by Lena North
“Okay,” my mouth said before my brain kicked in, but since my brain also said okay it really didn’t matter.
He leaned down toward me, and I tilted my head even further back. Was he going to kiss me? I really, really wanted him to, but I also didn’t. Everything in my life was complicated and adding a kiss from Joao Torres would only add to that. At the last moment, he shifted his head slightly, and I felt his cheek against mine.
“Okay,” he whispered into my ear. “I’ll walk you home now.”
Chapter Nine
Kissy faces
Joao
He swore quietly and was already reaching for his phone when it buzzed.
“Hey, heard about the huge mess out on the highway, guessing no lunch for you today. Tomorrow?”
The text message ended with a small yellow face which smiled stupidly at him. What the hell did that mean? That Charlie was happy he wouldn’t make it for lunch? That she would be happy if they met tomorrow? Then he swore again, and not quietly. Had he reverted to a silly teenager? It was a friggin’ emoji, and it didn’t mean anything. Or did it?
“Yeah, sorry. Yes to tomorrow.”
He didn’t add any damned faces or symbols, mostly because he thought it was kind of girly and never used them.
“Not your fault. Heard through the grapes that the dudes in the red rental were at the bar until last call and looked like crap this morning.”
Well, shit. One of his deputies called out to him, but he raised a finger to indicate he needed a second. Two hungover fools might have ruined his lunch plans but damned if he’d let them stop him from sending a text to a friend. Or, yeah. Perhaps not exactly a friend. They’d spent time together almost every day since that night when Charlie let her hands slide over him in a way that made him want to groan out loud.
He’d heard from the others that it would be amazing but hadn’t really believed it and had never let any girl touch his tail before. To decide when to share their legacy was always tricky. Most didn’t until they’d dated for a very long time, and some never told their spouses about it at all. They never talked about it outside the families, but he was sure there were Islanders who suspected, or even knew. Mimi’s parents came from the Islands, but she’d grown up on the mainland, so he was pretty sure she didn’t know. Considering how they’d ended up, and how she liked to talk, he was happy he hadn’t told her.
So, he hadn’t expected the rush of pleasure when Charlie touched him, but he should have. He’d been attracted to her even as the bruises on her face started to fade, something he’d shrugged off as a healthy man appreciating the look of a pretty girl. Now he wasn’t with Mimi anymore, so it was becoming harder to ignore, and he liked being with Charlie. She was interesting and annoyingly challenging, but he also laughed more with her than anyone he could remember, mostly because of the way her face changed when she smiled. Something inside his chest softened every time she turned her happy eyes toward him, and he couldn’t do anything but laugh back.
She was also hot and getting hotter every goddamned day. She’d gained weight which had settled in all the right places, and her long, tanned legs caused fairly inappropriate fantasies to pop into his head. Add her hair which was slowly turning the color of pale honey and those amazing turquoise eyes, and you had one hell of a package. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that fact and the cousins had the decency to keep their hands to themselves, but he’d gotten used to glaring at tourists who wanted to approach her.
His deputy yelled at him again, and he added a small smiley to his short message, hit send, and immediately got a text back which was only a round face the seemed to spit out a heart.
What the hell?
Then he realized this was the same emoji he’d picked.
“Fuck,” he grunted.
“What?” Thea said from her place in front of the dispatch screens.
“That damned emoji thing that spits out a heart? What does that mean?”
Thea started laughing, and a few of his deputies tried to hide their grins.
“It’s a kiss, Joao,” Thea explained calmly, but her eyes were still laughing.
Huh? Well, he wanted to kiss Charlie, hoped she wanted to kiss him back, and now they had apparently kissed each other, albeit only virtually.
“Okay,” he said, shoved his phone in his pocket and went to deal with the idiots on the highway.
It went quicker than he thought, mainly because the two hungover morons weren’t such idiots after all, and shared how they’d misunderstood the signs, admitting that the evening before most likely was the reason for it. Nobody had been hurt, but there were a lot of damages, which meant a lot if insurance claims. He split the paperwork up, took his share and went to his office, hoping someone would offer to go and get him some lunch later. Then he sighed and started tapping on his keyboard.
“No, no, don’t disturb him,” he heard Charlie say suddenly, and his brows went up. “If someone could just give him…”
He’d started moving immediately, and she trailed off when she saw him standing in the door to his office.
“Hey, babe,” he said, knowing that Thea, two on-call firefighters, and three deputies were in the room, pretending to look like they weren’t looking at him. But they were. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to drop off lunch.”
He blinked.
“You brought me lunch?”
“Yeah. It’s only a couple of sandwiches, but I did stop and get that disgusting coffee you like so much, and they had cooki –” She’d walked up to him but stopped speaking abruptly when she saw the look on his face, and her smile faded. “Did I do something wrong? I didn’t mean to disturb you, I’ll just –”
She put the bag down and turned to walk away. Before he could shake off the stupor, Thea took a couple of quick steps and placed herself in front of Charlie.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetie. Joao is just a bit surprised. We all are.”
“Surprised?”
“You’re probably the first girl to ever bring him lunch after being canceled on.”
“Really?” she asked and turned to Joao. Slowly, that beautiful smile spread on her face again. “You must have dated a bunch of complete morons, Josie.”
“Sunshine,” he murmured softly, ignoring everyone in the room. “Want to eat with me?”
“Nope. You’re working, and I’m off to do something with Roark and a few of the others.”
“Roark?”
“Your brother?” she asked back with a raised brow.
“What’ll you do?”
“Don’t know but he said it’d be something fun.”
Well, hell. Roark doing something fun could mean anything from eating ice cream to rappelling down into dark caves.
“Any way at all I can convince you not to go?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” He sighed and gave her cheek a caress with the back of his hand. “Don’t let them kill you.”
“Of course not.”
There was nothing of course about it, and he’d call Roark to share that ice cream was a very, very good idea. She waved goodbyes to everyone and left, calling out a happy, “Don’t forget to eat your lunch, Joao,” over her shoulder.
He felt like a fool but kept watching until she’d disappeared.
“I’m due for a break,” Thea murmured.
“No.”
“I really need to go to the restroom,” she whined.
“With your phone?”
He tried to look stern but knew he’d failed when she grinned at him, so he muttered, “Yeah, yeah. Call Tina but keep it short.”
“Thanks. She’s not working so she’ll be with Charlie and Roark.”
“That does not make me feel better.”
“I know. But she’s a nurse, so if –” She saw the look on his face and raised her hands. “Calling her. I’ll tell her to be careful.”
The sandwiches were excellent, the coffee his usual triple espresso and the cookie was white chip and macadamia. None of this made him feel better, and he kept glancing at his phone. After a couple of hours, the paperwork was done, and he figured some visible presence from the chief of police wouldn’t hurt Croxier, so he picked his phone up and prepared to leave.
Thea was looking at her phone, and when she saw him, she grinned and turned it toward him. It was a video showing someone on a tube after a speedboat. The boat turned abruptly which made the tube bounce wildly, and the person on it consequently flew high up in the air to land with a gigantic splash. Loud hoots and cheers echoed all around the camera.
“Charlie?” he asked quietly.
“Wait,” Thea said.
The person was pulled up to the boat by a dolphin, and it was indeed Charlie. The camera was turned down toward her happy face as she climbed up the ladder, closer and closer until all that was visible on the screen was her cleavage. “Hey, Thea. Show this to you know who,” Tina shouted in the background, Charlie squealed, the image bounced around some, and then it went black.
He sighed.
“Are we fifteen?”
“You’re the one sending kissy faces,” Thea retorted. “You tell me.”
“Jesus,” he grunted and refused to laugh even though she was kind of funny. “I’ll be in my car for the rest of the afternoon. Call me if something comes up.”
“Will do,” everyone echoed.
Thea walked with him toward the door, and when he looked down at her, she smiled. It was a soft, happy smile and not the teasing grin he’d expected.
“They’re over at Silver beach,” she whispered. “Toby and Leo are picking up dinner, they’ll grill something later. I’ll be there after my shift.” She got up on tip-toes and brushed her cheek against his. “You should go there too.”
He nodded and gave her a one-armed hug. There was no way he wouldn’t be there because an evening on the beach with Charlie sounded great. Even if it included miscellaneous cousins and a brother who probably would behave like a juvenile fool.
***
Charlie
We had a fantastic afternoon on the water, and when it turned out two of the men had started a fire on the beach and brought food, our get-together stretched into the evening. I had a little while longer before I’d start looking for a job and had decided to use that time to enjoy myself. It would be like the kind of vacations I’d read about, I told myself. When I had free time in the past, I’d stayed mostly in my apartment, and mostly alone, so I hadn’t been sad when I went back to the office. In Croxier, someone was always off from work, so my life was a whirlwind of activities, and I said no to a lot but on days like the one we’d had, I was glad I said yes too.
Joao joined us when the fish was filled with herbs and put on sticks ready to go over the fire, tomatoes and cucumber were cut and mixed with crumbled cheese into a salad, and the bread sliced. Cheers and insults flew over the beach, and from what I heard, it wasn’t the first time Joao had bailed out of preparing food.
“I brought beer,” he said and held out a cooler. “There’s more in the car.”
Everyone cheered again, and his laziness was immediately forgiven.
Then we ate, and the food was great, but the company was better. Joao was sitting next to me, and when I shivered from the evening breeze, he moved his legs apart and pulled me in between them, holding me tight to his chest. No one seemed to think this was strange, and I relaxed into him.
“Better?” he murmured into my ear.
“Yes,” I whispered. “You’re hot.”
“Pleased you think so.”
Well, crap. I hadn’t meant it like that. He was in fact seriously hot, but I hadn’t intended to tell him I thought so.
“Um.”
Yes. That was a witty and elaborate reply, Charlie, I thought. Maybe I should move on to my most used word since I arrived on the Islands, which was “what.” He started laughing, and his arms twitched, moving me closer to him.
“I’ve always been like this. Uncle Nico wanted to do research on me and the others who can shift shape, but we said no. We are what we are without research.”
“For the record,” I murmured. “I actually do think you’re hot too. I hadn’t meant to tell you, though.”
“Babe,” he murmured but didn’t say anything else.
He had mirrors in his home I assumed, so he’d know he was good-looking.
“How are things going with Dupree?” he asked after a while.
I told him about sailing with my father, and how we sometimes had dinner. Things were still stilted and sometimes awkward, and we’d argued a few times too, but we were slowly building something. From there, we moved on to talk about Joao’s job, what kind of work I’d start looking for, and the rebuild he wanted to do on his catamaran. It felt as if we were in a bubble of just us, and all the others were on the outside. I heard their laughter but ignored them, and Joao did too. Then he tightened his arms, leaned his head over my shoulder, and I twisted around to glance at him. He looked happy, and I felt my insides melt into a puddle of goo.
“Hey,” he whispered softly. “If I take you home tonight, will you let me kiss you outside the door?”
I didn’t have to think about it and replied immediately.
“Yes.”
His arms tightened. We spoke quietly, so the others hadn’t heard, and they were anyway singing along with a song on the radio, but I still felt heat creep up my cheeks.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“Yes,” I repeated.
I wasn’t, but I wanted to be outside Nicholas and Pauline’s door right then. His eyes darkened, and I couldn’t hold back a small giggle.
“Let’s go, Charlie,” he said.
The others pretended very nicely that it wasn’t early and waved cheerfully when we got up to leave. Roark winked at me, though, and my eyes met Thea’s. She didn’t wink, but I saw the happiness in her pale gaze and blew her a kiss. Joao held my hand as we strolled up the hill and we talked quietly about what we’d do the next day. I was jittery, but it was anticipation and not nerves. It felt oddly natural to stroll up the quiet streets, waving at people we passed and stopping briefly to give a huge dog a pet. And then we were outside the door.
“Come here,” Joao murmured, and I stepped in close to him.
He put his hands on my cheeks and leaned down, and then his mouth was on mine. He was gentle at first, but then I felt his tongue against my lips and opened my mouth. I had been kissed before but never like that. Never like it mattered so much everything else seemed to fade away. My arms were around his waist, but when he let go of my face and slid his hands down my back to hold my hips, I moved my own hands up to his neck. He shifted back a step, but I held on tighter.
“Don’t stop,” I mumbled against his lips and felt his smile in return.
“Sunshine,” he said, and kissed me again.
***
I stared at the credit card Joao handed me.
“A friend of mine moved your savings to our local bank.”
“But –” I swallowed. “How?”
“Don’t know. She’s a hacker, so you don’t have to worry about the asshole. He’ll never find out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Really sure?”
He looked at me for a second and then he pulled out his phone, pressed a few buttons and asked someone if Annie could explain to me what she’d done. I alternated between staring at the card and him. Then he handed me the phone.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey, are you Charlie?”
“Yes.”
“Great!” the girl squealed. “I had so much fun with your savings account.”
“I heard,” I said, unable to stop myself from smiling at the obvious joy in her voice. “How did you manage that?”
“It was easy. We went to your
place, got in, got your card. Then I hacked your bank records and changed the pin code. When I’d created a few extra copies of your card, four different people went to four different ATM’s all over the country and got your cash out from them at the exact same time. Then I started a new account for Charlie Torres in your local bank, oh and by the way, you incidentally opened that account six years ago on your eighteenth birthday. The money is there, and Joao should have a card for you. Go shopping. Or whatever.”
She spoke quickly, and I tried to keep up with all the information suddenly bombarding my brain.
“Wouldn’t there be cameras at the cash machines?”
“Of course. Unfortunately, they have to be cleaned so I would expect the footage to be not so good.”
“Cleaned?”
“Guano.”
“Guano?”
What the hell was she talking about?
“Bird-shit,” she said calmly.
“Birds pooped on the cameras over four ATM’s?”
What were the odds of that?
“Totally.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just asked weakly, “Isn’t what you’ve done illegal?”
“Mostly not. Creating the cards was perhaps not totally kosher, but we’ve destroyed them so no worries there, and there’s a scanned copy of a signed proxy for everything else in the bank files.”
“Of course there is,” I said.
It seemed perfectly logical that this unknown girl had a legal document with my signature on it. She just giggled.
“And yeah,” she went on. “If you don’t recognize the balance then that’s my fault. There were these stocks I absolutely had to get my hands on, so I did. Sold them again and it changed your total ever so slightly.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t want to ask if it had wiped out my savings because whatever was there would surely be enough to pay Nicholas and Pauline back. I needed to buy some clothes too if I could afford it. Washing every third day was getting old, and I refused to “borrow” more things from Thea and felt uncomfortable accepting more help from Pauline.
“A lot of people I don’t know has done me a lot of favors. I don’t know how to pay you back for it,” I said.
