22. mission maui #2
The nickname hits my ears like nails on a chalkboard. It’s not that I expect her to call him Othello, but hearing Ozzy from her mouth feels intimate. Like a secret only he and she share. Like she’s marking her territory or letting me know that she had him first.
“Why do you call him that?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light and casual.
Carina looks at me, her eyes flashing with a sharp, knowing amusement.
"Honestly? I can't even remember,” she says after a long pause. “It started during a rainy weekend in Paris when we were stuck in our hotel room. It just fit the moment we were in.”
“When did you realize you were falling for him?” I ask, taking a sip of the drink she’d given me to calm my nerves.
She pauses. “Which him?”
I blink. Taken aback. Then I clear my throat before I say, “Gavin.”
“So, like, you want to know, did I start falling for Gavin while I was with Ozzy?”
I match her piercing stare. “I wasn’t going to put it so bluntly, but yes.”
“You mean to tell me you don’t know the story behind the three of us?”
“Not really. No. And even if I did, I want to hear it in your words.”
“Hmph,” she says, reversing the cross of her legs. “Ozzy always ceases to amaze me. For him to be a writer, he isn’t a man of many words.”
Carina downs the rest of the drink in her glass and fixes herself another drink while I still nurse my first.
“Is this all this Ozzy stuff going in the article?” she asks.
“Off record,” I assure her.
“Just a curious ex-girlfriend wanting to know about your boyfriend’s past?” she questions.
I don’t give an answer. She chuckles, sinking back in her seat with a fresh drink and calculating where she wants to begin.
“Gavin and I were friends before we became lovers. I was never checking for him. I was in love with Othello. But the three of us were always together, because Othello and Gavin were super close. It was like they were attached at the hip. So of course, it was only natural that I got to know Gavin. And, eventually everything with him kinda just…snuck up on me. I never thought it was possible to love two men at the same time. But there I was in this love triangle with two cousins.”
Carina swirls her cup around before she sips from it.
“And the thing about falling for Gavin is that once it started, I couldn't slow it down. One day, he and I were laughing at something. I don't even remember what, but it just hit me. I love this man. It was like nothing I had ever felt. And I didn’t want to let it go.”
A sudden heaviness hits me. Sorrow for Othello.
He had been blindsided by the two people he trusted most. I want to defend him.
I want to snap at this privileged brat who probably gets everything thrown at her feet for how casually she’s delivering this execution, but the journalist in me demands I keep my composure.
Around us, the club keeps moving to a pulsing bass line as the DJ transitions from a contagious Drake beat to a Beyoncé anthem.
“Did you tell Othello?”
Carina shakes her head. “No, I didn’t. I wanted to. I tried. But he found out in the most horrible way possible.”
I bet.
“How were you able to keep a romance with Othello a secret? You’re filmed everywhere you go.”
“There are ways around the paparazzi. It takes a lot of effort, but it can be done.”
Her saying this brings me back to my sister and how she managed to keep an entire affair hidden from all of us.
“You’re such a vivacious woman. Always the center of attention, magnetic, and completely unapologetic. How do you feel about keeping things private?”
Her expression falls, something unreadable appearing and then disappearing just as fast. A forced smile blooms on her berry-colored lips.
“I think privacy is a luxury someone like me only appreciates once it’s gone. I feel like I’ve been living under a microscope for so long that I’ve learned to just become the life of the party everywhere I go. My mom calls it putting on airs for the camera. It kinda comes with the territory.”
“Do you feel like life has been this way for you because of your parents?” I ask.
“When your parents are who they are, people expect a certain version of you. I just give the people what they want.”
I’m taken aback, and instantly I see Carina in a new light.
The perfect dress, makeup beat to perfection, but a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
The celebration moves around us. The laughter, the music, the merriment, and Carina doesn’t look like the life of the party at all, just someone trying to keep up.
“She did it!” Danielle’s high-pitched squeal can be heard over the music. She’s holding her phone out for us to see. “She did it! She used the men’s restroom.”
Danielle, Lety, Jaylah, and Camila collapse on the sofa around us, laughing so hard and loud that Carina and I can’t help but laugh along with them.
Danielle plays the video over and over, and I can’t lie, it's hilarious. She looks repulsed, and there is even a moment when a guy steps into the restroom and then double-checks the door, assuming he’s entered the wrong bathroom.
Jaylah fans herself. Disgust still etched all over her face. “I need a shower. It smelled like an alley in there.”
Danielle is replaying the video for the third time when I look up and see a familiar group of guys coming up the steps and approaching our VIP section.
“Looks like we came to the right place after all,” Gavin shouts. Carina’s face drops, and if looks could kill, every single one of those men would be on the floor, gagging.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she quips, standing. Her drink is still clutched in her hand.
“The Cove was boring, so we came here.”
Othello, Gavin, and the rest of the men take seats in our section.
Todd immediately starts to fix himself something to drink from the liquor and juice set out on the glowing table.
He gives Carina an accusatory look. “You know, I’m tired of you planning all this boring shit for the fellas, and all the fun for you and your girls. ”
As if Carina’s scowl couldn’t get any deeper, she frowns, and her neck snaps back. “Everything planned this week is a good time. You guys didn’t enjoy the Cove?”
“Hell no!” Vernon chimes in.
Othello takes a seat next to me, squeezing my thigh.
“You having fun?” He asks in my ear.
A fierce, electric heat spikes from between my legs and straight up my spine.
“Yeah,” I answer breathlessly.
His hand doesn’t move. Just stays there, his thumb rubbing against my bare thigh.
“Gavin, do you have a problem with the itinerary?” Carina asks.
Gavin looks like he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“Stand ten toes down, my dude. Let her know,” Todd bursts.
Gavin is sitting next to Carina now, his hand around her shoulders. “I mean, it could use some sprucing up.”
“Well, I only did it because you don’t necessarily have a best man stepping up to do his best man duties.” She cuts her eyes at Othello.
“Listen, man,” James says to Othello, taking a seat on the opposite side of him. “No offense, but I need you to plan something for the guys.”
“Real talk,” Todd adds. “‘Cause what the fuck was that shit we did this morning?”