If you haven’t read January 11 yet, you can do so here.

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“Adrienne McCoy. What have you done to my ship?” 

Adrienne had the strong sense that her father was shouting at her, except that couldn’t be possible. In true Adrienne style she had gotten as far from him as possible by placing herself onboard the Pride 365 cruise. First off, her father had retired two years earlier, second, he wasn’t super fond of her being proud of her lesbian identity and probably didn’t want to be seen on a ship filled with lesbians. 

“Adrienne. You get out here right now and speak to me.”

Adrienne rolled over in bed, a rare night entirely alone. She’d had dinner with Cleo the previous night. A quiet affair, with zero sex. A fact she found herself surprisingly okay with. She felt a tiny smile spread across her face as she finally rolled out of bed. 

“Give me five minutes, Dad. I just woke up.” She had to face the truth. Somehow her father had made it onto the ship. She was pretty sure they were in Komodo for the day. Why had she sent him the schedule?

“Fine! But if you’re not out here in five minutes…” he trailed off. Adrienne chuckled to herself, he’d never been good at threats like that. Adrienne took her time getting ready, she pulled on a pair of her favorite jeans and a white tank top. It was Sunday after all, supposedly the day of rest. Unless your father showed up on your ship and interrupted your beauty sleep. 

Adrienne thought back to the previous night. Cleo had looked stunning in that blue dress and their dinner in one of the private rooms on deck 1 had been perfect. She desperately wanted to see Cleo again, even though it went against everything she normally did with women. 

“Adrienne. Your five minutes are up.” Her father’s voice interrupted her peaceful thoughts. She sighed and finally dragged herself out to the sitting area. 

“Hi Dad.” Her father looked a little like he belonged in a mafia movie. With his pinstriped suits and balding head, coupled with his rounded belly and European heritage, he looked every bit the part. 

“Hi sweetheart.” He’d settled into the chair behind her desk and lit up a cigar. Perfect, it would take weeks to get the smell out.

“How did I get so lucky to get a visit from you less than two weeks into my cruise?” 

“Well sweetheart, I came to see for myself. What the hell are you doing with my company?” Her father pulled himself up to his full height—still two inches shorter than Adrienne—and attempted something resembling a menacing look. It had stopped working on Adrienne when she was six.

“Daddy, it’s not your ship or your company anymore. You retired.”

“Well maybe I’ll come back.”

“No Daddy, if you bothered to take a look at the reports I sent you, you’d see we’re doing very well.”

Her father tapped the ash from his cigar and waited for her to continue. 

“The press just from this one cruise has been enormous. We’ve now got more than 60% of our cruises listed as LGBT cruises, and the tickets are selling amazingly. The buzz around Pride 365 has been great. The press is loving it.”

“But sweetheart, it just isn’t… right.” Adrienne groaned. She’d been working on the project for two years, since the day her father announced his retirement. Rebranding their fleet to work with the new image she had in mind and doing press tours all over the world. In less than two years, Cruiseify had gone from a tiny company nobody had heard of to the go to company for gay and lesbian cruises. Pride 365 was a huge part of that. 

“We’ve been over this so many times. I’m not doing this with you anymore. I’m a lesbian. I love women. I love my community. You cannot do anything to change that.” Adrienne waited to see if her words had sunk in before continuing.

“This is something I’m passionate about and you chose to leave me in charge of the company when you retired, that means letting me do my job. If you just came here to treat me like a child then I’m going to have to ask you to leave. If you came here to catch up with your daughter then I’ll call for room service and we can sit down to a nice breakfast together.”

Her father turned a deep shade of purple for almost a full minute before he finally responded.

“I… you know I love you… I just worry about the company.”

“I know, Dad. But which is it?”

He sighed. “Let’s just have a nice breakfast and we can talk about it later.”

Adrienne nodded, with her father involved, it was the best she could hope for.

You can read January 13 here.

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