Playboy Pilot(11)

“Maria says she’s seeing a baby…and it has two heads.”

Kendall’s head whipped toward me. “What?”

I struggled to understand Maria’s ramblings, which were a bit fragmented.

“There’s a curse that’s been put on you, one that you may not be able to rid yourself of without her help. She says there is something going on involving a baby and that the baby or you could be in dire danger if the curse isn’t removed. I don’t understand what she’s talking about with the two heads.”

I had to say, as much as I loved Maria, this shit she pulled always creeped me the fuck out. One night as I was getting ready to leave for the airport, she cornered me and told me that there was a dead girl on the other side who was coming through and wanted to speak with me. I freaked out so badly thinking it was Lucy that I almost never came back here again. Thankfully, Maria never brought it up after that day.

I decided to play around a bit to deter Kendall from getting too weirded out. “She said in order to remove the curse, you have to kiss me.”

“Are you serious?”

My expression gave me away, and she rolled her eyes.

I listened more closely to Maria. “Okay…I think I’ve been translating wrong. She doesn’t see a baby with two heads. She sees a baby, but the head of the baby is actually a coin with two sides, heads and tails. Does that make sense to you?”

Kendall turned pale. Either Maria was freaking her out, or something about this crazy shit was actually resonating with her.

I continued translating. “This represents a decision having to do with money that may also involve a child in the future.”

Kendall placed her head in her hands. This was upsetting her. I needed to get her the fuck out of here.

I turned to Maria. “Vamos à praia. Podemos terminar mais tarde?”

“Come on. It’s getting dark. I just told her we’re heading to the beach.”

She’d been quiet most of the short walk down the steep hill that led to the water. I needed to get her to open up to me a little or at least get her to relax.

Playfully pulling on her ponytail, I asked, “Are you alright?”

She forced a smile. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“That shit Maria was saying…did it make any sense to you?”

To my surprise, she nodded yes. “Somewhat.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No. I really don’t. I just want to try to have some fun while we’re here.”

“Fair enough.”

The sun was starting to set. It was getting too late to really enjoy the beach. When we’d arrived close to the shore, the people around us started clapping.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re not clapping for us.” I chuckled. “There’s a tradition here, that when the sun slips below the horizon, everyone stops, stands and claps.

“That’s pretty cool.”

“It would be nice if people appreciated life and nature more often like this, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes.” She grinned. “Definitely.” She looked around in amazement, and I truly loved watching her face as she took everything in for the first time.

A familiar site at the opposite corner of the beach caught my eye. “Come on. I know exactly what we’re gonna do.”

A small sign on a stick buried in the sand read, Samba na Agua.

“What is this?”

“They do samba lessons on the beach at sunset here. They take tips, but it’s free. I happened to be walking by one night and got roped into a dance by some old lady once. You wanna try it?”

Kendall’s smile lit up her face. “Sure.” What little sun was left seemed to shine into her aquamarine eyes. Seeing her smile like that made me realize just how naturally beautiful she really was and how damn good it felt bringing her joy. I couldn’t quite figure out why making her happy was so important to me, considering I barely knew her. But there was a gnawing voice inside of me that seemed to whisper, “Pay attention. This girl is important.” I couldn’t explain it and sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Maria to investigate.

The samba lessons didn’t turn out exactly as I’d hoped. I was thinking I’d get to use it as an excuse to make physical contact with Kendall, but they’d assigned her to dance with an old man instructor. That gave me no choice but to dance with his female counterpart. Probably made sense, since neither Kendall nor I knew what we were doing. Still, I enjoyed watching her trip over her feet as she laughed and looked over at me doing the same

Quick. Quick. Slow.

Quick. Quick. Slow.

Even across the sand from each other, we were connecting somehow in that experience. A thrill shot through me as I realized I was going to get to sleep next to her again tonight. Then, I quickly mentally slapped myself in the head for getting excited over a girl I might never see again after this trip…and whom I’d vowed not to touch.