟

I mean, if I've ever read any books, and let me tell you I have, this won't ever end. The pain will go on and on, it will never be better and we're all doomed to live sad loveless lives because Ty and Hudson will never get together and if they don't where's the hope for us!!

I know, my inspiring words amaze even me sometimes. But you know, that's how life is sometimes. It sucks, continues sucks and then it's over.

Anyone else want to take over writing my author's notes? I think I've written us into a depression hole and not sure if I've given us a ladder to use to climb out of it.

Oh know what, I got it! Here's our ladder! A cute animal. Works every time! Have hope because cute animals like this exist in the world. That must mean there's something good in this life and it's not all sinking ships and tea cups full of tears.