Rick murmured something and pulled it back and put his arm under the covers. His original human he had adopted was sort of half using Rick as a pillow in the middle of the bed. She barely made any noise, and he cocked his head sideways. Tina moved her head and looked at him.
“It’s ok,” she whispered.
Opus put his head at the foot of the bed.
“You can come up if you want,” she whispered, patting the bed with her free hand.
He walked around to the other side of the bed and sniffed. Beds in rooms like these often smelled like cleaning supplies, other people, and food. This one was no different, but he wasn’t looking for any of that. He was merely smelling things to see if something triggered a memory of danger. His nose was not as good as his mate’s, but he knew trouble when he smelled it. He’d always remember that sickly black smell coming off the man who’d hurt Rick and was wary of it. He’d only run across it once since then, but the human had wisely stayed away with a quiet warning.
“You need to sleep,” Tina called softly as Opus padded out.
He made a circuit of the entire suite, especially the kitchen, where he debated raiding the bin that humans put their waste food containers in. He could smell a French fry and knew the small human hadn’t eaten the bun the meat came on. He sighed. He had a reputation to uphold. One last place to check since the main door was secured. Opus padded silently to the sliding glass door and put his nose against it. They were high up, he didn’t know how high, but heights made him dizzy. There was a nice soft rug right here, and the air vents were blowing cool air. He turned a circle and sat down.
Ophelia heard him somehow and she got up from the couch, one leg stretching, then another. She walked over to Opus who watched her with one eye. She sniffed the rug, then turned in a circle to find the best spot and settled in, her head resting on his back legs. Opus let out a contented sigh.
Tina had planned on beating Rick awake, but she found him up at 4:30am, furiously typing away. She did the zombie walk over to the kitchenette where she could smell a pot brewing. Owen was still out cold in the Pack-n-Play.
“Why you up so early?” Rick asked suddenly.
“Was going to try to get up before you and get some breakfast ordered up and take the dogs out,” Tina mumbled.
Rick slid her over a steaming mug of coffee. She looked at it, then at him, then back at the coffee maker.
“Second pot?” she asked.
“Guilty,” Rick told her. “This new storyline is really coming together.”
“I was wondering. Owen went down hard last night and when I came back in, it looked like Ophelia was competing for attention with your tablet.”
“She was, she’s a jealous girl sometimes, kind of like my wife.”
“I am so not jealous,” Tina said.
“No, not really,” Rick told her. “Besides, who’d make you breakfast and have coffee ready for you if I didn’t love you so much?”
“If Opus had opposable thumbs…”
The coffee wasn’t the cheap stuff, it was a rich Columbian blend that had been sugared and creamed the exact way she liked it.
“You heard me waking up?” she asked.
“I knew sooner or later you’d be up. Without me to keep you warm and you having the world’s smallest bladder and…”
“Thank you. Coffee first, bladder second; I’ll get the dogs. You need to keep writing all the words.”
Rick nodded and gave her bottom a squeeze. Tina almost spilled the coffee, but managed not to scald the both of them. She was about to say something snarky to him, but decided not to.
“Opus,” Tina said, walking over to the patio door.
Opus woke up at her voice and looked up at her.
“Going to be time to go outside soon. Want to wake up everyone but the baby while I get ready?”
Opus chuffed, then got up slowly, stretching. That woke up Ophelia and when they turned to look, Sarge was laying on his side, his eyes open and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
“You bunch of fakers. Rick must have woken you up already.”
Sarge chuffed.
14
Rick
Tina and Owen took the dogs to drop them off at the boarders. I stayed behind and worked. It had been a long time since I’d been on fire the way I had been on this book. I was used to writing fast, but this was coming out twice the speed I was used to. The words flew off the keyboard and onto the screen in a blur. I had some bumps when I was trying to get back into the flow after editing some old transcribed words, but I’d already fixed and edited that and smoothed things together. My process compared to other writers probably sounded odd to some, but it was what worked for me.
A knock at the door interrupted my train of thought. Had I ordered food? I couldn’t remember. My vision swam back into focus instead of narrowed into the world I’d been writing. The knock came again. I got up and went to the door and opened it.
“Annette?” I asked, confused, seeing her standing there with a bag in her hand.
“I caught an earlier flight, now you guys don’t have to pick me up.”
“How did you get here from the airport?” I asked her.
She held up her phone proudly. “Uber,” she said with a smile.
“I didn’t think you liked using your credit card online or with your phone?” I asked grabbing her bag and opening the door wide.
She stepped in and looked around, smiling. “I decided to surprise you and this nice lady on the plane told me about Uber. So when we landed she helped me set everything up. Took five minutes. Then I just told them where I wanted to go and poof, here I am!”
“Poof!” I agreed, smiling back.
For a moment, I thought her smile was because she was finally free of Sarge, but I immediately beat that thought into submission. She was on an adventure, and she had done something she’d probably not done alone her entire life. She’d crossed the country, ordered a cab with her smart phone, and put one hell of a surprise on me.
“Lord, you had to have grabbed a red-eye or something?” I asked, closing the door behind her.
“I flew out at 6:40 this morning,” she said. “Where’s my munchkin and fur babies?”
“Uh huh, not excited to see me, just excited to see—”
“Oh shush, I’m just kidding. Tina take them out for a walk?”
“We’re boarding them at a kennel nearby for the cruise. She took Owen with her so I could get some work finished up.”
“Am I interrupting?”
“No,” I told her truthfully. “I should have quit and ordered lunch a while back,” I said, looking at my watch. “You hungry?”
“Famished!”
“Let’s head down to the restaurant and grab some food then.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Tina?” Annette asked.
I slapped my forehead. “Yeah, let me text her.”
The door made a clicking sound and then Tina was walking through, a diaper bag over one shoulder, Owen on the other arm.
“Grammy!” Owen cried.
Tina gasped and put him down. He ran to her and almost tackled her to the couch. She laughed and sat down, picking him up. He curled into her and rested his head against her shoulder.
“Oggys go bye, bye,” Owen told her seriously.
“Yes, they can’t all come on the ship with us, can they?”
“When did you get here?” Tina asked, her face a mask of confusion.
“Just now; I Uber’d!” Annette said in a gush.
“We were thinking about lunch, what do you think?” I asked Tina.
“You forgot to eat again?” she scolded.
“Don’t worry, I’ll have an extra beer to make up for missing the calories.” I grinned.
“I think I’ll have one too. Owen, you want to go to eat?”
“Eat? Deliciousness?” he asked.
“Yes, but no more French fries,” I told him.
“French Fries!” he exclaimed, making the ladie
s roll their eyes at me.
I should haven’t said it out loud.
With our evening suddenly free of having to pick up Annette, Tina and I found ourselves alone and walking on the beach. Annette had offered to watch the little man. He was almost out from a full day of fun in the sand and sun. In the morning we’d all get on the cruise ship, but for tonight, Tina and I were alone.
“You had the dream last night, didn’t you?” Tina asked me.
Shit.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“How often now?” she asked.
“Almost never, but when it hits, I can’t go back to sleep. How about you?”
“I had it the night Roy tried to break into the van,” she admitted to me.
I knew there had been something, but I wasn’t sure if I’d been dreaming or if it was part of her waking me up. I shook that memory off and took her hand. We’d been walking on the beach in our bare feet, letting the surf coat our legs as it came and went.
“I miss Bud,” I told her suddenly. “I never thought we’d lose him. He’s just so—”
“Ornery,” Tina finished.
“Exactly. I almost feel like this trip so soon after his funeral is somehow… Improper?”
“Maybe you feel that way, but I don’t,” Tina told me. “I think we’re doing exactly what he would have wanted us and Annette to do.”
“Celebrate life?” I asked her.
“You do get it sometimes, even if you pretend you don’t.”
“How late you want to walk the beach tonight?” I asked her.
“The concierge said half a mile down there is a Tiki Bar. Let’s get some drinks and maybe dance in the sand a little bit.”
“I’d like that.”
The wind changed, and instead of the gentle, warm wind that had been coming off the water, this was colder air. It brought with it the smell of ozone.
“We better hurry,” I told her, “I think it’s about to rain.”
“We could jog there,” Tina said. “It’s been forever since you’ve had a proper workout.”
I dropped her hand and took off. I heard Tina let out a frustrated yell, and I could hear her splashing behind me. I was bigger and much heavier, but Tina’s advantage was she was smaller, lighter, and had been building her endurance on running for a long time. Years and years. Barefoot in the wet sand and through the surf, I could feel my legs start to burn, but she hadn’t overtaken me yet. I looked down the beach and saw the building she must have been talking about. I could make out torches with the backdrop of electric lights.
“Almost…” Tina panted from behind me.
I put on a burst of speed. I heard Tina say or yell something behind me, but her words were lost in the sound of the surf, wind, and my pounding heartbeat. People saw us running and turned to watch, some grinning when they realized I was being chased, or raced. My breathing was beginning to become ragged. I’d been jogging with her for a few years now, but I was not a sprinter. I could jog long distances, but not at the rate I was going. I put everything I had into it and got just a little more speed out of it. For the first time ever, I was going to win, I was—
Tina went shooting past me, laughing so hard that I thought she’d fall. I pushed harder, but I was running flat out. Another thirty seconds and I caught up to her as we stopped, panting. I walked into the surf a bit and let the water wash away the sand that had caked up around my legs from the mad dash while I caught my breath.
“Not sure I’ve ever seen you run like that,” Tina said, barely out of breath.
“Not used to being chased,” I told her.
“I wasn’t chasing you, I could have passed you a while back.”
“Yeah right,” I said, feeling like I might puke.
I should have avoided the two beers and heavy lunch.
“Let’s go get some drinks,” she said, pulling me by the hand.
Stingrays Tiki Bar was every bit a touristy trap in the world, but somehow I loved it. I’m an introvert by nature, preferring to be alone or with a very small core group of people, but this place was packed without setting off any sort of anxiety. We were sitting at one of the tables near the bar with a small fire ring in the middle. No doubt running off propane or natural gas, but as the sun had gone down, the night had chilled and people had started heading to tables like ours.
“You ok?” Tina asked me.
“Oh yeah, little tipsy,” I admitted.
I’d been drinking a concoction called a rum runner. It was a Florida Keys special. At first, I thought it was going to be a frufru drink, but it was killing me. My third one was probably one too many, but the fourth was what I was working on. I was feeling good and we could always walk to the street and call an Uber.
“What do they put in these?” I asked Tina who had been the one to suggest it to me.
“Two kinds of rum, some juice, some other liquor and then a shot of 151 down the straw.”
I was going to be feeling real pain in the morning. I pushed my drink back and stretched. We’d danced a couple dances as a steel drum band played by the fire, no real moves, no rhythm, just a slow dance. My race earlier had made my legs sore so we hadn’t done many. We’d instead done what we always seemed to do. Talk some, snipe at each other. Talk about life. Tina wanted us to go to Arizona next summer to see her parents with Owen. I’d told her the desert still held bad memories for me. We talked about why, books, writing, how her eBay business and the mini-storage was the perfect business for her.
“It’s potent,” I told her.
“Then drink up and we’ll walk back to the hotel,” she said.
The way the table was laid out, it could easily seat twelve to fifteen people. The benches were round like the table, so her words weren’t lost on the younger ladies sitting to her side who started giggling and whispering. I got up, a little tipsy, and took a tiny sip of my drink and put it down. I dug out a twenty and put it under the glass.
“Ready,” I told her.
The world swayed a bit as the alcohol and exhaustion hit me all at once. We made it just past the torch light of the tiki bar when I felt something shove me from behind. I fell hard on my face and was rolling over when I heard Tina let out a surprised shout. I got to my feet to see a figure sprawled on the ground and Tina standing with her hands up in what almost looked like a boxing stance, her whole body swaying. The figure was getting on his hands and knees when she kicked. She hit him in the side and he screamed out in agony, rolling on his back.
“Sucker tried to steal my purse,” she said. “Get your phone, call the cops.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” another voice came out of the darkness.
It was another man, and I couldn’t see him well in the dark, but I could see the reflection of something shiny in his hand. A knife or a gun?
“You ok?” I heard a couple people yell from the bar, probably thinking I’d fallen down.
In fact, I’d been shoved.
“Help!” Tina screamed.
The man figure in the dark looked left and right, then reached down and pulled the writhing man to his feet as Tina and I both backed away. I’d already felt for my right hip and sworn as I realized I’d locked the gun in the van so I wouldn’t have to do it before the cruise ship tomorrow morning.
A couple of lights lit the night and the two men took off running. The girls who had been sitting next to us came out of the dark. I saw their faces for a moment before the bright light of their phones’ flashlights blinded me. I held my hand over my eyes.
“You ok? I heard a yell and you called help?”
I looked at Tina who winked at me and took half a step forward. “He fell and I couldn’t get him up at first,” she lied.
“Oh, well, are you ok?” the younger one asked.
“I think so,” I said, brushing sand off me and trying not to puke.
I hadn’t been hit hard when I was knocked over. I’d probably been bum rushed as the guy tried to run between Tina and I to grab
her purse. Instead of going to plan, I’d stumbled and fell and Tina had unleashed her Kung-Fu. Actually, I think it’s Krav Maga, but I don’t ask because it would go back to why she needs self-defense classes and a protection dog. Some things are still too raw to say out loud.
“Ok, we can call you a cab if you like,” one of the girls said, shaking her phone and making the light cut off.
“I think we’ll be ok,” Tina said. “Thanks for checking on us.”
I waved at the ladies who were returning to the party and looked over at Tina. There was just enough moonlight for me to see her clearly.
“Why?” I asked her.
“I don’t want to spend all night with the cops and potentially not get on the ship on time. It leaves bright and squirrelly!”
“You know, you kicked that guy’s ass pretty good,” I told her. “I’m totally impressed.”
“Better than the day you jumped over my counter and Superman punched a bad guy?”
“That was damned impressive, I don’t care who you are,” I told her. “But the kid was right, maybe we need a cab. I’m pretty wasted, and I should have seen that coming.”
“I’ve been drinking cranberry and spritzers all night and I didn’t see it coming. Besides, I think they ran off toward the road.”
“The beach it is,” I said.
“The beach,” she agreed, hooking her arm through mine.
“So will you beat up anybody else who tries to hurt me when I’m drunk?” I asked her.
“Just give me a target, asses will be kicked.”
“Good,” I told her. “I’m drinking a couple bottles of water when we get back. I don’t think I ate enough, and those three and a half drinks shouldn’t have looped me like that—
15
Tina
Rick was almost a zombie by the time they walked back to their room. Annette took one look at him and moved off the couch so Tina could get him to sit down.
Opus Adventure Page 8
