The Last Name Banks

by Lacy Camey

  I held my breath and swam underwater, determined to make it to the waterfall. I swam a few strokes and came up for air. I turned around and faced Logan, who looked at me as if I were crazy.

  “Either you jump in here, or I start stripping,” I dared.

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would! Don’t you know anything about my father and his good ole days?”

  “Yes, I have. But you wouldn’t. You’re a lady.”

  “I’m a lady who has fun,” I darted back, shocking myself. For once, I was doing something daring and it felt amazing. Maybe I would just strip and feel free in the water. “Besides, I’m not who you thought I was, remember?” I shot him a playful look. As if knowing my next move he took of his shirt, revealing washboard abs.

  Nice.

  “You’re not stripping. I’m coming in. I’m coming.”

  Score.

  “Okay, but you have to take off your shorts,” I said as I dipped my mouth into the water, just revealing my eyes.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “But they’re jean shorts and they’ll be heavy,” I came out of the water and hollered to him. He knew I was right.

  “I just . . . I just don’t want you to lust, is all,” he said, cocky.

  I smiled more knowing since his jokes were back, that maybe our connection would grow back.

  “I won’t. I mean you practically hate me anyway.”

  He unzipped his jeans and struggled to get out of them due to the soaking from the rainfall. He sported red boxer briefs.

  “Red, huh? Red is the color of passion,” I said in effort to make the moment even more uncomfortable for him. I was so laughing inside. I wished Norah and Maycee were here. They’d die if they heard my gutsy move and my gutsy choice of words. I couldn’t explain it, but the jungle was bringing the inner flower child out of me. I wanted to be even freer.

  Even from where I was wading, I could see him rolling his eyes.

  “You know if you keep rolling your eyes, they’ll eventually stick!”

  He carefully walked his way into the water, wincing from the rocks.

  “Oh, yeah, be careful of the rocks.”

  “Funny, my sister used to say that.”

  “To be careful of the rocks?”

  “To not roll my eyes.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t,” I said.

  He stopped once he made it waist deep. “Well, I’m in here. The water is refreshing. But the compass is still lost. We’re still lost.”

  “And whatever is lost is always to be found,” I said. “We will be found.”

  “Why are you so calm about this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I guess because I know we’ll be found and for once in my life,” I floated on my back, “I feel the most free I ever have. And look who I have to share it with. The man who hates me.” I swam on my back, making a circle.

  “I don’t hate you, Chloe. Quit saying that, will ya?”

  “Well, you don’t show otherwise.”

  “I know. I’m sorry about getting frustrated with you earlier. Let’s call a truce, okay?”

  “Our second truce,” I nodded and spit water at him.

  After I floated on my back for a few seconds I decided that Logan needed to loosen up. A giant urge to be completely free came over me and in an instant my bra and panties were in my hands.

  “Ta da,” I sang as I held my undergarments in my hand.

  “Good God, what are you doing, Chloe?” I could tell he hadn’t seen my naked body as he peered up to the sky as fast as lightning, covering the side of his face with a hand.

  “You need to be free, Logan. Just rid yourself of your past. Of your past hurts for the matter. I can tell they still linger. I see it in your eyes. Do what I’ve done recently and learn to let go and to not care.”

  He looked more to the side and laughed. “Like you have cares.”

  “I sure do. I’m always judged by my last name. No one ever sees me. A normal young woman. They only see dollar signs and what they can get from me. Me coming here was part of proving everyone wrong and doing something I wanted to for once.”

  Still looking off in a distance, covering the side of his face, he shook his head, “You actually wanted to come here. Work in an orphanage?”

  “Yep. But call my experience a true wreck of disaster scripted perfectly for a movie, where everyone laughs at me. My experience hasn’t been exactly what I imagined. The doctors think I’m a joke. I screw up washing sheets.”

  “So it was you.”

  “You knew it was me.” I splashed water at him. “So, now I’m here. Naked. Swimming. Doing something I’d never have done before. Why? Because I don’t care!” I yelled at the top of my lungs and sighed. “Ah, feels so great.”

  He shook his head and lowered himself closer in the water.

  “You should do the same. Not care.”

  “So by me taking off my—” he couldn’t say it, and it was hilarious.

  “So by me being in the nude, swimming in the middle of the jungle with another naked individual, proves that I don’t care?”

  “I couldn’t have said it more perfectly. You’re in the middle of the jungle! And aren’t you a mountain man? And like I said, I’ve never even kissed man before which means I’ve never even seen a naked man south of the border before so you can rest assure I won’t take a peek,” I said as I lowered myself into the water and tied my underwear over my eyes.

  “See, no peeking.”

  He snuck a peek and laughed.

  “I’ve never meet anyone like you before. You’re something else.”

  “So, trunks off.”

  Since my vision was cut off, my hearing became more sensitive. I could hear the water splashing and the waterfall behind us, the stillness of the aftermath of a storm. Birds were chirping, monkeys talking; the jungle was filled with life.

  “Oh, okay, why not.”

  I wanted to be true to my word so I didn’t peek. “All stripped?”

  “All stripped.”

  “Vision tied?”

  “Trying.”

  “Are you peeking?”

  “Gosh, no. I’m practically a preacher here at the orphanage.”

  “So you are a preacher.”

  “No, no . . . but no peeking. Okay, vision impaired. I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered.

  “Okay, now repeat after me. I’m letting go of my hurt and I am ready to receive the new me,” I ordered.

  “What is this? Some new age mumbo jumbo?”

  “No, sir, it’s absolutely not.” I played with my hands on top of the water. “Your subconscious needs to hear it and believe it. You need to release it.”

  “I have released it.”

  “Have you? Because you still seem hurt to me.”

  “How can you tell unless someone’s peeking and breaking the rules here,” he teased.

  “I’m not peeking and you’re obviously avoiding a touchy subject. Who knows, maybe one reason I’m here is because the Universe sent me here just to help you release your hurt.”

  “By going skinny dipping and making affirmations?” he teased.

  “Just say it.” My hand fell on top of the water and I felt his strong bicep as I grabbed it and nudged him. He was so strong. Skin so soft and in an instant I realized I had never been in a situation like this with a man before. And for some reason, it felt like second nature. I couldn’t put my finger on it because I’d never felt a connection like that before.

  To shake my thoughts, I said, “Come on. It’ll be fun. Sometimes you have to keep saying things a lot before you actually believe them. This is just the beginning. So let’s get with it.”

  “I am shaking off my hurt and pain and welcome love, joy and happiness because I deserve it,” I said, full of chipper.

  “How do you know I deserve it?” he asked.

  “Because, Logan. Everyone deserves to be happy and because—you’re a great guy,” I answered him as I lowered my makeshi
ft blindfold. I saw him actually smiling and looking happy at the thought of being happy. I studied him.

  I studied him north of the border because I was a woman of my word. Fair skin touched from the sun’s gold, broad shoulders, a defined jaw; he was a strong man yet his heart, his soft heart, radiated out of him. So I decided to ask him a personal question.

  “What makes you happy, Logan?”

  “That’s easy—my family.”

  “Your family?”

  I watched as his head tilted to the side as if he were thinking of them right now.

  “Yeah. My family.”

  “Yet you’ve been here for how long?”

  “Two years.”

  “Two years?”

  “Yeah . . . . ” he said as he began to wade on his back before I stopped him.

  “No! Don’t do that,” I said quickly, and fast as I could I put my sports bra back on. I was trying to prevent him from revealing his lower half since I was now all eyes.

  “Why? What do you see behind me?” he said just as fast as he took his own makeshift blindfold off and I quickly dressed south of the border.

  “Hey! You didn’t peek did you?” He turned to see what was behind him and quickly put on his underwear.

  “Geez. I thought there was this, I don’t know, a giant snake or something behind me.” He touched his heart as he continued to wade. “My heart rate is going ninety to nothing right now. I thought I was going to get eaten.”

  He regained his breath and laughed a little, probably in relief. He grabbed my hand and placed it on his chest. “Feel how fast it’s beating.”

  It was beating fast, for sure. Trying to be quick on my feet so the urge to jump in his arms and kiss him would go away, I said, “You’re just trying to seduce me aren’t you? Here, feel my rock hard chest. That’s a good one,” I teased.

  He splashed water at me playfully.

  “You’re funny. And thanks, good to know you think I’m strong.”

  I smiled and splashed more water at him.

  “So, if you’re such a family person, why are you here? You should go home,” I said, out of breath from wading.

  “I know. I haven’t even seen my nieces and nephews and they mail me pictures they’ve colored for me all the time. It’s really cute.” He laid on his back and struggled to float, and I couldn’t help but laugh at his inability.

  “I can see you really miss them.”

  “Am I that much of an open book?”

  “I think you are,” I commented, then thought about it for a moment more. “I see you sometimes looking . . . maybe somewhere else?”

  “What? What do ya mean?” He returned to wading and went under water for a second.

  “Call it a sixth sense we women have. But it all makes sense now.”

  “Okay, Dr. Phil. Give me your prognosis.”

  “You got your heart broken, and everything around you reminded you of her so you left. Thinking you can leave, heal and be better. But you’re not and you miss your family.”

  He looked at me for a while without saying anything. His eyes fell on my lips and then back to my eyes. A thousand butterflies flew in my stomach as heat was felt on every inch of my body.

  Staring at him, it suddenly dawned on me who he looked like.

  David Beckham.

  As he stared at me, the urge to jump in his arms and kiss him was growing stronger and stronger by the millisecond and I couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same. I was thinking he did from his equally lingering stare.

  Then he went under the water again and blew bubbles and reappeared.

  “Be right back.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hey, where are you going? I was right on, wasn’t I?” I called after him.

  I watched him carefully walk on the rocks, wincing from the sharp edges from time to time, and saw him walk towards where herbs and wild flowers grew. He picked a purple flower, then walked on the rocks and waded back to me.

  “This is our nation’s flower. Very beautiful. It’s called the Cattleya orchid, or also known as the Easter orchid. Clor de Mayo.”

  “How beautiful,” I smiled. “So why’d you just up and go get it?”

  “Because I wanted to give it to you.” He smiled like a shy school boy, placing the flower on my ear. “There, now you’re like a real native. And it’s a proper peace offering. Truce. Sorry for being upset with you. I didn’t mean what I said earlier about you being like the typical rich girl.”

  “Oh, I get it. You see me half naked and you lay out all the sweet cards,” I joked and we both laughed. I could smell the aroma of the flower in my ear and I inhaled deeply. He didn’t have a comeback for what I just said. I felt myself blushing.

  “See that waterfall over there? Beat you to it. First one to make it there is the winner. Loser has to do a dare. Ready, set.”

  And he was off without even saying go.

  “Hey! You cheater! What about the flower!” I grabbed it and held it in my hand as we both raced as if our life depended on it.

  Through my strong strokes and hysterical laughing—which I couldn’t explain why I thought this was so funny, but it was—I felt true bliss. I wanted to remember this moment for the rest of my life because I had never felt so alive, so free.

  “You’re not going to win!” I yelled as water went into my mouth and I coughed.

  I caught up with him and tried my best to push him under the water to catch a break. He reappeared and grabbed my ankle as I swallowed water, making more gurgling sounds.

  “Hey! You’re not trying to drown me are you?” I laughed as he was five yards in front of me, right at the base of the waterfall.

  “I won! I won!”

  I swam and made my way next to him.

  “Yeah, yeah. Mr. Cheater! Look, let’s swim under the waterfall on to that flat area over there. Looks smooth and not as rocky as where our clothes are.”

  “Okay.”

  We both swam under the waterfall and reached a rocky bed. The rocks had changed from sharp, pointed edges, to softer pebbles and we walked out of the water and sat down.

  I crossed my legs in front of me and propped my hands back, trying to catch my breath as he did the same but sat with his knees up as the waterfall fell beautifully in front of us.

  I let go of my clenched fist and the let the flower lay on my thigh. It was pretty much ruined, but I still thought it looked pretty. As I looked beyond the waterfall, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is how contestants on The Bachelor felt when they were off somewhere tropical and remote. Being behind this waterfall made me feel like Logan and I were only two people in the world. And I couldn’t help but wonder if this amplified my already fast growing feelings.

  He turned and looked at me.

  “You know, you’re fun.”

  “Thanks,” I said, happy to hear it. “I’m glad you’re having fun. I am too.”

  “So, I won. Loser has to do a dare.”

  “Oh, what are we in seventh grade?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay, what’s the dare? Make silly monkey noises as I hop on one foot?”

  “Nope.” He shook his head, smiling mischievously.

  Oh no. Don’t look at me like that.

  “What then?” I asked with my eyes wide.

  “Kiss me.”

  “Kiss you?” I asked in hilarious shock. “How about truth?”

  “Aw, come on. You’ve never been kissed, really?”

  “Really. So, let’s make it truth.”

  “You don’t want to kiss me?”

  “You hate me remember?” I teased.

  “I don’t hate you.” He touched my arm.

  “Then prove it.”

  “I’m trying.” The look in his eyes telepathically shot me the message that he was dying to connect with my lips.

  My breath caught and I was completely tongue tied. I wasn’t used to this. He had some strange effect on me.

  “Tell me about your family,�
� I said quickly to avert from the situation. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kiss him, but I was horrified that I’d be horrible. I had no idea how to kiss someone. Crazy, I know. Another class I never took, how to ace a kiss. Should have thought of that one but never got to it. Never saw the point.