My Billionaire Protector

by R. R. Banks

  Once my hair is out of the way, I throw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, feel grateful for having already painted my toenails as I put on my flip-flops, and head toward the living room. I take a detour to the linen closet to grab sunscreen and towels. I had forgotten today was Mom’s day off until I get back into the living room and she’s a few sentences into her proud mama bear speech about all my accomplishments. Grant looks up at me from the couch, a chunk of homemade bread slathered with butter in one hand.

  “Are you ready to go?” I ask.

  He nods and stands.

  “Thank you, again, for the bread,” he says to Mom.

  “You’re welcome,” she says. “If it doesn’t take you the whole hour to get to the water park and down to the pool, you be sure to wait before you get in. You don’t want a cramp. That’s how people drown.”

  “It’s a piece of bread, Mom. Not a pot roast. I think he can handle it.”

  Leave it to my mother to wrap up a friendly conversation with a warning about impending death.

  Grant takes another bite of his bread as we head down the street. It didn’t occur to me that we walked here and are going to have to go to his house for a car to make it to the water park. But I’m fine with that. It just means more time beside him.

  “Did she offer you any preserves?” I ask.

  He shakes his head as he swallows.

  “No. What kind of preserves?”

  “I made strawberry and blackberry preserves at the beginning of the summer. The pantry has a whole shelf full of jars.”

  “Then you’re just going to have to invite me back to your house so I can try some,” he says.

  I smile.

  My nervousness doesn’t come back until we’re in his car and making our way over the water in the ferry. It’s a short trip from the island over to the mainland but being in the car with him makes it feel like we’re heading to another world. We climb out of the car as the ferry leaves the dock and stand by the edge to gaze out over the bay. I can feel him looking at me, his eyes following the curve of my neck and down my arms as they rest on the railing.

  “Have you ever thought about how strange it is that so many different things can use the same word?”

  I blurt it out like my brain just couldn’t handle the tension any longer and had to fill the silence, so it just chose the first thought available.

  “What?” Grant asks.

  “Words,” I explain, already committed. “There are so many things that are completely different, and unrelated to each other, and yet they use the same word. Language is pretty arbitrary when you think about it. It’s completely fluid. People made up words for things all the time, and still do. Yet the same ones got recycled over and over. Like the word ‘bay.’ You have bay like the water. And bay like the leaf you can’t leave in food after it cooks. And bay like where a plane sits. And bay like a wolf at the moon. None of those things has anything to do with the other ones and yet…”

  “Bay.”

  “Right.”

  Grant smiles.

  “I can honestly say I have never thought about that before.” He leans a little closer. “But, being around you makes me think about a lot of things.”

  I don’t know how to respond. I’m not even sure what he means. Fortunately, it’s time to get back in the car so the ferry can dock, and I don’t have to say anything at all.

  The ride to the water park isn’t as far as I remember. That was when the idea of getting into a plastic tube and plummeting toward a pool that may or may not be deep enough to accommodate the impact sounded like fun. I tell myself I should be excited. This is the kind of thing that should happen during my last summer before college. As we walk toward the front entrance and Grant pays for our tickets, I listen to the screams of the riders, and remain unconvinced.

  “Are you alright?” he asks as we walk through the turnstiles.

  I nod.

  “I’m fine,” I say, managing a smile.

  “Are you afraid of the water park?” he asks.

  It doesn’t sound judgmental or mocking, but like he’s genuinely concerned.

  “Some,” I admit.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “If I’d known, I would have suggested we go do something else. Do you want to leave?”

  I shake my head.

  “No. We’re already here.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “We can do something else, Em.”

  I shake my head more emphatically.

  “No, really,” I explain. “I want to be here. I haven’t been in a long time, and I think it’ll be good to face my fears. Personal growth before college and all that.”

  Grant grins.

  “Good,” he says. “Then let’s go get a locker.”

  We go to a locker at the back corner of an open-air room, and Grant kicks out of his shoes and unhooks his belt. The swim trunks he reveals when his shorts drop are nearly as long as the shorts, but a bright green color that gives me confidence I won’t be able to misplace him in the wave pool.

  He tosses those into the locker, then pulls off his shirt. My stomach clenches and my heart thumps loudly in my chest as his body comes into view. It’s even better than I remember, and the hint of a tattoo on the back of his shoulder when he twists to put his shirt into the locker, makes my mouth water. He looks at me, and I realize I haven’t moved at all since we got to the locker. He’s now barefoot and in swim trunks, and waiting on me.

  I slowly peel away my clothes and see Grant trying his best not to stare as my one-piece is revealed. Filling my palm with sunscreen, I start to smooth it into my skin.

  “Let me do your back,” he says.

  I swallow hard.

  “Ok,” I reply. “Thanks.”

  He takes some of the lotion, and I turn so he can massage it into the skin exposed by the scooped back of my suit. I shiver as his skin touches mine, and my knees grow weak. His hands move to my shoulders, and I feel them slip beneath my straps to get full coverage. I don’t want him to stop, but too soon I’m fully UV protected, and his hands leave my body.

  “What do you want to start with first?” he asks as I put everything into the locker and he closes the door.

  My brain is still fogged with the sunscreen massage, and I look at him questioningly.

  “What?” I ask.

  He points with his thumb over his shoulder toward the slides

  “What do you want to do first?” he asks again.

  “Oh.” I peer toward the tangle of brightly colored slides. “I don’t know. What do you suggest?”

  “Well,” Grant says with a glint in his eyes. “If you’re nervous, I think we should just dive right in, so to speak. The Mind Melter.”

  “Mind Melter?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound promising.”

  “Sure, it does,” he says, starting away from the lockers. “Biggest, fastest slide in the park. Get through that, and you’ll have nothing else to be afraid of. All of the other slides will seem like the lazy river.”

  “Can’t we just actually do the lazy river?” I ask.

  Grant laughs.

  “Maybe after we get our brains melted.”

  Perfect. Just perfect.

  Grant notices my hesitation, and reaches for my hand, taking it and pulling me toward the line. The feeling of his hand holding mine sends warmth through my body, and I get a boost of confidence right before we start climbing the winding stairs. He holds tighter as we climb, and I try to concentrate on the laughter coming from the water below, and not the screams.

  “You said you’ve been here before, right?” Grant asks.

  I turn away from my rather poor decision of staring out over the railing and nod.

  “Yeah. It was years ago. When I was still really young. Six.”

  “You were six, and you weren’t afraid of the slides?” he asks.

  “Well, most of the slides weren’t here then,” I say. “The ones that were here were a lot smaller and not as complicated.”

 
“I know some of these were here,” he says. “I came here, too. If you weren’t afraid then, why are you now?”

  I sigh and point toward a slide hunkering in the corner of the park. It’s the only one not vibrantly colored in the red, blue, or green of the other slides. Instead, this one is black. Or, at least, it used to be. Years in the intense summer sunlight have bleached parts of it gray, but the result does nothing to ease the foreboding appearance. Instead, it makes the slide look scarred.

  “Black Out?” he asks incredulously. “That slide is the most over-hyped attraction here. I remember the year it opened. They advertised it for the whole season before, and weeks leading up to the park opening. Everybody was so pumped to ride it. They kept saying it was the scariest water slide in the area, and riders would be plummeted through pitch darkness and not know what was coming next.”

  “I remember, too,” I say. “I came opening day.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. I remember that day clearly. Going to amusement parks wasn’t something we did often. Carina wasn’t interested in the rides and Mom hates virtually anything involving water, but always insisted on us doing things as a family. The result was them rarely wanting to go sit at a park all day for only Dad and me to go on rides. But when we did, it was amazing. I loved spending time with him. When it was just the two of us, it was the best thing I could imagine. We’d been talking about coming here and going on Black Out since they announced it. He was worried I wasn’t going to be tall enough, but just a few weeks before the season started, they announced the height requirement; I barely made it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good start to the story,” Grant says.

  “No,” I agree. “We got here early to avoid the crowds, and I was so glad we did. We were at the front of the line, and in just a few minutes, people were lined up behind us almost to the front of the park. It looked like no one was doing anything but standing in line for that one slide.”

  “I was at the back of that line,” Grant says with a laugh.

  “You were?” I ask.

  Grant nods.

  “Asher and Seth were still too small to go on something like that, and Preston, even then, was all about things being logical and planned out. He tried to convince our parents we shouldn’t go at all during the first month the slide was open because the lines would be too long, and it would waste our entire day just waiting for a few seconds of fun.”

  “That’s intense for an eight-year-old,” I say. “But there’s something to be said about riding it on one of the first days it’s open. It makes you feel special to know you’re one of the very first people to experience the ride.”

  “I tried to point that out to him,” Grant says. “I told Preston it would be like being a part of history. We would be able to say we were in the first group of people to ride the scariest ride in the whole area.”

  “Why do I suspect that didn’t have much effect on him?” I ask.

  “Because it didn’t,” Grant says. “He just took that opportunity to point out that even if we got here hours before the park opened, got to the slide before anyone else, and were the first people that day to even touch the steps, we still wouldn’t be the first people to ride it, or even really among the first group of people to ride it. We would just be some of the first members of the paying public to ride it.”

  “He said ‘paying public’?”

  “Like you said. Intense.”

  “Seriously.”

  “He pointed out that the slide had been tested several times already,” Grant says, “and there was a media event the day before to allow reporters and bloggers to come and try it out. So, they were the first ones. Which would mean standing out in the heat and waiting for hours to be just some people who rode the ride.”

  “He sure knows how to take the joy right out of things, doesn’t he?”

  “You should hear him talk about Christmas,” Grant says.

  “I can only imagine it’s full of magic and cheer?”

  Grant shakes his head.

  “Don’t get him started on eggnog at the grocery store.”

  “Eggnog at the grocery store?”

  “Does not contain eggs and is not technically a nog.”

  “I wasn’t aware. Wait… if he was so adamant about not coming here on opening day to ride Black Out, how did you end up at the back of the line?”

  “Turns out as persuasive as Preston’s logic and flow charts can be, Dean and my art of pestering can be even more influential.”

  “The aggravate-the-parents maneuver,” I say, nodding. “Classic move.”

  “It worked, but only so well as to get us here about half an hour too late to get a decent spot in line. But we were here, and we were going to get to ride the slide, so we were excited.”

  “Ah,” I say, feeling the heat of embarrassment burning on my cheeks again. “So that probably means you know where my story is headed. If you recall, you weren’t able to ride the slide.”

  Grant nods.

  “Not until later that afternoon. They had to shut it down almost as soon as they opened it because someone… holy shit, you bled into the pool.”

  “And you’re starting to understand my reluctance,” I say.

  “What happened?” Grant asks.

  At least he has the decency not to laugh at me. Maybe remembering I was only six when it happened helps.

  “Well, at the time that was the highest slide, and I’d never seen so many steps. I was really excited at first, but the further I climbed, the more nervous I got. It started to feel so high, and it really sank in that I was actually going to have to get on the pitch-black slide and end up in water without having any idea where I was going or what was happening. I was terrified, but Dad was so excited, I didn’t want to say anything. I figured I could just get on the slide with him, close my eyes, and it would be over.”

  “How would it be any better to have your eyes closed?” Grant asks.

  “Because I could be in control of it. I could tell myself there were things happening on the other side of my eyelids, and I could open my eyes and see it whenever I wanted.”

  “Ah. The ‘I can stop whenever I want’ logic.”

  “Exactly. That was the plan. My dad was going to be right behind me, and everything would be fine.”

  “But it’s a one-person slide,” Grant points out.

  “I found that out.”

  “How?”

  “I sat down at the top of the slide and Dad climbed in behind me. He reached out to wrap his arms around me, but the person running the slide told him he couldn’t ride with me right as he released the hatch to send me down. I completely panicked, sat up, and hit my head on the top of the slide. There happened to be a rivet there connecting two of the pieces of the slide together, and I caught my forehead on it. I spent the rest of the ride flailing in terror, crying, and choking on the water that kept rushing up over my face. When I finally got to the bottom, my head was bleeding, and the lifeguards freaked out. My father got to the bottom just a few seconds after me, and he was already shouting. They scooped me out of the water to bring me to the first aid station, and since I’d bled into the water, they had to close it down and shock the water.”

  “I don’t even remember hearing someone got hurt,” Grant says. “I just knew the slide was closed, and I was mad at Preston for making us late.”

  “I think they tried to keep it as quiet as they could,” I say. “They brought us right to first aid, and then an ambulance picked me up from the back of the park. Besides, you were just a little boy. You wouldn’t think about why it was happening.”

  “I can’t believe it was you,” he says. “We were right here at the same time, and didn’t meet each other until nine years after.” He looks at me more closely. “Where did you hit your head?” he asks.

  I gesture to the spot on my forehead where I got four stitches that day. There’s a faint scar I think stands out much more than others say it does.

&nb
sp; “Right here.”

  Grant gently moves my hair away from my forehead and peers at it. Leaning down, he touches his lips to the area of the scar.

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says.

  My skin tingles where his lips touched, and when he straightens, our eyes meet.

  “Are you ready?”

  The unfamiliar voice breaks me out of the trance, and that’s when I realize the entire time we’ve been talking, we’ve still been climbing the stairs. Grant had guided me up to the top of the platform, and we are standing at the mouth of the slide. My eyes lock on the water gushing from streams at the head, disappearing into the red tube that appears to be glowing in the sunlight. My hand tightens around his.

  “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he says. “There’s an emergency staircase we can go down.”

  “Do the two of you want to go, or not?” a bored-looking girl beside the slide asks.

  “Two of us?” I ask.

  Grant nods as he gestures toward the translucent yellow inner tube the girl holds in place in the water with her foot. It has spots for two people.

  “I’ll be right there with you,” he says. “I won’t let you go.”

  I think of how long I’ve been afraid of the slides, and all the time I could have spent with my father. Over the years he’d ask if I wanted to go back, but never pushed me. Now that he’s gone, I know he wouldn’t want me to be afraid anymore. I look at Grant.

  “I’m ready,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  With a single nod, I take a step toward the water. Grant, still holding my hand, follows me and helps me down into the slippery tube. Cold water washes around me, sparking fear in my heart, but I swallow it down and settle into place, letting go of Grant only to grip the handles on either side of me. He takes his place behind me, and his legs drape to my sides. He’s close enough behind me that I can lean back and feel his chest. His hands take handles behind mine, and before I can even take another breath, the girl releases us, and the water shoots us forward.

  The red lets in more light than the black slide had, and the glow that had seemed so ominous from the mouth doesn’t seem as terrifying now. I can see ahead as the slide twists, dips, and spirals. Grant lets out a shout of excitement behind me, and it takes a few seconds before I realize I’m laughing. Ahead of me I see a bright light, and we shoot out of the slide into the pool. The inner tube promptly tips, dumping us out into the water, and I feel Grant’s arms wrap around my waist.