Free Dare (The Dare Trilogy) by Sara Frost

gleeful puppies onto the deck while Dan moped around the van. Cam and Dianne took a more leisurely stroll to the upper decks.
    “You’re a pretty mixed bunch,” she said as they watched Dover begin to recede away from them, the famous white cliffs off to one side of the port.
    “What do you mean?” Cam asked, frowning and smiling at the same time.
    “I mean, you’re from all over the place —the proverbial English man, Scottish man and Irish man, with a miserable Mancunian thrown in as spare.”
    Cam laughed at this. “Yeah, well, we’re from all over, though for heaven’s sake don’t tell Dan he’s a spare.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, it’s probably best that you don’t refer to Tony as a paddy. All that witty repartee doesn’t entirely cover the fact he can be wound up like a tightly-coiled spring, especially when someone thinks he’s from the south. I guess Jim and I fit the English and Scots roles though.”
    “Jim? I thought he prefers James.”
    “He does, but he’s always been Jim to us.”
    “And how long has that been?”
    Cam looked thoughtful. “Getting on for five years, I guess. We met at uni.”
    “Oh,” for a second Dianne felt a little uncomfortable. Cam picked it up immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “I didn’t have you down for the bookish type,” she remarked.
    He laughed at this. “I’m not.” He grimaced. “I was doing engineering, same as Tony. For all his gutter language, Dan was training to be a doctor though he dropped out —part of the reason he’s such a miserable bastard, I reckon. If it’s books you want, best stick to Jim: he’s the one who was studying literature. What about you?”
    Dianne’s discomfort increased. “Well, you know, it never worked out.”
    Cam stared at her for a few moments then smiled. “Don’t sweat it,” he said, before turning his eyes towards the sea that was flowing around them. “To be honest, most of us were relatively posh kids who just went to university because that’s what we were expected to do. When we were there, we discovered we preferred the music. You’ve got to follow your dreams, after all.”
    Dianne said nothing. For reasons she didn’t especially want to consider, she suddenly felt very small in ways that had little to do with her physical stature next to this giant of a man. Sensing her continuing discomfort, Cam leaned down and spoke to her quietly.
    “So, what’s your story, Miss Brooks?”
    “What’s to tell? I didn’t have the chance to go to uni, and dropped out of college. At that stage, I thought I could make it in a band but...” she shrugged around and looked at the sea with a grimace. “Here I am at the age of twenty-three, with nothing but a string of dead-end jobs to my name so far.”
    “Twenty-three! You’re ancient!” Cam said with a laugh, but the sound of his voice was warm. “There’s still plenty of time to follow your dreams.”
    She smiled at this. “Yeah, I guess so.”
    “Speaking of jobs, was it easy to get time off?”
    She paused before answering. “Not really,” she said at last.
    Cam frowned. “Not really? Then how come you’re here?”
    “I quit.”
    His face looked shocked at first, then filled with admiration. “You quit? Fucking respect!” He raised a hand to fist bump hers but almost immediately he became guilty. “I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble.”
    “Don’t sweat it,” she replied, mocking ly repeating him. “It really was a lousy, suck-ass job. You did me a favour.”
    “But how will you, you know, pay for stuff when you get back?”
    Dianne shrugged. “I’ll worry about that when I get back, I guess.”
    When the White Ark, as Dianne had started to mentally refer to it, rolled off the boat, Dan was starting to get anxious.
    “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to fucking get a move on. We’ve got to be on stage at nine tonight.”
    “Relax!” Tony said. “That gives us loads of