Authors: K.K. Allen
“I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” Johnny
scoots closer to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I just meant that
he’s crazy to not be here with you—to know you. He’s missing out on
knowing you. You’re pretty amazing Katrina Summer.” He says this last part with
a smile and a nudge into my side.
And just like that, Johnny’s words lift
me to a higher, happier place.
“His actions are his own,” he continues.
“I hope you never take blame for them. Sometimes people make really stupid choices.”
As he says this I wonder where he draws
this wisdom. His parents seem to have been perfect. His apology is enough for
me though. I allow myself to relax in his arms; the arms that were built to
protect me.
It’s bliss as we stare out into the Gulf.
With Johnny, I’m safe.
I turn up to stare at his strong and
cleanly shaven jaw. Without thought, I press my lips to the soft spot of skin
right below his jaw. I feel his jaw tense and I smile, knowing I’ve succeeded in
surprising him. I kiss his neck and he adjusts himself so he’s looking down at
me now.
“Careful,” he laughs and greets my mouth
with his. His hand lands on the small of my waist. His fingers brush my skin
just enough to cause a tingling through my body.
A honk of a horn separates us. We look
out into the horizon and see the passengers of another boat, waving in the
distance.
“Do you know them?” I ask him.
He shakes his head and waves back. “Nope.
They’re just being friendly. Probably trying to break us up before we get out
of hand. Come on.”
For some reason Johnny and the word
snorkel just sounds funny and I let out a little giggle. He rolls his eyes at
me but keeps moving toward the bow of the boat where he retrieves his anchors
effortlessly.
We cruise north up the Gulf for a while
before Johnny pulls over about 200 feet from land. He digs in a box down at the
front of the boat where he finds flippers for each of us and a breathing mask.
I frown at him. “Whose snorkel am I
putting my mouth on anyway?”
He smirks. “Yours. No one has used that
before.”
“You just happened to have this laying
around.” I raise my eyebrows at him, making him laugh.
“I bought those for you.”
I point at the flippers that fit my feet
perfectly. “How did you know what size flipper I wore?”
He shrugs. “I pay attention.”
Yes he does. I pull the mask around my
head and waddle my way to the back of the boat and jump almost immediately. I
pop up out of the water and Johnny smiles. “Follow me.” And just like that he
dives back down into the water just enough so his breathing tube is raised
above the water.
We swim in closer to the shore. The Gulf
floor beneath us becomes more shallow and the life below is much easier to see.
A stingray passes me and I move to avoid it. I don’t know what would happen if
it touched me but I don’t want to find out. Johnny laughs at me from underwater
and I shake my head at him, grinning.
He reaches for my hand and I take it. He
points at a few sea turtles swimming together and I’m reminded of when I had my
mermaid tail on with Arabella. What would she think of me now? She practically
drooled when she laid eyes on Johnny for the first time. I giggle internally.
Wait until she finds out who I’ve been holding hands with all day.
Just then a large round mammal floats
toward us, in no hurry at all. His body is gray in color but he’s got green
spots all over him—algae. A manatee, I recognize excitedly. Johnny
reaches a hand out and rubs the back of the creature as he passes and I do the
same. Then another comes by us and soon we’re surrounded by manatees of all
shapes and sizes.
Johnny raises his head up and I follow so
we’re now above water. “Manatees love this sanctuary because the water is
always around seventy-two degrees.” He looks around and my eyes follow. There
are manatees all around us. Most of them have their backs close to the surface
and are just floating there, resting.
We swim for quite some time, zigzagging
around the manatee formations for a while before Johnny finally points out that
the sky is dimming in color. I frown. No. This day has gone way too fast. I’m
not ready for it to end.
He smirks at me, obviously catching my
expression and tugs at my hand. “Let’s get back on the boat. We’ll head back in
close to town and I’ll make us dinner before we go home.”
Dinner. All of this swimming and kissing
has me completely famished.
We ride back into town and a permanent
smile is glued to my face. Happy doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel
at this moment. I hold onto Johnny’s waist as we cruise through the water at
high speeds. The sky has dimmed considerably and I glance at the time. Seven
o’clock. Surely, Rose and Charlotte won’t miss me for dinner.
I insist on helping Johnny in the
kitchen, but I’ve never cooked a thing in my life. He hands me a wad of
lettuce, a bag of tomatoes, and some other ingredients and tells me to make a
salad. Now this I can do.
I start chopping and slicing and dicing
until a gorgeously colorful bowl of salad awaits our hungry bellies.
Johnny has got a pot of boiling water on
the stove and a bag of fresh pasta by the side of the stove. I watch him as he
carefully places the noodles into the slightly oiled and salted water,
meanwhile stirring the red tomato sauce mixture.
“Where did you learn to cook?” Everything
about him amazes me.
“What happened to your parents? I hope
it’s okay that I ask…” I sigh, praying that I haven’t completely offended him.
“It’s just that we keep talking about them…”
He turns to me from his counter and
shrugs. “I’ve never talked about it before.”
The look on his face tortures me. I want
to wrap my arms around him, to comfort him, and to tell him everything will be
okay, but he doesn’t need that from me. Johnny is strong and he’s dealt with
his pain—I think.
“It was a week before my sixteenth
birthday and we were playing this ridiculous game on the back of the
boat—a game we always played in the dark where we hide and then scare the
person that got near us first. I think we would get delirious being on the boat
for extended periods of time and had completely lost it at that point.” Johnny
smiles as he says this. “But that night—I don’t know where they came
from—but there was this fishing boat that was suddenly next to us. So
close to us that I didn’t see them until our boats collided into each other. Everything
happened so fast. I’ll spare you the details, but my parents were stabbed and died
that night. The men didn’t come after me but I tried to fight them anyway. I
wanted to kill them, but once my parents were dead it seemed like they got what
they wanted and took off, but not before they did this—”
Johnny reaches for his shirt and I
already know what he’s going to show me. I’m frozen with shock and horror at
the story that’s unfolding. I can’t imagine my mother’s death happening in
front of my very eyes.
I step toward him to look at what he’s
allowing me to look at for the first time. His scar, a permanent reminder of
what he’s been through—of what he witnessed. The scar has a pinkish-white
tone and sinks just below the rest of his skin. Tears well up in the back of my
eyes but I fight them as hard as I can. This wasn’t my fight—but I want
to kill whoever did this too.
“Hey,” he says gently. “Don’t worry about
me, but now you know—so let’s try to get back to where we were shall we?”
I don’t know how he’s smiling after that
story but I suppose he’s already been dealing with it for two years.
He stands over me and places a hand on my
shoulders and leads me backwards. His body is positioned so close to me that I
have to press my back against the counter for support. With a swipe of his
hands, my hair falls behind my shoulders and his hands gently massage my neck.
I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of his strong hands on my bare skin.
“Alec is a moron.” Johnny snorts. It’s
the first time he’s acted his age since I’ve met him. It makes me smile.
“Maybe you’re the moron for liking me.” I
can’t believe the words escaped my mouth but I can’t take them back.
Johnny smirks. “Who says I like you?”
I look up at him with my own smirk on my
face. “You’re giving me a shoulder rub, while you make me dinner on your yacht,
and
you bought me snorkel gear.
Oh—and you can’t seem to keep your hands off me.”
He laughs and pulls his hands away
quickly. “Fine. Hands off for the rest of the night.”
I moan through my own laughter. “No, come
back!”
“No way.” He chuckles and ducks out of my
hand’s reach.
“Fine,” I throw up my hands. “I’m going
to the bathroom anyway.”
Johnny points down the stairs and I flip
on the light switch as I walk down. I haven’t been given a tour but that’s
probably a good thing. I assume Johnny’s bedroom is straight down the hall and
I don’t want him getting any ideas.
The bathroom is to my right so I duck
into the tiny space. Before washing my hands I look for the soap, but it’s
nowhere I can see, so I pull open the glass cabinet and smile. There it is. I
pull it down and when I do a plastic container falls out with it with a thwack.
I pick it up, an odd feeling striking my chest. A buzzing starts in my head and
I know it’s my senses on high alert—but why?