by Lena North
“You look good,” Tina interrupted. “That tousled bed-hair and those gorgeous eyes make you one hot chickie, Charlie.” She grinned cheekily and added, “If we weren’t cousins, I’d totally do you.”
Thea groaned, but I grinned.
“Here,” Pauline said calmly and handed me a small tube. “This’ll make you even hotter.”
I blinked and stared at the lipstick in my hand, and the high heeled espadrille sandals she put next to me.
“Okay,” I whispered and to my embarrassment, tears pooled in my eyes, so I turned away and blinked frantically.
This was something a mother would do, I thought.
“Don’t worry so much, Charlie,” Pauline murmured into my ear. “Just go with the flow, honey. Go with Tina and Thea. Have some fun. It doesn’t have to be harder than that.”
Her arm was around me, and I tilted my head to lean it against hers. Then I sucked in air, forced myself to calm down and smile. The lipstick was a warm raspberry red, and I didn’t have a mirror, but I suspected Pauline was right. It probably looked good on me.
“Right. Party. Let me go and grab some money.”
“Where we’re going, there’s no way you’ll get to pay for a single thing,” Tina said. “Come on now, everyone’s waiting.”
“Everyone?” I asked weakly as we moved toward their car.
“Yeah. All cousins currently in the Islands are at the bar, and if we don’t join them soon, they’ll be shitfac –” she glanced over at Pauline and amended her statement to, “very, very happy before we get there.” Then she made a soft kissing sound, and added, “Let’s go.”
Okay. I’d met many of them so I could do this. And if I couldn’t… well, I wasn’t used to drinking a lot, but damned if I wouldn’t guzzle down as many rum and coke’s as I could, as fast as I could. Surely that would help?
***
I should have known Tina would take me to Dupree’s bar.
Unfortunately, I didn’t so when we stopped right outside, I remained in the car and stared at the ridiculous dolphin above the double-doors.
“It’ll be fine. It’s a cool place, we hang out here all the time, so it would be beyond weird if we went someplace else.”
I heard Tina’s words, and she was right, but I was suddenly nervous.
“Girl, you have chestnuts, don’t you? Come on now. Let’s go,” she added.
I blinked. Chestnuts?
“Tina,” Thea said with a sigh, but it sounded as if she was giggling through it.
“Chestnuts?”
“When I got to the Islands,” Thea said. “There was this guy who was hitting on me, and I wasn’t interested, partly because he’s really sleazy, but mostly, you know…” She waved her hand up and down in front of herself, and added, “Gay.”
I nodded, still kind of stupefied.
“Anyways,” she went on. “He wanted to take me climbing, and I said no. He got pissy and told me that of course I’d be afraid when I had no balls –”
“She said, sure I do. I just have them on my chest,” Tina cut in with a huge grin. “Get it? Balls? Nuts? Chestnuts?”
I had gotten it immediately, and I also got what they were saying. I should find my gumption, walk in there and claim my place in this community. And I would, goddamn it.
“I wouldn’t do you,” I said seriously to Tina and watched her brows go high on her forehead. “Sorry, but cousin or no cousin, I just wouldn’t. But you –” I paused and looked into Thea’s smiling eyes. “If I ever decide to swap sides? I’m totally coming after you.”
We were laughing as we walked in and were met with loud cheers. I was shuffled around, and a lot of new names were added to the long list of names I’d partially forgotten already. It felt strange to walk around among them because I had lighter skin than most of them, and the color of my eyes wasn’t exactly the same as theirs, but the resemblance was there. I saw it in the curve of one cousin’s cheek, and the curls on one of the girls. And then the man behind the bar laughed. When he did, he tilted his head to the side exactly like I’d seen myself do in pictures, and it hit me in full force. This was really my family, and Dupree really was my father.
“Earth to Charlie,” Joao murmured, and I jumped. “You okay?” he grinned.
“Yeah. I was just thinking.”
“Bet you have a lot of thinking to do,” he said calmly.
“Yeah,” I repeated. There were people all around us, and the bar was loud, but it suddenly felt as if it was just him and me. “It’s good to be here so don’t get me wrong… but it’s also hard. I was alone –” I stopped myself and put a hand on his arm when it looked like he wanted to protest. “No, please. I’m not complaining, and it wasn’t bad. But I was alone all my life, so I don’t know how to do this.” I waved my hand to indicate the buzz around us. “I’m trying, but it’s hard.”
“Oh, Charlie,” he murmured, leaning down to speak in my ear. “No one wants you to be anything but you. You don’t have to be like us. If it’s too much, simply step outside for a while. No one will mind. No one will laugh at you.”
I reared back and stared at him. How had he known? How the hell had he known this was something I hated more than anything? I could manage someone being rude and gave back as good as I got. I’d survived Sebastian’s hard fists. I just couldn’t deal with someone laughing at me. Finding me ridiculous.
He pulled me closer to him again and leaned down.
“Sunshine, it’s all over you. Every single joke I make stuns you, and then there’s that split second when you watch me, trying to see if I’m laughing with you or at you.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking I sounded pretty pathetic. “Does everyone see it?”
“These self-absorbed fools?” he asked and leaned back, twitching his head to indicate our cousins. “Wouldn’t think so.”
I leaned back to grin up at him, happy that he accepted a part of me I wasn’t sure I liked myself.
“Sunshine?” I asked.
“Yeah. When you realize I don’t mean to put you down or make fun of you, then you laugh back. When you do, it’s like the sun comes out, shining so brightly it almost hurts to watch.”
Oh. Joao looked calmly at me, and I didn’t think he was flirting with me because the man had a girlfriend and he wasn’t the kind of guy who stepped out on someone he’d made a commitment to. It had been a seriously nice thing to say, though, so I smiled at him.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and his face softened.
“Go ask your father for another beer and slip outside for a while,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” I quipped, and he grinned. “Is your girlfriend here?” I asked, and his grin faded away. “I just wanted to say hi,” I added when he didn’t say anything.
“We called it quits a few days ago.”
Well, shit. Way to go, Charlie, I thought.
“Sorry?” I said but it came out in a sort of question, and I could have kicked myself, although it turned out to be the right thing to have done because he started laughing.
“Didn’t like hurting her, but no, I’m not,” he answered the question I hadn’t meant to ask him. “I was the one who broke things off. She’s a great woman, but it wasn’t working.”
The way Pauline had talked about her, she hadn’t sounded like such a great girl, but I wasn’t going to stand there and contradict him, so I just smiled.
“I’m gonna go and…” I twitched my head toward the bar a few times.
“Go,” he mock-ordered, so I was laughing when I reached the bar.
Dupree wasn’t there, but Lippy was, and he grinned back at me.
“Beer?”
“Yes please,” I said. “If I wanted to go out on the dock over there, could I do that?”
I pointed toward a small dock at the back of the house. It was empty and didn’t seem to be connected with the bigger one open to customers, so I’d get some peace and quiet out there. His grin widened int
o a smile as he leaned to the side and raised a hatch to let me through.
“Go through the kitchen, say hi to bananas, and walk out the back door.”
I was going to say hi to the bananas in the kitchen? Okay. I could do that.
Another man was in the kitchen making pizzas. He looked at me over his shoulder but kept sprinkling cheese on the pies.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m Charlie.”
“I’m Bananas,” he muttered.
“Bananas?” I asked.
“What they call me because I am.”
“Like, crazy?” I asked stupidly.
“Yup.”
He turned away, but there was a strangely guarded look in his eyes, and I wondered if he expected me to judge him in some way. Oh, boy, I thought. He had no clue where I’d grown up.
“Guess that makes us twins because I’m a little bit kooky myself,” I said calmly.
“Heard how you yelled at Dupree so I don’t find that hard to believe.”
“Maybe he needed to be yelled at?” I asked back.
“Huh,” he said.
“Huh,” I echoed and grinned at him because of the way his brows went up. “How do I get out on the dock from here?”
He turned slowly. I waited and let him make his mind up about me, and I saw the second he did because his eyes lit up. Humor bled into them, and I grinned.
“I wasn’t sure what to think about you, but I think I’ll like this. It’ll be fun watching Dupree trying to figure you out,” he stated. “Door’s over there,” he added and waved his hand in a way that sprayed cheese all over the floor.
“Okidoki,” I murmured, and he started laughing as I walked through the kitchen. I stopped with my hand on the door and turned. “Bananas?” He was still grinning at me. “Can you make me a small pizza, just sauce and cheese, please? I’m no good with alcohol, and I don’t think it would give everyone a good impression of me if I barf all over the floor later.”
“Will do,” he grinned and turned.
I walked out on the quiet dock and kept going until I reached the far end. The water was moving gently, and the sounds from the bar were there, but in a muted way. I sighed and took a sip of beer.
“Charlie?”
I’d just started to relax, and Dupree’s voice startled me. It also annoyed me to no end.
“What?” I snapped.
“Uh.”
He took a step back, and I remembered what Pauline had told me but the anger inside me overrode any concerns for his feelings.
“Jesus, Dupree,” I said, still in that snapping voice. “Your verbal skills must have deteriorated over the years, considering you talked a sixteen-year-old into your bed once upon a time.”
His mouth fell open, and he made a hoarse sound. I glared at him.
“Sixteen?” he rasped out.
“What?”
“She said she was twenty.”
“And you believed her?” I asked sarcastically.
“What the hell?” he was getting angry too, and his voice had become a low rumble. “What was I supposed to do? Ask her for an ID?”
“She was thirty-three when she died, and she looked like fifteen,” I retorted.
“She looked young, Charlie, but she looked like she could have been twenty when I met her. She wasn’t good with makeup but –”
“My mother never wore makeup,” I interrupted. “Ever.”
“Yes, she did.”
“No!”
We’d moved, so we were standing closer, and before I stopped to think, I raised my hands and shoved him in the chest. He hadn’t expected it and stumbled backward, except there wasn’t any dock behind him, so he started falling. I reached out to grab his arm and stumbled too.
We hit the water with a huge splash. It was cold, and I turned around, trying to find out what was up and down. A strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled me upward, and then our heads were above the surface. I moved my arms and legs the way they’d showed me to keep floating and stared at the man in front of me.
A small gray head suddenly breached the surface next to us, and I turned to stare into the black eye of a dolphin. She looked back at me, and then she started laughing loudly. Her voice vibrated through the air and through my core, and it hit me how ridiculous we must look. The anger I’d felt washed off me, and when my eyes met Dupree’s, I could tell he’d calmed down too.
Then we both started laughing.
Chapter Eight
Tails
Charlie
“Let’s go for a swim,” Dupree said.
“I’m not a very good swimmer,” I confessed.
“I am,” he said calmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Saying no to the vulnerability he tried very hard to hide was impossible, and if we were ever to move on from talking about the weather and my incredibly dull office job, I’d have to get to know him.
“Okay,” I said. “Don’t blame me if I drown.”
“Hold on to me,” a voice murmured, and I knew who it was.
The dolphin.
“How?” I asked out loud.
“You can talk silently to her if you wish,” Dupree murmured. “It’s kind of like… thinking the words.” He was silent for a few seconds. “I can’t explain it very well because I always did it. Just try, you’ll get it when you get it.”
Think? It was hard enough to stay floating.
“How do I hold on to you?” I thought.
There was a long silence, and both the dolphin and the man watched me expectantly. Well, hell.
“How?” I thought.
Still no reply.
“Fuck it all,” I thought sourly.
“That is not a nice word,” the dolphin suddenly giggled.
“You heard me?”
“Charlie…”
“Okay.”
I could sense that my thoughts felt slightly different than usual. It felt like I was thinking that I was speaking while I was thinking. Or something. I decided to not overanalyze the whole thing, at least not right then.
“How do I hold on?”
“Wrap an arm over my back and around the fin. Hold with your hand.”
I did what I was told, and she started moving. The way water slid over me felt amazing, and she didn’t go very fast, so I wasn’t scared. When we’d rounded a set of boulders next to the bar, I started laughing. She slowed down, and I watched Dupree approach us at a slower pace.
“How deep is it here?” I asked when he reached us.
“A couple of strokes toward the shore and you can stand on the bottom.”
That felt good. I knew he wouldn’t let me drown, but it was still good to know I could save myself if he had a seizure or something. The dolphin started laughing, and I turned to her.
“You’ll learn to filter your thoughts between thinking and speaking,” she said. “Until then, I’ll enjoy being around you.”
“What?” Dupree asked, and then he started laughing. “I’m not gonna have a seizure, girl,” he chuckled.
“Traitor,” I said to the dolphin, but she just giggled a goodbye and moved away from the shore.
We didn’t say anything for a long while, but for the first time, it didn’t feel uncomfortable. It felt natural and peaceful. Slowly, I relaxed, and then I turned to Dupree.
“I know you can change.” He nodded but didn’t say anything. “Can you show me?”
“I’d like that,” he said calmly, but his eyes betrayed him.
He was happy I’d asked.
“Okay,” I said.
I waited, but he didn’t move. Since I had no clue how it all was done or how long it took, I waited some more.
“Charlie, you might want to turn around,” he said finally.
Oh. I splashed with my arms until I’d managed to get my back toward him, and he laughed the whole time. While I waited for him to do whatever he did, I thought about that. He had laughed at
me, but it hadn’t made me feel bad. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be a bit ridiculous sometimes?
I heard a soft movement of water, and he was in suddenly front of me, floating slightly higher than before. It was dark, and the lights from the town weren’t enough for me to see him clearly, but I saw the outline of him.
“This is kind of surreal,” I said hoarsely. “You actually have a… what do you call it? Fin?”
“Tail,” he said. “And I get that it’s strange to you, but it isn’t to us. It simply is.”
“How do you move? You just wiggle it around some?”
He laughed again and then he explained how he moved, and how they changed, although he only provided about as much detail as Roark had. And used the word poof.
“How does it feel?”
“Like coming home.”
A lump formed in my mouth and I tried to smile. Coming home. I’d never really had a home, so I’d never felt the feeling he talked about, but I’d dreamed about it.
“It must be cute with the younger kids splashing around,” I said to hide my emotions.
“We can’t change until later, somewhere in our teens. Basically, when we’re ready to procr –”
Since we both were well aware that he had indeed procreated, he stopped talking abruptly and turned his head so I couldn’t see his face, but I saw a muscle work in his jaw and felt sorry for him.
“Dupree,” I said quietly. “Don’t worry so much.” He turned back toward me, and we looked at each other in silence. “I promise I won’t shove you,” I whispered, and his eyes lit up with laughter. “Much,” I added, and giggled.
He wasn’t the kind of man who giggled, but he did chuckle and took hold of my hand to pull me toward the boulders by the shore. Then he told me to climb up and sit for a while. I wondered if he’d seen how tired I was getting, but before I could thank him, he went out toward the ocean and disappeared. The water was barely moving, and except for a silvery lane painted by the moon, it was so dark it looked almost black.
Then he jumped high into the air, turned and dove. It was magnificent, and I couldn’t hold a gasp back when he did it again. My nose tingled, but I deep breathed to hold my tears back and had calmed down again when he reached me.
