by Yessi Smith
“What kind of cancer?” Brianna asks, her eyes wild with the hormones coursin’ through her body. “Are you okay? What stage are you in? Oh shit, how’s Erin?”
She shoots questions in my direction quickly and I’m not sure if she actually wants a response. Jermaine sits Brianna down beside me leavin’ his hand on her lap givin’ her a sense of comfort and ease. Tonya sits on my other side and takes hold of my hand.
“I don’t really know anything yet. They gotta do a biopsy an’ then we go from there,” I sigh, lookin’ over at Tonya who is restin’ her head on my shoulder. “I haven’t told Erin yet. Or my Pop.”
“But – ”
“Pop’s movin’ in with Sofia,” I interrupt Brianna and tell them what happened earlier at Sofia’s house. “When I move Pop and me out, I’ll make an appointment down here.”
“I know an oncologist,” Tonya tells me. “I can call him tomorrow and he’ll see you as soon as you get back.”
“You already spoke to him?” I ask and she nods.
“After you told me,” she admits. “I told him your symptoms and he offered to help you find an oncologist in Alabama, but if you’re moving here, you can see him.”
I wanna argue with her for takin’ the little bit of control I have left in my life out of my hands, but the sincerity in her voice breaks me. She wants to help and I’d be a pretty stupid man if I turned her down.
Chapter 10
Trent
Do you know how long it takes to clear out a diner that has seen more years than I have been alive? Well over two weeks. But it’s not like we’ve only been working. It turns out, Nate has never seen an episode of Seinfeld. Poor guy’s been living in the dark. Which is perfect, because boys without their female counterparts, need to kick back with beer, pizza, and a big screen television.
I also took flowers to Erin’s mom and tended the weeds growing around her gravesite. Because, although her mother had hurt both Shayna and Erin, she did something I could never repay her for. She gave me the two loves of my life. They were broken when we found each other, but my own mom taught me that love and patience can heal almost anything.
After sixteen days of interrupted hard work, the diner, Dan’s house, and Nate’s apartment were officially on the market, available to the hungriest buyer. It took us a day to load the moving truck but was taking us even longer to drive back to Miami.
Nate has slept most of the trip, and although he insists on driving, I’ve refused. Exhaustion is evident on his face, giving him a grey ashen color and the appearance of sunken eyes. Man code forbids me from telling Erin how he had collapsed while carrying the last of the boxes from his apartment.
We haven’t talked much about it, just the general “are you okay” questions followed by grunts of assent. Constant driving and sleeping in a hotel hasn’t been very helpful for him so I’ve let him sleep in the truck.
Nate’s good company regardless if he’s awake or asleep. Easy going, with good taste in music is essential on long rides. Erin, on the hand, has horrible taste in music and any car ride with her is agonizing. Which makes planning the upcoming Valentine’s Day a harrowing idea.
I want to take her somewhere for the weekend, just the two of us, so we’ll have to compromise like my mom taught me so many years ago so we both get a chance to listen to what we like. With Nate snoring beside me, I think of where we can go when my phone rings.
“Hi wife,” I answer.
“Hi husband,” she responds. “Where are you?”
“At a truck stop meeting up with the mistress,” I joke.
“Well, tell her to hurry up. I miss my husband.”
“I’m passing West Palm,” I tell her. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Good,” she sighs. “We miss you.”
“I miss you and Shay, too,” I admit. “I’ve been thinking –”
“That’s never good,” Erin interrupts and I can picture the smile plastered on her face. She thinks she’s so cute.
“We should go away for Valentine’s Day,” I continue to speak over my smart ass wife’s comment.
I hear her sigh and already know the reasons she’ll give me as to why we can’t go, and feel myself grip the steering wheel harder.
“Trent,” she starts, but I cut her off.
“We’re going somewhere for the weekend,” I tell her, leaving little room for an argument although she’ll squeeze one in there anyway. “School can wait one weekend.”
“That’s my life, Trent,” she tells me and I hear the anger rising in her voice.
“So am I,” I respond.
“Are you seriously giving me an ultimatum?”
“No,” I tell her through clenched teeth. “I’m telling you, we’re going away for two, maybe three days, without your books.”
“Do you have any idea how hard I’m working?” she shouts at me. “Work, school, family – none of that is easy, but I’m juggling all three. I can’t take a break right now.”
I try to be sympathetic, but my empathy is gone. “You’re taking a break, Erin.”
“I need to study.”
“You need to spend time with your husband,” I yell at her, waking Nate up in the process, but I ignore him. “Your studies are important, I get it. So am I.”
“Of course you are, Trent,” she says trying to appease me, which only infuriates me further.
“Don’t patronize me, Erin,” I say harshly. “You’re fitting me into your schedule,” I tell her and hang up.
“Now you gone and pissed her off,” Nate tells me on a chuckle.
He’s right. Hell hath no fury like my woman scorned. Not that I have scorned Erin, but the inherited Cuban in her is prone to exaggerate.
Chapter 11
Shayna
I love having Uncle Nate live with us. Especially now that it’s just the two of us since Mommy and Daddy left for the weekend. He sleeps on our couch and snores so loud I can hear him, even when I shut my bedroom door, but he makes up for it by making me pancakes. They’re not as good as Mommy’s homemade pancakes, but the ones that come in the box are pretty good. Uncle Nate says I can eat them with syrup since Mommy’s not hear so I put syrup all over them and then take individual spoonfuls of just the syrup.
I wonder if he’ll let me have whipped cream out of the can like he used to when we were in Alabama.
We’re going to the arcade today. I don’t like video games but Jose and Uncle Nate do. I think Tonya and I can convince them to take us to the beach afterwards. She likes the beach almost as much as Mommy and I do.
Daddy told me he was taking Mommy to the beach so I thought Mommy would be happy but they got in a big fight over it. Actually, they get in a lot of big fights. It used to scare me when they started yelling at each other but now I think they’re kinda funny. Mommy swings her arms around a lot and tries not to say bad words and Daddy walks back and forth, shoving his hands through his hair. Daddy’s mom told me that one day he was going to lose all his hair from doing that so often. I hope not. I like his long hair.
Chapter 12
Trent
“I’m so mad at you,” Erin tells me as we cross the bridge to Islamorada.
Those are the first words she has so much as uttered in my direction since our latest fight yesterday evening, and I’m torn between wanting to throttle her or just take Nate up on his offer and go fishing with him. I abruptly veer off to the shoulder, ignoring the horns blaring at me from cars as they speed around my car. I walk around the car and sit on the small rocky beach, skipping stones the best I can.
Erin follows me, which is a good sign. A part of me thought she might either drive off without me or use the time to study. Okay, I admit, I could have been less of a dick and let her study in the car rather than playing music I know she doesn’t like at an ear-bleeding volume. But her hell-bent personality forces me to be stubborn, so it’s really her fault.
“Trent, can’t we just – ”
“I swear to God, Erin,” I interru
pt her. “If you tell me to drive us home, I’m breaking your head and dumping your body.”
While I obviously don’t mean what I say, I refuse to look at her. Prepared for yet another fight, I stare into the bay and count how many times my stone skips.
She sits down beside me and places a rock she found on my lap.
“Would you use that to break my head?”
I look around and point at a large boulder. “I’d use that.”
She nods her head in understanding.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I tell her.
She nods her head again. “I know,” she agrees, sounding sad and defeated. She rests her head on my shoulder and because I can’t stand to see her like this, I decide to defuse the tension and tug on her long hair that has spilled forward.
“Aren’t you going to apologize?”
“Apologize?” She asks and I can hear the smile in her voice. “You kidnapped me. Forced me to go on vacation to one of my favorite places with one of my favorite people,” she scolds.
“Nate taught me how to hog tie you in case it came down to it.”
“You wouldn’t,” she says seriously, but I can feel her body shaking in laughter.
I maneuver myself so that I am on top of her making it easier for me to grab her wrists and ankles, and I gently send her body onto the sand until she is lying flat on her back. Through her laughter I hear her beg me to stop, but I take my shirt off, using it to tie her hands and feet together. Seeing I have done a piss poor job at it, I keep a firm hand on her so she can’t get loose.
Peering at her smiling face, I ask, “Ready to apologize?”
“Never!” she shouts through the laughter that has overtaken her.
She looks so adorable, I lean down to kiss her forehead, and unwittingly loosen my hold on her until she is able to squirm free. Quick and flexible, she pounces out of my reach and runs down the small stretch of sand before us. Faster, I catch up to her and put her on my shoulder with a quick smack on her ass.
I lay her back down on the sand and sit on her. She’s smiling back at me, a grin so big it makes my heart swell with pride that I put it there. I lean into her, lacing my fingers with hers and kiss her gently on her chin, over her eyes, the corner of her mouth. She calls them whisper kisses and they drive her crazy so I continue to shower her with whisper kisses until I hear her breathing quicken.
Erin tries to free her hands from mine so that she can touch me and while I revel in her touch, I’ve decided to torment her. I don’t really care for any apology anymore. I just enjoy watching her eyes smoke over with desire, her lips part in invitation.
I kiss her shoulder and explore her collarbone and neck with my tongue. With our body temperatures rising I am forced to stop when I hear an awkward but forceful cough behind me. I look over my shoulder to find a father and son duo carrying their fishing gear staring at us.
On a grunt, I give up and roll off Erin until I am also lying on my back. Erin sits ups and bursts out in laughter when she sees them.
“Bunch of cock blockers,” she teases and snuggles her body closer to mine until her head rests on my shoulder.
We lie there in silence, neither of us feeling the need to fill it. I feel Erin melt into me as she listens to the waves crashing. And when a sigh escapes her lips, I know I was right in making her come to the Keys with me. The beach relaxes her in a way not even music can.
Erin shifts her body until she is looking at me so I reach out my unoccupied hand and caress the back of her head. She puts her hand on my arm and smiles at me before she leans in and kisses me.
“I accept,” I tell her and she slaps me on my shoulder.
“Fine,” she rolls her eyes at me but relents. “I promise not to be a total shit this weekend.”
“That’s a shitty apology.”
I help Erin to her feet and don’t bother looking at our intruders as we make our way back to the car. Already in Islamorada, our drive to the villa I rented is fast.
Not allowing Erin’s OCD to take over, I pull her to our back patio before she can start unpacking. I look for the kayaks advertised online and wiggle my eyebrows at Erin in invitation when I find them. She quickly looks back at our villa and sighs, not saying out loud the words I can clearly hear nonetheless.
I drop the kayaks into the intracoastal, promising her I’ll help her unpack when we get back. I try not to outwardly cringe when I hear Eminem’s MMLP2 from her phone and almost blast Black Sabbath from mine, but decide to let her win this one little battle. And while I’d never admit it to her, I do sort of like his latest album.
We paddle for almost an hour, when Erin spots a small pod of manatees she points out to me. We slowly inch our way towards them until we are beside them. Unsure if they are fearless or too slow to move away from us, I reach out and touch one’s back as it swims under the kayak. Wanting a better look, I wink at Erin and dive into the water.
“Trent,” I hear her exclaim when I come back up for air.
I blink out the sting of the salt water and look at Erin to see her eyes are wide and her mouth is slightly open, either in astonishment of my bravery or annoyance at my stupidity. Knowing Erin and how cautious she is, it’s probably at my stupidity. But, because the manatees don’t seem to mind my intrusion, I ignore her and free dive under the water with these creatures, only coming up for air because my lungs demand it.
“Come in, Erin,” I tell her after a few minutes.
She watches me apprehensively as I swim towards her, probably thinking I’ll tip her kayak over. She’s probably right.
“They’re not gonna hurt you,” I reassure her as one surfaces next to me and lets out a loud burst of air through its nostrils.
She lets out a nervous laugh but reaches out to touch it. Her hand shakes so badly I’m tempted to just pull her in, but I doubt she’d see the humor in it. She smiles back at me when she makes contact and she’s so damn cute I nearly climb in her kayak just to kiss her.
Determination sets in her face and she takes her top and shorts off, exposing her slim body with slight curves in a small bikini I can’t wait to take off. With my teeth.
“I’m going in,” she tells me seriously, trying to mask her fear of the unknown.
Erin is the bravest person I know. She’s overcome more than any one person should have to endure in a lifetime. But it’s left her wary and cautious, not that she lets many people see her insecurities or fears. She’ll stiffen her spine and trudge through her anxiety before she admits defeat. And right now these sea cows are her adversary so she is determined to join us in the water just so she can give fear the middle finger.
She jumps in feet first on the opposite side of where the manatee and I await her. She reaches me breathless, with adrenaline coursing through her veins. I swim in front of her so that I am in between her and the small pod when we reach where they swim below us. She smiles at me, a smile full of amusement rather than the panic I anticipated to see.
This time, Erin winks at me before she takes a breath and goes underwater to get a closer look of the manatees below us. I follow her and am shocked when I see her glide her hand over one’s back. She comes back up laughing, her eyes dancing from the joy she found in her courage. Without a word, we go under again, enjoying ourselves amongst these elusive creatures.
Eventually they leave us so we get back on our kayaks and head back to the villas. Once we reach our dock, I angle my kayak against it and easily lift myself up and then my kayak. Erin follows suit so I take her hand in mine and help her up.
“You know,” Erin begins and I’m already amused, waiting to see what fun fact she’s going to dispense, “mermaid folklore actually comes from manatees.”
“So you’re telling me mermaids don’t exist?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow as I lift her kayaks back on our dock.
“Think about it,” she tells me as she hands me a bottle of water. “They kind of have the same body type as mermaids.”
“Except mermaids are ho
t with shells covering their big boobs,” I counter.
“They couldn’t very well make mermaids to look like those sea cows. Where’s the allure or glamour in that?”
“Who’s they?” I tease her, pulling her body to mine.
“They,” she repeats. “The people who make up stories about dragons and unicorns and mermaids.”
“You’re seriously gonna sit here and tell me dragons don’t exist?” I ask her, my mouth open in mock horror and she nods. “How can you be so sure?”
“No one’s ever seen one.”
“No one’s ever seen majority of the world,” I respond, willing an imagination she never fully developed to take flight.
She smiles at me, reeking of practicality, and takes my hand in hers.
“What do you say we do some exploring ourselves?” she asks and from the gleam in her eyes, I know damn well what kind of exploring she’s got in mind.
I let her guide me up the stairs to our bedroom but before she can slip her bikini off, I grab her by the waist and gently tug on her bikini bottom with my teeth. I feel Erin’s fingers run through my hair as I remove her bottom and she only stops when I start tracing my fingers up her thigh. My fingers continue to caress her body ever so softly, a whisper that I know gives her chills of excitement. I stand up, my hands still caressing her as I begin to nuzzle her throat.
Her hands go around my neck, her fingers moving upward until again they are combing my hair. I reach around her, untying her bikini top, and freeing her breasts so that I can fully explore them.
“Trent,” Erin moans my name when I place my lips on her nipple.
With one quick movement, I pick her up, cradling her in my arms before I place her on the bed. I quickly remove my shirt while she helps me with my board shorts. Within seconds, we are both naked and panting. I climb on top her, eager to be inside of her. Our lips connect as we begin a dance only the two of us are privy to know.
