by Lena North
“I’m gonna climb out now,” he warned me, and I turned my face away and closed my eyes, just in case. “I’m dressed,” he murmured after a while.
“Are you sure?” I whispered.
“Well, yeah?”
“Because Joao forgot, and I got an eyeful of him the other day.”
“Joao Torres forgot he was naked?” Dupree said, sounding partly annoyed but mostly like he was laughing.
I turned, and he’d put his shorts back on but not the tee, and I saw a big tattoo on his shoulder and arm. Then I explained about the shark and how the incident had forced them to share why both Joao and Roark had been naked. He laughed some more then, and so did I. Then we sat in that comfortable silence for a while.
“Can we talk about your mother?” he asked quietly.
“Can it wait?” I countered. “It’s mostly sad, and I’m happy right now.”
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I didn’t –”
“Dupree,” I cut him off. “I’m staying in Croxier.” He turned, and our eyes met. “I just thought you should know. I have another sad story to share, and it can wait too, although you need to know there’s a man in it and he’ll come here. He’s not nice.”
“I hope he comes,” Dupree said.
“What?”
“I’ve heard that story. Joao also showed me pictures of what you looked like when you got here, so yeah. I hope he comes.” He turned to look out over the water, and his voice was quiet when he spoke again. “He won’t be leaving this place if he does.”
Had he just said he’d kill Sebastian?
“Dupree, no. You –”
“This is not up for negotiation, and we won’t talk about it. Glad you’re staying, though.”
“So am I,” I said.
I’d talk to him about killing Seb another day. I’d planned to do it myself if I had to and only after I’d let Sebastian beat me up enough to ensure it would be clear it was self-defense. If Dupree did it, it would be murder and the prison time for that was a whole lot different.
“Since you’re staying, you need to know that I’m probably gonna say shit you won’t like,” he muttered.
Ah. Exactly what Pauline had told me.
“So will I.”
“Got a bit of a temper.”
“So do I,” I shared.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He looked at me again, and for some reason, we both chuckled.
“Let’s go back. Lippy is probably due for a break.”
“Shit,” I said and jumped up. “The others must wonder where the hell I disappeared.”
“They know. Joao was on his way out on the dock when you shoved me into the water.”
“You stumbled,” I protested, although I kind of had shoved him.
We bickered about that while we walked back to the bar and were still arguing when we walked into the kitchen.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I fake whined, and grinned at Dupree.
“There you are, crazy-girl,” Bananas boomed. “Pizza’s been waiting forever. Don’t blame me if it’s dry.”
“I promise to complain quietly,” I retorted. “And you’re crazier than me.”
“Nu-huh,” he said. “Saw you shove your father straight into the ocean. I never did that.”
Dupree started laughing, but then Lippy stuck his head through the door and shouted, “A little help out here would be good, brother.”
I ate in the kitchen, sitting on a table to the side and listening to Bananas telling stories about Dupree and Lippy. When he told me about their bet about who could bicycle the longest distance sitting backward on their bikes, I hooted with laughter. Then he shared that it hadn’t been as young boys, which had been my guess. The event had apparently taken place less than a year ago, and I laughed so hard I almost choked on the pizza which made Lippy poke his head through the door to see what was going on. I finished my beer and walked out to the others and was immediately pulled into Roark’s side as if I hadn’t been gone at all. He was with a group of men who were arguing good-naturedly about the upcoming swimming championships, something I knew nothing about, so I moved over to talk to Thea instead. The rest of the evening passed in a happy blur, and the beer in my hand was replaced a few times, but I said no to the rum and coke they offered me, so I had a gentle buzz going on, but I wasn’t drunk.
When things were winding down, Dupree was suddenly at my side, wiggling a set of keys.
“Come on, I’ll take you home.”
“I can take her,” Joao offered. “You don’t have to leave the –”
“Lippy can manage,” Dupree said firmly. “She’s seen enough of you.”
“What?”
“I heard that you flashed enough skin in front of my girl to last her a good long while, boy.”
Loud laughter echoed around us, and a few of the cousins tossed out suggestions for what Joao should do the next time he considered clothes optional. I giggled as my eyes met Joao’s, and he sighed exaggeratedly, but he was laughing too. It would have been nice to walk with him, but I was tired so going up the hill by car was probably the best option.
“Can you drop us off too, Uncle Dupree?” Tina asked.
“Sure,” he muttered.
Tina got up on her toes, leaned over the bar to kiss Lippy on the cheek, and murmured, “Have fun without us, Papi.”
I blinked. Papi? Was Lippy her father? That meant she was my cousin a bit more than the other cousins. I smiled because this I hadn’t known, but I liked. I liked a lot.
“Yeah,” Thea murmured in my ear and slung an arm around my shoulders. “The family ties are confusing beyond belief here, but you are cousins the way someone from the mainland would see it. It doesn’t mean all that much to them because they consider everyone the same kind of cousins, sort of, but it means something to people like you and me. It made me happy to see that joy on your face when you found out.”
Before I could say anything, Tina cleared her throat next to us.
“You’re stealing my girl?” she asked.
“Totally,” I snapped and planted a big sloppy kiss on Thea’s cheek.
Tina pretended to put a fist to my belly, and I promptly pretended to double over in pain.
“Guess you can have her,” I wheezed out, and had to stay doubled over from laughing.
“Jesus,” Dupree grunted. “Let’s go, party-girls.”
***
I couldn’t sleep. It was late, and I’d been tired when I waved goodbye to Dupree and tip-toed through the house to get ready for bed. Then I lay there, staring at the dark room.
The sounds from the bar tumbled around in my head together with images of my father. He had been magnificent when he did that jump. Thea was so sweet, and the way Roark treated me like a younger sister had been cute. I decided I’d go back during the day and spend time with Bananas and wondered what his story was. He’d said he was crazy and he’d been a bit odd, but not enough to label him insane. Not the way my mother had been.
After a while, I gave up. There was no way to shut my mind up and the more I tried, the more it spun, so I got dressed, grabbed a pair of flip-flops and a towel, and tip-toed my way out of the house again.
When I reached the beach and sat down on the sand, the silence was almost complete. The town was mostly dark, and the waves made soft swooshing sounds as they rolled in, but it was rhythmic and soothing.
After a while, I pulled off my clothes and went into the water in my underwear. I didn’t dare to go far so when it was up to my calves, I got down on my knees, and then I lay down. The sky was dark, but there were no clouds, and I could see the stars just as well as I had done when I’d watched them as a child on the plains.
“Hey.”
I yelped and knifed up in a sitting position, coughing and trying to scramble away from the voice.
“Sorry,” Joao murmured. “Thought you heard me.”
&
nbsp; “I didn’t,” I told him what he’d probably already guessed. “What are you doing here?”
“I live there,” he said and pointed toward the beach.
A light was on in one of the houses.
“Oh,” I murmured, feeling stupid for being there and for floating around like an idiot in shallow water.
“A lot on your mind?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Too much.”
The waves had moved me closer toward the shore, so the water was just above my waist. The moon provided some light, but I was still pretty sure he wouldn’t notice I wasn’t in a bikini. My boring, washed out and somewhat utilitarian bra covered more than any bikini anyway.
“Break it down,” he said and sat down next to me.
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s too much to grasp then break it down into manageable pieces and deal with them one by one.”
Oh. That was a pretty good idea.
“I’m guessing Dupree is the main thing,” he said. “What the hell did he say that made you push him off the dock?”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah,” he grinned. “Hilarious.”
“He told me my mother wore makeup when they met.”
“Okay.”
“She never did. My mother wasn’t like other women, Joao. She was… crazy.”
“I know.” He raised a hand to brush some hair away from my cheek and continued gently, “I asked a few friends to look into that place you grew up in. We needed to know who you were. I’m sorry.”
“I guessed you would,” I said. “You know most of it then. I told Pauline about it too, and I assume she has shared what I said.”
“Some.”
“It’s pretty pathetic.”
“Not your fault.”
“I know it isn’t, and they mostly ignored me, so it wasn’t as bad as you’d think. It wasn’t your regular suburban upbringing, though.”
“Why did you get so mad about the makeup?”
Ah. He asked a question I didn’t want to answer, but I did anyway.
“Pissed me off that she had been normal. She wasn’t ever normal that I can remember, and it made me mad that he got that and I never did. I shouldn’t have taken it out on him, though. She lied to him and then –” I stopped talking and nudged him with my shoulder. “You can’t tell Dupree this. Not ever, Joao.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
Perhaps it was stupid to tell him, but it felt safe, and I had to talk to someone.
“You know about my grandmother?”
“Religious,” he said laconically.
“More than that. They believed that water was coming from the devil…” I took a deep breath and whispered, “I think my mother saw Dupree shift, and that’s what pushed her over the edge. She’d always been unstable, I think. They always told me she turned insane because she’d carried the devil’s child, but I don’t think that was it. I think she saw him in the water, in his other shape. It must have scared the crap out of her, and then to find out she was pregnant with that man’s child…”
He was silent for a while. His hand held mine in a firm grip, and his thumb moved slowly in a way that felt like a caress.
“I don’t think Dupree needs to know that,” he said quietly. “He feels like shit as it is.”
“I know.”
“Are you mad at him?”
“It’s irrational, and I don’t want to be angry, but I am. I tell myself he didn’t know so he couldn’t have come for me, but I’m still mad he didn’t.”
“I meant if you’re mad he made your mother…”
“Go bonkers?” I said with a surprised chuckle. “No. She would have found another reason if it hadn’t been for him. Maybe a cow would have farted upwind or something.”
“You’re very calm about it.”
“When I left, some people helped me. They’d been in the group themselves and had settled a short distance away. They get donations from others who have left, so they have some money. When I walked in, they knew who I was and took me far away immediately. I was eighteen, but they didn’t dare to keep me in the halfway house. The leaders in the church were crafty, so even though my grandmother was gone, they might have tried to force me to come back. I went to Prosper instead, and got to go to school. When it turned out I wasn’t too far behind, they sent me to university. And I got to go to therapy for years. Didn’t want to but they pushed, and it was the right thing. It helped me to sort out my head.” I shrugged and squeezed his hand. “I didn’t know my mother, Joao. We were never alone, and we rarely spoke. She was sent away when I was ten and died when I was sixteen. I know I sound callous, but I didn’t have any relationship with her. I miss what we could have had, but I don’t miss her if that makes sense?”
“Can I still feel a little sorry for you?” he asked quietly.
“A little,” I said with a sigh.
We were silent for a while, and I wondered if he had to work the next day. He’d need his sleep and shouldn’t be sitting there with me.
“Dupree shifted,” Joao murmured suddenly. “What did you think?”
“He was beautiful,” I said before I could stop myself. “The way he jumped was awesome, and the scales looked smooth. Are they soft?”
“You didn’t touch him?”
“He’s my father. I’m not going to put my hands anywhere below his waist. I might have accidentally touched his butt, and I don’t think either of us would have survived that.”
He chuckled and got up, pulling me with him.
“I can change if you want to?” he offered.
“Really?” I said before I realized what he was saying.
This involved him getting naked. Again. And he’d told me he didn’t have a girlfriend anymore, so maybe this was him playing me bec –
“Charlie, I’m not that guy,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean the things written all over your face, and I’m sorry. Let’s just go back to the beach. When you’re more comfortable with your father, you can touch him.”
I tilted my head back and look up at him.
“I’m never going to be that comfortable with my father,” I whispered. “I’m sorry too. You’re right, let’s go back. I’ll ask Roark.”
“Roark?” he drawled out.
He also didn’t move.
“Yeah? Or one of the others. Don seems like a friendly guy. Or Mauro.”
“Don or Mauro?”
Was he going to stand there and repeat all his cousin’s names? I’d also lied when I said Don was friendly. He was more sleazy than friendly, and I didn’t like his habit of standing a bit too close when you talked to him.
“Or maybe Roark,” I conceded. “He’s sweet.”
“Sweet?”
“Joao, why are you echoing everything I say?”
He snorted out something which didn’t sound very nice, and then he pushed his dreadlocks back in an impatient move.
“Okay, we’re doing this now. Turn around because I’m tossing my shorts up on the beach.”
Eek.
I turned and put a hand over my eyes for good measure. There were some soft splashes behind me, and then he called out that I should join him. So I did.
His tail was smooth and soft. The scales were layered in a way that joined them together like fabric, and I slid my hands up and down the sides of it, him, repeatedly. I’d thought it’d be like his legs in a kind of cover, but it felt solid, and very much like… well, a huge fish. I wasn’t going to tell him that, though. The edge to his waist kind of melded into his skin and the whole tail was a soft, blueish gray.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” he said.
His voice was a little hoarse, and I looked up at his face, but he was smiling. His tail wasn’t separate from him, so in a way, I’d just told him he was beautiful.
The water moved slightl
y, and I took a side step, but before I could fall, he pulled me into his arms, and then we moved further out in the ocean.
“Wanna go for a swim?” he murmured into my ear, and I shivered although I told myself it was anticipation and not the way he felt against my skin.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
He moved us slowly through the water, following the shoreline. I held on to his shoulders at first but stretched my arms out after a while and let them glide through the surface. The way the water filtered through my fingers felt like soft velvet and when he spun us around, a few bubbles tickled along my spine and on the outside of my legs.
“Oh, wow,” I breathed when he stopped.
We were back where we’d started, right below his house, and I felt the sand beneath my feet.
“Charlie,” he breathed into my ear. “You should step back a bit.”
“What?” I asked, still in a slightly silly and breathy voice.
I was a bit overwhelmed by what I’d just experienced, and it felt like I was still floating around in that bubble of magic he’d brought me into.
“I’m pretty much naked here,” he said.
Oh.
I moved a couple steps back so fast the water splashed around me and heard him laugh softly, so I had to laugh too. We were adults, and I’d already seen him without clothes, so it wasn’t a big deal. With as much dignity as I could muster, I walked out of the water and pulled my clothes on. When I turned, he was wearing his shorts again and was watching me with a grin.
“What did you think?”
“It was amazing,” I said. “I’m gonna ask you guys to do that all the time.”
“Not a good idea, Charlie.”
“Why?”
“We don’t let people touch us like that normally. It’s a bit personal. Intimate. If you ask someone to do it, then they’re going to assume you want… more.”
What?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered but managed to do it in a mini-squeal.
“Do you want to meet me for lunch tomorrow?” he asked.
“Lunch?”
He stepped up closer to me, and I felt his hand glide over my cheek.
“I know you had no clue what it was about, Charlie, and I wanted to show you. Now I have, and now I’m thinking I wanna have lunch with you tomorrow.”
