Chapter 8 #2
Especially tonight, when my defenses are completely… a) Down? b) Scrambled? c) Deranged? d) All of the above?
“How are you still this drunk after spending the night locked inside a cell?” he asks.
“I’m exhausted, Jasper. I didn’t sleep at all because I had to babysit a bunch of grown men until sunrise. And I haven’t eaten all day,” I explain. Could’ve stopped there.
But no, my traitor gremlin keeps going, “Also, the Australians in speedos had a gallon of tequila.”
To my surprise, he laughs.
Not sarcastically. Not impatiently.
He just throws his head back and laughs, shaking it as he judges me, but, for the first time, it doesn’t feel like he’s laughing at me.
Feels like he’s laughing with me.
“You judged me so hard yesterday when all I did was get the groomsmen drunk.”
“This is completely different!” I snap. Is it? I’m not sure. “My situation was harmless. An innocent mistake. You guys? You were about to burn the whole house down.”
“Well, I’m paying for the house, so you should’ve been excited imagining how screwed I’d be if that happened…”
He keeps talking, but I stop listening. At this point, my eyes are wide and my jaw is on the floor.
“You what?”
“It was my wedding gift,” he says. Then squints, confused. “You didn’t know?”
“You’re paying for a ten-bedroom oceanfront mansion in Cancún?” I shriek.
My shock answers the question: No. I had no idea!
I bought them curtains. CURTAINS.
I would’ve sold my kidney to get something better if I’d known.
“Mila didn’t tell me” I complain. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Maybe she didn’t want you to feel bad.”
“Which is something you don’t mind doing.”
“Not only do I not mind. It actually brings me a shit ton of joy,” he says, poetically.
Of course it does, you heartless pig.
I roll my eyes, of course, but for now I decide to just keep walking. My feet are throbbing, there’s this shooting pain shooting up my legs with every step and I’m already unsteady from exhaustion; I cannot deal with him on top of that.
We turn the corner and walk to the end of the block, and thank God, I finally see the sand and the wooden boardwalk lit by the faint yellow lamps leading to the beach.
I dart toward it as fast as my forming blisters allow and exhale in pure bliss when I free my feet from the shoes.
Jasper stays in his, his fancy leather soles echoing against the wood. But once we step off the boardwalk and onto the actual sand, he doesn’t have much choice but to take his shoes off too.
And here we are.
Just me and Jasper Hassmann, holding our shoes, nothing but darkness above us and the horizon stretching endlessly ahead.
My vision starts adjusting to the shadows as we walk along the wide stretch of sand, so now I can recognize the shapes of boats, lifeguard stands, rows of closed umbrellas and folded lounge chairs shifting colors as we enter a different resort’s territory.
The stars glimmer in the sky. The cool sea breeze brushes my skin as softly as the waves kissing the shore. The whole world feels calmer in the dark. Almost peaceful.
But then a gust flaps a canvas behind us, so, driven entirely by fear – and tequila – I grab Jasper’s arm and press myself against him, defying every basic law of physics that says two bodies can’t be in the same place at once.
He gets stiff beside me, like he’s about to be mauled by a bear instead of, well, instead of being touched by a tipsy woman seeking protection.
“What the hell are you doing?” he growls.
I drop his arm immediately.
“Sorry. Reflex.” Then I glare at him. “You made it sound like walking on the beach was insanely dangerous, so now all I can think is: if someone tries to dismember me today, they’ll have to dismember us both.”
“Dismember? I was worried about us getting robbed, for God’s sake! This is Cancún, not Sinaloa.”
“Where’s Sinaloa?” I ask hopefully.
“The Mexican state with the most dangerous drug cartel in the world.”
“Are those the guys you work for?” I ask, full of hope.
Thinking if he works for criminals, he’d be the last person they’d want to kill.
“You think I work for a drug cartel?”
“Well, what’s the equivalent to the Sinaloa cartel where you come from?” I ask, being knowingly overdramatic. Everyone knows most of his clients are white-collar, tax-evading Wall Street finance bros.
“Tony Soprano,” he answers instantly, reminding me this is real life, Not HBO, and that there are way more important subjects to be talking about at this point, and he wastes no time getting to them, “So what was that today? Some threesome gone wrong?”
I choke. Mostly because the question surprises me, not because the idea is totally absurd. I kind of thought the same thing.
“Excuse me?”
“I saw He-Man at the station with his hands on some tall brunette’s butt when I got there.”
I squint, confused. I’m drunk, but I clearly remember calling Jasper after Brock and Paloma were released by his fancy lawyer.
“You saw them?”
“Yeah. They were waiting for a limo because the guy refused to leave in anything else,” Jasper explains. Then pauses, thinks, and adds, “Makes sense. You can’t have sex in the backseat of a normal car when you’re that size. Especially if a threesome was on the table at some point.”
“There was no threesome at any point. I was working.”
He shoots me a sideways look, eyes glinting with wicked amusement.
“Working?”
I want to explain that I needed to multitask and invited Brock to the wine cellar so I could do the interview and tasting at the same time, but Jasper doesn’t deserve the explanation.
So I give him the simplified version, “Brock Magnus The Destroyer is an excellent drinker with superhuman talent for getting other people drunk… things got out of hand.”
The smirk widens. He’s silent, but I know what his smile means. Pure provocation.
“Don’t give me that look!”
“I’m not giving you any look.”
“Yes, you are! You’re giving me that superiority look you always give when I get drunk and do something stupid.”
“That’s not fair,” Jasper protests, genuinely offended. “I love when you get drunk and do stupid things. Makes my life feel way less pathetic.”
Son of a bitch.
“When you grab a shitty karaoke microphone and start with your ‘Keep bleeding, keep-keep bleeding love,’ I feel like the most successful man alive.”
My jaw drops.
Not because of the insult. But because… The tone. The delivery. The way the words actually sounded right.
Jasper Hassmann can sing!
I immediately want to hear it again, but he would rather die than indulge me, so I settle for asking, “You can sing?”
He shrugs like it’s nothing.
“Why have I never heard you sing?”
“Why would you? I’m not a singer.”
My voice is the auditory equivalent of a dying raccoon, but he actually has a good voice? Typical. Typical of this idiot to waste an incredible gift just because he can’t monetize it.
“So? You don’t need to be a professional to enjoy singing. Or playing a sport. Or dancing. Why don’t you sing?”
“Because it reminds me of my mom before she died.”
His voice is soft and suddenly heavy, so my heart plummets in instant regret.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t–”
Then I stop. Think. Realize.
Goddamn it!
By now I don’t even know who I hate most: him or myself! I know I had too much do drink, but c’mon, how the hell did I fall for his shit once again?
“Why do you keep doing that?”
Jasper keeps acting like he hadn’t done anything. Zero emotion on Mr. Robot’s face.
“Why do you keep believing it? That’s the real question.”
“Because you’re a world-class liar.”
“Of course. That’s why I have a Stanford law degree.”
I roll my eyes so hard I almost sprain something. If I had a dollar for every time Jasper mentioned that damn diploma, I’d be in Brock Magnus’s limo drinking Champagne right now.
“Stop killing your mother, Jasper!”
“Hey, she had it coming. She spent my whole life saying, ‘You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone!’ or ‘I won’t be around forever, you know!’”
I laugh. My mom says the same things.
“‘You don’t even know how to fry an egg! What will you do when I die tomorrow?’” I mimic my mom’s voice saying that.
“‘One day I won’t be here anymore, then you’ll finally appreciate me!’” he dramatizes.
So now we’re both laughing. He laughs, not his usual annoyed huff, but a real, relaxed laugh, and I have no idea what to do with myself.
For ten years, everything I learned regarding Jasper was about sharpening my comebacks for our arguments. I have no protocol for this.
I’m not sure what to do when he’s acting like a human being.
My laughter fades first. His fades with it. The only sounds left are the waves and our footsteps on the sand.
Nothing else exists here, just the faint lights of boats on the Caribbean Sea, the glow of resort pools behind us, the moonlit shoreline stretching endlessly ahead, dotted with lifeguard huts and thatched roofs.
Jasper exhales, hands in his pockets, cool, distracted, eyes scanning the darkness.
No, the walk is not sobering me up.
At all.
The feeling is exactly the same one I had when I was jugging shots with the Australians: confused, euphoric, and completely inebriated.
Because, I’m here, analyzing this son of a bitch under the moonlight and he has never looked so handsome.