A bit more traffic than Mackenzie expects

Two moderately far-off doors were slowly closing and the passengers within had, in fact, joined Mackenzie in the hallway.

Fortunately for the redhead, one of the people was waltzing the opposite direction. He was just about to exit the hallway onto the deck all the way back near the bathroom where she came from. Since he hadn't seemed to have noticed her, Mackenzie thought she would only have to deal with the one other person from the other door, but...

Unfortunately for Mackenzie, two others were following twenty feet behind the nervous redhead! She thought it would just be two individual people total joining her out in the hallway, but one of the doors must've had this duo emerge from it!

Mackenzie hadn't considered a party of more than one person entering the hallway. Her mind immediately went wild imagining a whole troop of twenty people conga-lining out into the hallway in front of her, but squashed that thought right away before she manifested it into reality.

The duo were plodding along at the same speed as her. They were an older man and woman who looked to both be somewhere in their 40's or 50's, and they were dressed for some stereotypical cruise ship lounging. The man had on a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. The woman had on a light, short sundress with what Mackenzie would usually consider a very high hemline, but at the moment she was very jealous of such a garment. Mackenzie would kill for anything to wear other than her way-too-small way-too-square towel.

Most importantly, the duo each had on a pair of dark sunglasses, perfect for tanning on the deck... ...but also perfect for hiding whether or not they're staring at Mackenzie's barely covered ass!

Mackenzie knew they were probably just heading toward the elevators for some upper deck lounging, but she couldn't help but feel like she was being pursued and ogled. They even had their phones out, ready to record her at a moment's notice, if they weren't already!

Mackenzie turned around to face forward again. She was maybe ten steps away from her suitcase, so she didn't want to do anything that could challenge the currently-quite-embarrassing-but-not-all-too-catastrophic status quo. Dashing forward to get her hands on her stuff faster or stopping to let the dark-glasses dynamic duo pass her by were both actions that could invited disaster. If she tripped while running or something happened to the suitcase while she waited, Mackenzie wouldn't let herself live it down.

All I have to do is keep my towel in place... thought Mackenzie as she stretched the fluffy fabric over her butt and checked to make sure the front was covering everything it should.

...keep my footing... She widened her stance and stepped closer to the wall as the ship swayed again.

...and try to act like this doesn't bother me. A shiver went up and down her diagonally-exposed spine. Drops of water tickled their way down the right side of her back and trailed behind her everywhere she walked. Mackenzie hadn't truly dried off at any point and, as soon as she thought about acting like this was totally normal, she started to realize just how out of place she must look.

The naked redhead marched onward, barefoot and bare naked, down a cruise ship hallway with just a square yard of fabric stretched over her important bits, all while dripping wet like she just hopped straight out of the shower. This was definitely pretty far out of the realm of normalcy, even for Mackenzie.

"Almost there..." Mackenzie whispered to herself.

Since she was focusing on her three important tasks of cover, balance, and acting unfazed, Mackenzie was caught totally off-guard by what happened next.