Love You Always (3 page)

“Some people are just born lucky,” I say.

His smile turns to a somber expression.

“I wish my parents didn’t have to die before their time for Angela and me to have gained it though. In that case, I would consider it far from lucky. I would trade our wealth for my family back.”

Oh God, I just committed another faux pas. What’s the matter with me? And he said ‘parents,’ so they lost their mother too? How awful.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think before I spoke.”

“I know. I didn’t take any offense by it, so don’t worry about it.” He grins again as his light brown eyes gaze into mine.

The way he looks at me with those soulful eyes, seducing me with his ardent gaze, makes me want to jump him and kiss his luscious lips.

My stomach does a few somersaults while we stand here staring at each other. I sense he’s as attracted to me as I am to him. His eyes give away his feelings. Oh, how I love his eyes, they turn my knees to softened butter. I wonder if my eyes do the same and he senses my attraction to him too.

What am I doing? I shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions, or I’m bound to make a fool of myself.

Okay, enough of this mental ravishment and back to reality.

“Are you going to give me the tour of the house?” I ask, breaking our silence.

He smiles as though he was witness to my scandalous thoughts.

“That is the plan, but if you want to unpack first, I can give you the tour when you’re ready.”

“I can unpack later. I’m anxious to tour your gorgeous home.”

“As you wish.”

“Isn’t that what Westley said to Buttercup in the ‘Princess Bride’?” I tease.

“He does.”

“So you admit to seeing that movie?”

He scrunches his forehead, raising his eyebrows at the same time.

“Sure. It’s a great movie. Funny as hell. Besides, my sister wanted to watch it so we rented the DVD from Netflix. I had no choice but to sit through it with her.”

“You’re back peddling. Don’t blame it on your sister.” Oh, this is going to be fun.

“I’m not back peddling. I’m just stating the facts, ma’am.”

“Okay, that’s ‘Dragnet.’ Are you going to keep spouting lines from old movies?”

“Yeah, Baby!”

Oooh, ‘Austin Powers.’ Okay, two can play at this game. I know a few famous movie quotes myself.

“Houston, we have a problem,” I reply.

His face shows excitement—the challenge is on.

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

I bite lightly on my tongue, trying to think up another quote. Aha!

“You can’t handle the truth!” I try to do it like Jack Nicholson, but I fail miserably. I’m not a good actor I’m afraid. Regardless of my shitty acting skills, he seems to be impressed that I can play this game because he’s grinning profusely and I swear there’s a glint in his eye. He’s probably better at this than I am, but I’ll play his game as long as I can.

“You had me at ‘hello.’”

“You saw ‘Jerry McGuire’?” I ask. Another chick flick.

“Yeah, it had some sports stuff, and again, it’s one my sis wanted to watch.” He laughs.

“You watch some old movies.”

“I can say the same about you,” he replies.

“Yeah, we subscribe to Netflix too. I had a mom who watched a lot of movies when we were younger. Most of the quotes, however, I’ve heard through trivia games and such.”

“You play trivia games?”

“Not anymore, but I did when I was younger, at family reunions with our relatives. We haven’t gone to a reunion for about five years though.”

“That’s too bad. Sounded like fun.”

“It was.”

Again, his eyes gaze into mine as we stand in front of each other in silence. I feel like I should say something, but I’m stuck for words.

“Well, we could probably do this longer, but how about I take you on that tour? You ready?” he asks.

“Go ahead, make my day,” I reply with a smile.

“My preciiiiious,” he says and gives me a devilish grin.

~* Marcus - 3 years earlier *~

“Okay, guys, hurry it up, we’re leaving in ten minutes.” I hear my father’s voice on the intercom.

As I pass by Angela’s room on my way downstairs, I hear a “Shit!”

I rap on her door. “You okay, sis?”

“Come in and help me,” she calls out.

I open the door and scan her bedroom, looking for her.

“Where are you?”

“I’m down here.” A hand sticks up from behind the left edge of her bed, waving in the air.

I walk over to where she beckons me, and she’s down on her hands and knees, looking under the bed.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I snagged my bracelet and lost a charm. I need to find it.”

“Angie”—I only use this nickname for her occasionally—“Dad’s ready to go. You best leave the charm and look for it when we get back. Why are you wearing your charm bracelet anyway? It’ll get wet.”

She sits up and looks at me with a frown. At seventeen, she’s already looking like a young woman. Unfortunately, with this charm bracelet, she seems to be acting like a child.

“Marcus, this charm bracelet is special to me, and each charm is precious.” She holds her wrist out to me, and my eyes focus on the shiny jewelry. “Each one of you has given me a charm for either my birthday or Christmas, and it’ll bug me to have any of them lost. It’s my good luck bracelet and since the day I got it on my Sweet Sixteenth birthday, I never take it off.”

“You even bathe with it?”

“Well, no. Of course I’m exaggerating on the ‘never’ part, but you know what I mean.”

I just about want to roll my eyes, but I can see how important this is to her, so I join her, crawling around, looking for the damn charm.

“Where were you when you snagged it?” I ask, getting a better bearing on where it could’ve landed.

“Around this vicinity. It should be here somewhere. It must’ve gone under the bed, because I scoured all the open areas and under the dresser already.”

“Here, move away and let me get my hand under there. My arm is longer, I can get a better reach,” I tell her.

She scoots out of the way, and while on my belly, I reach under her bed to feel around. As I probe the area, my fingers stumble upon several boxes.

“Geez, Angela, what the hell do you have under here?”

“Oh, just stuff.”

I start pulling out the ‘stuff’ so I can get a better feel, without them being in the way.

“Kids, what’s the hold up?” My father’s voice booms over the intercom again.

I give one last exploration over the surface, but I’m not coming up with anything. I sit up and look into my sister’s imploring eyes—she doesn’t want me to give up.

“Angela, Dad’s going to have a cow soon. We gotta go. You’ll have to search for the charm when we return.”

She’s not happy, but she knows I’m right.

“I’ll help you look for it again when we get back. I promise.”

I stand to my feet and hold my hand out to her. She hesitates, knowing that once she gives in, that’ll be it, we’re leaving.

“Angie,” I say with a firm voice. She looks up at me with puppy dog eyes and finally grabs a hold of my hand so I can pull her up off the floor. Without letting go of her, I pull her along.

“C’mon, let’s go.” And we head out the door. My ears can’t help but focus on the tinkling of her charm bracelet as we scamper downstairs.

Girls.

* * *

“It’s such a beautiful day,” my mother comments as we climb aboard the yacht my father bought several years ago to take us out on these family outings.

My father is big on family doing things together, so we’ve been going on these outings as far back as I can remember. We take a short yachting trip twice a month, and a long two-week vacation to some exotic destination twice a year.

When David was a teenager, he’d sometimes protest, since he’d rather be out hanging with his friends, but Angela and I have always enjoyed the outings, and doing things as a family. He doesn’t protest anymore since he’s gotten older, and enjoys it now as much as the rest of us.

Although I’m five years older than my sister, she has always gravitated to me more than she has to David, who’s only two years her senior. We’re all close, we get along well, but there’s something special between Angela and I, or maybe it’s because I’ve been the big brother who protects her that she always comes to me to share happy moments, or to be comforted when she’s sad. I’ve never known her go do David unless I’m not around.

I thought maybe that would change when she grew older, when she’d rather turn to her friends instead of her older brother, but that didn’t happen, our relationship has never changed. I’m happy for that, because it makes me feel good when I can be there for her and know she values my opinions and advice, or just to be a shoulder for her to cry on, or someone to share her excitement with.

With David, he and I have a different kind of relationship. He’s never come to me for advice, nor to share any happy or sad moments. He and I are buddies, but he keeps most of his thoughts and feelings to himself. He’s not as open to talk about personal things the way Angela does. We’ll talk sports, or about college, and mainly stuff like that. And I don’t pry into his personal affairs, he’ll come to me if he needs to, and I’ll be there for him when he does.

My go-to person for advice, or to share my thoughts and feelings with, is my father. He is to me what I am to Angela. Dad’s never made me feel like a disappointment, or failure. On the contrary, encouragement and support is what he gives me—what he gives all of us. I wouldn’t trade my father for any other. He’s influenced me in so many ways that I can honestly say—he’s responsible for making me into the man I am today.

As far as my mother, she’s as fine a woman as they come. I’m sure I’m biased, but I can’t think of anything I don’t like about her. Oh, wait a minute, there is one thing that I have to admit drives me crazy—she’s a Post-it fanatic.

Especially when I was younger, there’d be a Post-it for what time I should be home after a party, a Post-it reminding me to lock the door, one on the microwave to heat up dinner left in the fridge, another for putting down the toilet seat because poor Angela would fall in when she’d get up in the middle of the night to pee. There’s tons of Post-its on the fridge with phone numbers, dates of events, her various lists. You name it, there’s a Post-it for it—the interior of our house looks like a freaking bulletin board. I swear, 3M must make a bundle just off my mother alone. I’ve had to learn to accept that’s just how she is, because we’re not going to change her. Other than her Post-it fetish, my mom is pretty cool.

Like my father, she’s always been there for us. I know she would sacrifice her life to save any of her children. I suppose most mothers would.

My father’s steering the yacht, heading us towards our favorite cove where we anchor for several hours so we can swim, fish, and hang out to enjoy the day. My mother’s somewhere inside the cabin, I’m lounging on the forward sunbathing deck talking with David about sports stuff, and Angela’s next to us, lying on her stomach with her feet up in the air, getting a suntan, and reading some sort of romance novel.

No matter how many times I offer to steer the yacht, my father, as with his barbecue grill, likes to stay in command of the process. He just won’t give up his captain’s hat.

The cove is only two miles out from the coast we sail off from, so it’s not a far trip anyway. If it were many miles out and took several hours, he’d probably let me take over to give himself a break. But for such a short trip, he enjoys his position at the helm.

We should be pretty close to our destination about now. In fact, I can see we’re nearing the bend into the cove, so we’re only about a couple of minutes away.

All of a sudden, I hear strange sounds.

“Do you hear that?” I ask my brother.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound right.”

Before I can even begin to wonder what the hell the noise is, a loud explosion thunders behind me.

What the fuck!

I turn around so fast, I nearly whiplash my neck. In a matter of seconds, fire and smoke ignite the aft of the yacht. My heart thumps wildly as fear and shock surge through me, shooting to my brain as fast as if I’ve had a large dose of wasabi. I look upwards towards the bridge at my father.

“Get the hell off the yacht,” he yells at us and disappears. Oh my God, he’s going to try to save Mom.

Fuck!

The flames are high and spreading fast, while thick black smoke encompasses the air. I can’t believe our beautiful day has turned into a freaking nightmare in an instant.

I turn around to see Angela crying, and David staring at me.

“I’m going to help Dad and Mom,” I tell to my brother. “You and Angela need to jump ship right now!”

David grabs my arm—his grip is strong—and he pulls me back.

“You won’t make it, you need to jump too! We’re close to the cove, we can swim it,” David yells back at me.

My head throbs with fear and panic, but I try to seem calm for the sake of my siblings.

Boom!

There’s another explosion and the cockpit canopy comes down, spewing pieces of burning plastic and vinyl.

Angela screams, and instinctively, I throw my arms around her, shielding her. David does the same as we hold each other, huddling together, encasing our sister like a shell so she’s safe between us.

Small pieces of falling debris land on my skin, searing my flesh, and singeing my hair. It must be the same for David, but like me, he doesn’t make a sound. Our minds and bodies are probably in shock.

The falling debris would’ve been worse for us if we were closer to the cockpit, but since we’re far up the bow, and the light winds are blowing away from us, we don’t get the bulk of it.

This ship is going down in flames fast.

I push Angela towards David as I separate myself from them. He still attempts to shield her, but nothing more showers us at this point.

“Get the fuck off the boat!” I yell to both of them. “And swim to the cove!”

David isn’t moving, and Angela holds on to him as she sobs uncontrollably. What the hell are they waiting for?!

“You can’t save them,” David says, tears streaming down his face.