***
I expected the lake to be pretty, but nothing I could have imagined comes close to what I see when my eyes first take in the stunningly picturesque scenery right before me. Nico brings me a cup of coffee as I stare out the wall of glass where the darkness hindered my vision the night before, and wraps his thick arms around my middle as he stands behind me. “Beautiful right?”
“It’s stunning. It doesn’t even look real. It’s all too perfect.” I truly am in awe. It’s not that I don’t stop to appreciate nature, but the times that I do have become few and far between the last few years as I’ve thrown myself into my work and the city.
“I’m glad you like it.” Nico squeezes me a little closer as he speaks.
“How could anyone not like it?” The trees are in bloom and the entire perimeter of the crystal clear sparkling lake is lined with tall purple and orange wildflowers. I wonder for a moment if they were planted, but then I think better of it and realize that nothing man-made could possibly be that beautiful.
Nico sighs, it’s a sound of contentment. Happiness. I know because I feel the exact same way. “Do you come up here often?”
“I used to.”
“Why did you stop?” Nico doesn’t respond right away and it makes me think there is a story, something difficult that made him stop.
“I started coming here when I was fifteen. Preach used to bring me up to fish the lake. Sometimes my brothers would come, once in a while even my mom when she could get a full day off, which was rare.”
I turn myself in Nico’s arms…sensing the part of the story that made him stop coming was near. I look up at him and he continues with my full attention. “We had a good many parties up here after I won fights.” His face is smiling as he recalls some of the good times. “Preach won’t allow electricity, so my brothers and I used to fill the back of a pickup truck with coolers.” He chuckles at the thought. “We could get a dozen coolers filled with beer in the back of a short cab.”
I smile watching him, he has such nice family memories. Families coming together to celebrate their success around a lake filled with love and laughter. Something I longed for most of my younger years.
“So why did you stop coming?”
Nico’s face drops and I almost wish I didn’t ask, but I want to know everything about this man. What makes him happy or sad, smile or frown…all of it, the good and the bad. It’s all part of what makes the man before me.
“Preach brought me up here after I tore apart my gym last year. After the fight.” He doesn’t need to explain which fight, it’s just the fight. “It was ugly. I couldn’t sleep without nightmares without the meds and I spent days trying to outrun the memories. It sucked. But Preach wouldn’t leave me, no matter how many times I threatened his life and pushed him around.”
I wait for him to continue, but nothing more comes. “And you haven’t been back since?”
Nico shakes his head.
“So what made you bring me up here?”
He looks down at me and smiles. “I love this place. Some of my best memories are here.” He kisses me chastely on the lips before continuing. “I’ve wanted to come back, chase away the haunted memories with new ones. Ones that will make me forget the bad ones.”
God, the man is beautiful. And not just on the outside…on the inside too…and he doesn’t even have to try. It’s just who he is. Underneath 220 pounds of tattooed hard muscle that screams trouble is the most sensitive and beautiful soul I’ve ever met. For the first time since I was eight years old I feel like the luckiest girl on the planet.
***
The island in the center of the large lake is small, maybe the size of a house. But it’s beautiful, with pristine sand, a small patch of grass, and a few simple weeping trees that look like they’ve been plucked off of a postcard that reads “Hello from Paradise.” Sitting in the center of the lake emphasizes the enormity of its size... it’s more than one hundred acres in size. Nico tells me that Preach saved for almost twenty years to buy the property and the lake. His father had owned a small piece of land and he’d loved the area since he was a kid. The reasons why are obvious.
“Let’s go for a swim.” Nico suggests.
“I don’t have my bathing suit on.” For a second I answer as if he might not realize I’m not wearing one. But then I see his smile. The dirty one that shows his deep creviced dimples and I’m sure he’s had many women drop their panties without further effort.
“Don’t need one.”