Eclipsed Sunshine

by D W Marshall

I ignore his comment. “Any exciting plans today?” I ask.

  “More exciting than spending time with you?”

  I roll my eyes at him, but smile. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were throwing your hat into the ring, sir?”

  Niko shrugs. “Whatever could you mean?”

  “I’m a prodigy, remember, loads of smarts up here.” I point to my head. “You think you stand a chance?” I tease.

  “I do,” he says.

  “What about this?” I hold up my ring finger with Thomas’ ring on it.

  The waitress brings our coffees and sets the mugs in front of us. I quickly add two sugars to mine and take a sip. It is rich and creamy, just the way I like it. I look up at Niko and give him a satisfied smile. I guess he’d forgotten all about my fiancé.

  “Looks heavy.”

  That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say. “Funny, sometimes it is difficult to lift my arm,” I tease. But there is more truth to my words. It does feel heavy with uncertainty and the lies I tell myself.

  We sip our coffee in silence, staring out at the sea. Niko has stunned the words right out of me. He is the one person I can’t lie to. He knows my truth, my shame, and he sits across the table from me with a genuine smile.

  He knows what Thomas asked of me. He even knows what I endured in The Chamber, at least to some extent, and yet he is here offering me his friendship. Still, he is a stranger and Thomas is, well, he’s not. Sure, recently he has shown me a side of him that I didn’t know existed, but I also know that any one of us would surprise even ourselves with doing unimaginable things if backed into dark enough corner.

  Thomas is a proud man that has lost everything. I can see it was desperation that drove him to his actions, and I have to believe in my heart that he otherwise would never have placed me in the middle of this craziness. Which means if I can get him to see reason, he may change his mind and we can put this behind us.

  “Can we talk about last night?” Niko breaks into my thoughts.

  “What about it?” I ask, looking into his eyes.

  “The nightmare.”

  I stare into his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He sits back in his chair. “As your new friend, I think you need to talk to somebody. It doesn’t have to be me. But since you quit therapy—” He looks down and then up at me again, letting the words hang. “—which I think was a bad idea, you have to get that shit out. It isn’t healthy. Do you talk to Thomas about what happened?”

  I shake my head. He’d probably take notes for his business. “Can’t I just pretend it never happened?”

  It’s his turn to shake his head. He leans forward on the table and takes one of my hands. “Are you still scared?”

  He is so heading down a path I don’t want any parts of. I don’t miss therapy one bit. Talking about what happened to me is excruciating. Sure, the dreams are horrible, but talking about it is the equivalent of getting a full body wax. And that doesn’t even include the judgy looks, or the question on everyone’s mind: why didn’t you try and escape? “Yes.”

  “And we both know you’re having bad dreams.”

  I nod.

  “Then it’s consuming you, which means you’re not doing a good job at pretending or forgetting, Whitney.” He pauses and watches me. “At least think about going back into therapy.”

  My eyes mist with tears. I look into Niko’s eyes and his expression makes the tears fall. He is really worried about me. He gets up from his seat and moves his chair closer to mine. He opens his arms out to me, and I fall into them without hesitation.

  “I promise if you face this shit, you can get through it. I’m hear if you want to talk about anything. Ever. Okay?”

  I nod my head against his muscular chest. He doesn’t attempt to move until I do.

  “Thank you,” I say, softly breaking contact with him and blotting my eyes with a napkin. If I didn’t know any better I’d think he was a therapist. He talks like one, one who swears. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  I don’t need to clarify. He knows exactly what I mean. Part of me wonders if he is being so nice because he feels sorry for me. My phone pings with an alert, interrupting our moment. When I turn it on I see a text from Thomas, not asking, but telling me that he’s picking me up for dinner this week. Strange I get nothing from the message, no butterflies in my stomach or excitement over the idea of seeing him.

  “What’s wrong?” Niko asks.

  “Nothing. Just a text from your competition,” I tease. “You know, the one who put the ring on my finger.”

  “You don’t look very happy about that.”

  I sit back in my seat. “I know. I just. He wants me to pencil him in for dinner this week.” I shrug. It’s difficult to explain. “He hasn’t brought anything up about his business, but still, it’s like this giant silent elephant in the room when we’re together. Like I’m waiting for him to bring it up, while secretly hoping he never does.”

  “Have you figured out how to change his mind?”

  “Nope,” I sigh.

  “So, tell him you have plans,” Niko says with a sly smile.

  “He’s my fiancé; I can’t turn him down.” I smile at Niko, but it’s brittle.

  I know Niko means well. I know he wants me to be this strong woman, but I don’t think I can be the woman he wants me to be, and I definitely can’t be the woman Thomas wants me to be. I don’t even know who I want me to be. The old me was carefree and fun loving, smart but never cocky about it. The old me loved laughing until I nearly peed myself, and planning for the future. This me can barely plan for the next day.

  “I’d better get going, Niko. Thanks for the coffee and the chat. You’re really a good listener.”

  Niko tosses money onto the table and follows me out. We walk toward my car in silence.

  “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your tattoo,” I say and point toward his forearm. He has a drawing of a person fishing, but instead of a large body of water, it’s a fish tank, with a gold fish on the line.

  “This old thing.” He looks down at his arm.

  “A joke of sorts.”

  I look at him and nod. “Okay.”

  His response is a light laugh that causes butterflies to crowd my stomach.

  He opens my car door when we reach it, and I give him a hug before I get in. I don’t even think about it, I just do it. My head rests on his chest, and if things were different in my life, if I wasn’t already engaged to someone, Niko would definitely the type of guy I would fall for.

  “Hey, don’t hesitate to call me for any reason.”

  “You too,” I say, and his smile grows.

  Niko waves when I pull out of the parking space. On the way home, my brain starts putting the two men into categories. Thomas’ good qualities: smart, handsome, ambitious, somewhat romantic. His bad qualities: his ambition and his desire to use me to make money.

  Then there’s Niko, who seriously came out of nowhere. He’s smart, handsome, caring, and very romantic. I’m sure he has negatives, but he hasn’t shown them to me yet.

  Why couldn’t I have met Niko first?

  Chapter 16

  Niko

  Whitney is a stunning woman, and it kills me that she is so broken that she doesn’t even know it. Women that look like her and have accomplished as much as she has usually possess a confidence to match, but a lot of hers was stolen from her. But I believe she is strong enough to reclaim it. I believe she is strong enough to do anything she sets her mind to.

  When I look into her eyes I can see the pain she tries to hide from everyone—even herself. She doesn’t even know how brave she is, and I hope I’m around when she realizes it.

  I am so fortunate. I get to see her in a way that no one else does. Not her parents, not her friends, and certainly not Thomas. I get to see her truth. It’s the gift she keeps hidden from her loved ones so they don’
t worry. After everything she’s been through, her thoughts are for their wellbeing and not her own. She doesn’t see her strength the way that I do, yet.

  Once Whitney is no longer in sight, I turn to my truck, stopping to reach into my pocket and answer my phone. “Andres,” I say into my phone.

  “It’s Sam,” my partner says on the other end. “You sounded stressed on your message. You’re never stressed; what gives?”

  “I broke protocol, and I need your help.”

  Sam gives me the expected reaction when she bursts into laughter. All I can do is wait for her to shut the hell up so that I can speak. This shit must be really funny because she is still going strong when I hop into my truck.

  “You done, or are you done?”

  She stops abruptly. “You’re serious?”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Which regulation? You never break protocol, Niko. What happened? What’d you do, go out there and get sun poisoning in the tropics? Need some London fog?”

  I slam my truck door and squeeze my eyes shut. She is right. I never break the rules. “Number two.” I admit and wait for the shit storm she will most likely rain down on me, payback for the shit I’ve given her over the span of our partnership.

  “Seriously? You got involved with a perp? Wait, isn’t the perp a dude?”

  “No, not the perp, Sam. His fiancé. And we’re not involved, but I like her—too much. I need your help because I don’t think I can be objective where she is concerned. I mean, I want to save her more than I want to bring the perp down.”

  There is silence on the phone that I want to break but don’t. I have no idea what Sam is doing, but I know we still have a connection because I can hear her shuffling around.

  “Just booked my flight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Sam,” I say and hang up the phone.

  Okay, maybe now I can get back on track. Sam will know what to do. I know she’ll give me some shit, but not too much because I have bailed her out too many times. I live by the rules, always have. But not Sam; she uses them as more of a guide—a very loose guide.

  “There she is,” I say aloud to myself and wrap Sam in a huge bear hug. “My hero,” I tease.

  “Okay, okay, hero here. Get off me, you big oaf,” she says. She pushes me away, always uncomfortable with affection of any type.

  I let go and take in my partner. I was so excited for her to come and bail me out of this shit that I didn’t even see all that she had going on—the long blond hair, nearly to her waist; so much makeup; a short fitted candy pink dress; and sky-high pink heels.

  I burst out into laughter.

  “What? This job requires a hooker. I don’t look the bloody part?”

  I keep laughing and pull at her blonde hair.

  “Sure. All you need is chewing gum, and you’ll be the prototypical hooker.” I shake my head at Sam; she doesn’t do shit halfway, that’s for sure. “Come on.” I grab her bags and toss them into the backseat of my truck and climb into the driver’s seat.

  “What?” she says, slamming her door closed. She knows I hate it when she slams the door. I give her what she wants and cut my eyes at her.

  “This working girl has a job to do.”

  I continue laughing as I pull into traffic.

  “Too much?”

  “Yes, a bit.”

  “Huh. I’ll tell you what’s too much, this bloody sun. How can you even open your eyes all the way?” she whines as she squints.

  “Seven months of sunglasses,” I say, “but, damn that get up. Less is more around here. You look like some big city call girl. Your vibe is more reality television when it should be low-key, island time.”

  “So, what you’re saying is?”

  “Dial it back, way back.”

  We continue down the highway toward her hotel.

  “I was wondering why everyone on the plane was staring. I wanted to shout, haven’t you guys ever seen a hooker before.”

  All I can do is smile and shake my head at my partner. “How you ever survived doing undercover is beyond me.”

  “Ha. I’m amazing at this shit cause I’m real.”

  “Whatever. I checked you into a hotel. As far as your origin goes, you’re my cousin from America.”

  She smiles. “I do a great American accent. Can I be from California?” she asks, sounding like she just flew in from SoCal. “I guess I can lose these itchy things. “She begins unclipping blonde hair pieces until she has a pile in her lap. Then she reaches into her purse and goes to work wiping the makeup from her face. When she’s done, she exhales as if the whole charade was a heavy chore.

  “Hey, there’s my partner,” I tease.

  “Ha, ha, ha.” She does the ugly face that goes so well with her sarcastic laugh, while she twists her shoulder length blonde hair into a pile on top of her head. Thomas doesn’t stand a chance.

  She slaps her hands together, throws her feet on my dash and reclines her seat. “What’s the plan?”

  She really is real. This is her all the time, relaxed and comfortable in her own skin. She once told me that she came to be an international crime task force agent when her sister was killed by her boyfriend. He was such a sociopath, no one suspected him for nearly a year before he slipped up. She has been on a mission ever since.

  She and I came up with the term, SF, “little fish or small fish” together. It drives other agents crazy. But we don’t care.

  My story is a little different. I was a runt for the longest time. In middle school, I looked like I could be in elementary school, and during my freshman year, I could have been a sixth grader. Bullies took advantage of my size. I was an easy target. It became a sport for them, but I was determined to overcome my situation. I asked my folks to put me in a self-defense course, and they did. I began taking jujitsu, Krav Maga, and wrestling. By the end of 10th grade, I was no longer their target. Come to find out, I was a late bloomer. I was five-eight by the end of 10th grade, and when I returned to school in 11th grade, I was five-eleven.

  I had a new mission, because as bullies often do, mine found a new target. My job was to protect the smaller kids from the same fate. Bullies usually fly under the radar—they never seem to get caught doing their shit. I developed a watch group that kept an eye on bullies. Most of the members in the group were from my wrestling team and my girlfriend who was cheerleader captain. The school still has the watch group to this day. The principal even started a program to help bullies, too, because some of them were lashing out because of problems at home. I’ve gone back and spoken about cyber bullying and helped them develop a watch team for that as well. The administration does annual incentives and bullying is at an all-time low.

  When this case is over, I plan to work more in schools, developing similar bully-free programs. But for now, I have to deal with this tiny bottom feeder I have on my hook.

  “The plan: I’m going to introduce you to Thomas at the gym tomorrow, and you can work your magic. Please tell me you didn’t just bring Barbie clothes.”

  She sticks her tongue out at me. “I brought normal clothes too, you wanker.”

  I wipe my forehead in exaggerated relief.

  “Now tell me all about this island girl that has you all twisted up.”

  I fill her in on everything that has happened so far, including the biggest concern I have as I escort her to her room. I want to know if she believes Whitney will forgive me when she finds out who I really am.

  After entering the room, Sam goes straight to the window and yanks the curtains back revealing her ocean view.

  “Smashing view isn’t it? I think I’m getting sun sick already. You’d have to go crazy with this much bloody sun day in and day out.”

  I shrug. “You get used to it.”

  We chat about tomorrow, and I tell her what she should wear as I head for the door. Before I walk through it, I turn to her and say, “Sam, thank you so much for coming.”

  She smirks. “Are you kidding? You do
n’t break the rules. I knew you needed me pretty bad. She’s a lucky girl. I hope she gets a chance to see that.”

  All I can do is look down. “And what about the lie?”

  “I mean. You can’t help the circumstances in which you and she met. It’ll work out in the end, you’ll see.”

  “You’re probably right. See you tomorrow.”

  It feels strange being the rule breaker for once in this partnership, but in my defense, I never saw Whitney coming.

  Chapter 17

  Niko

  Thomas is warming up when I enter the training session. Now that I know the stakes, I regret training him. In the last seven months, he has become faster and stronger, which is an undesirable combination for Whitney. But he and I started this journey before I knew what he was capable of. Bad business deals are one thing, prostitution is another.

  “Hey, man,” he says when I drop my bag.

  I nod instead of speak.

  “You good?” he asks.

  “Me? Yeah. Just up late. My cousin, Sam, came in from California late last night and couldn’t sleep, so that meant I had to stay up and entertain. Hey, you don’t mind if my cousin watches or works out with us? I can charge you the group rate instead of private.”

  “It’s all good,” Thomas says. “Besides, it’ll give me someone else’s ass to kick for a change,” he says.

  This arrogant fucker. “Ha. I mean you do know, I’ve been taking it easy on you, right?”

  Thomas laughs. “Whatever you say.”

  This doesn’t even need a reply. “I thought we’d focus on some injury prevention while we wait for Sam.”

  Thomas climbs through the ropes and joins me on a mat. We begin with a series of stretches.

  “Did I miss the workout?” Sam’s familiar voice rings through the air.

  I hop up from the floor. “You made it,” I say and give her a hug. “Sam, this is Thomas; Thomas, my cousin, Sam.”

  Thomas looks back and forth between us in disbelief. “This is your cousin? I thought she was a guy. Sam’s a guy’s name.”