CHAPTER NINE
Alana
“You’ve lost your fucking mind, woman,” Luz swore at me over the phone.
I was sitting on the balcony of the hotel room, watching the waves roll in. “You’ve been saying that for ten days now.”
“And I’m going to keep saying it until you come back home.”
“Do you miss me?”
She sighed. “I just saw you last night.”
“Yeah, exactly,” I told her. In the distance, over the wavering blue line of the Pacific I saw a parasailer gliding down toward the boat. Everything was so bright and glittery and carefree in this part of town. I couldn’t get enough of it. Staying with Derrin seriously made me consider selling my apartment and buying a place on the shore. Unfortunately, my apartment was owned and paid for by Javier and I was pretty sure I couldn’t do anything without asking him for permission. Sometimes I hated that he treated me more like a delinquent kid than his sister but I guess it was better than nothing.
“You saw me last night,” I repeated to Luz, smearing coconut and lime scented sunscreen on my arms. Though the cast was now off my wrist, I had a bandage in place and I was determined not to get any crazy tan lines. “You saw that I was fine. Better than fine. Great.”
“That’s only because of all the sex.”
“You’d be great too if you were getting laid by a solider.”
“Shut up,” she told me. “I’m still allowed to worry about you. And I still don’t trust him.”
I sighed. “I know you don’t.” I didn’t blame Luz. Ever since I told her that I was temporarily moving in with Derrin, she was the one who was acting like they’d lost their mind. She told me all the things I already knew myself – I didn’t know him, we’d only just met, I was still vulnerable, etc. But the thing was, I trusted Derrin. I don’t know why I did but I did. He promised to protect me and I believed him. And then later, when I saw his guns, I believed him even more. He had all the skills he picked up in the war, and affinity and passion for firearms, and the courage and determination unlike anyone I’d met. If anyone was going to get me through this, it would be him.
But the funny thing was, there was nothing to get through. As the days passed and the two of us settled into a routine of drinking, food and sex (rinse and repeat), as our bond grew stronger and my bones healed, there was nobody out there coming to get me.
We were cautious too. Derrin was always watching, like he was born to have this role. But no one approached us. No one was following us. No one was waiting.
Some days I went down to the pool and had daiquiris, other days I went to the beach, all while Derrin stayed on the balcony and watched me. I was right out there in the open, just ripe for the taking. And though the experience had been a bit nerve-wracking, time and time again the only people who bugged me were the hustlers selling their cheap trinkets on the beach. Damn, they were annoying. I would have thought they’d leave their fellow Mexicans alone but they still seemed to think I needed god-awful cornrows weaved into my head.
A few nights a week I met up with Luz. Sometimes Dominga. Because Dominga worked for a sister chain, she had a few friends working at our hotel and she told me they were keeping an eye on me too. It was sweet of her and I knew they were both so nervous. But as time ticked on, I was becoming more and more convinced that no one was after me. It was an accident. It was vigilante justice. No one was coming for me.
Sometimes I almost wished they’d try.
Meanwhile, when I wasn’t pondering my potential death, I was falling deeper and deeper for this steely-eyed man with a heart of gold.
It was wrong. I knew it was. I didn’t fall for men. I never fell in love. It’s not that I didn’t want it but it was never anything I pursued.
But I was falling for Derrin. I wasn’t quite there yet but I was well on my way. That feeling that borders on obsession, where your thoughts and body and heart crave him like water. You’re in a blissful, warm haze when he’s there and suffering in a dark hollow when he’s not. It was made even worse because I knew he was leaving. He wasn’t Mexican. He didn’t have a job here or a life. He was a visitor on these shores. There’s something so incredibly romantic and dramatic about that, the whole affair with a timeline, the impending goodbyes and heartache.
Thankfully I didn’t dwell on it too much. I wanted to enjoy the present. The past was brutal and the future was unclear but the present was brilliant. The present was in the shape of a strong, sexy man.
“I still think you should move back,” Luz told me, bringing my focus off the ocean. “You’re well on your way to recovery now. I say, move back to your place and get a cat for company.”