Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Remy
"Dude, I don't have a good feeling about this." I swallow, and the eggs go down my throat in a congealed lump. "Don't like it at all. Why hasn't she texted back?"
"Maybe she got busy." Nat shrugs.
"No, it's not like her to text half a sentence."
"Maybe she came to her senses and realized that you're still not boyfriend material."
I inhale the rest of my coffee, then take out my wallet. Throwing down a twenty, I shake my head. "I'm going over there. It's only a couple of blocks away. I just don't like it. Makes me feel funny inside."
Nat stands up and grabs her purse. "Glad you're finally all in touch with your intuition. I’ll go with you for moral support."
I raise an eyebrow. "Thanks, I guess."
She rolls her eyes and we leave money on the table, waving goodbye to Joey on the way. During the walk to Mermosa, we're mostly silent. Her heavy boots strike the pavement.
"Are you wearing combat boots with shorts?" I ask, mystified by my sister's complicated clothing choices, since I'm always simply in flip-flops. "Aren't your feet hot?"
She shrugs.
When we come up on the bar's door — newly painted in a midnight blue hue — nothing seems amiss. Maybe she's not here, and she really didn't want to text with me anymore. The thought slays me. I grab the doorknob and open it gently, sticking my head in.
"Leilani?" I call out.
And that's when I see her. She's standing near the bar, her back pressed against it, her face the color of paper. Some guy I don't recognize is sitting on a stool nearby, comfortable as anything, like he owns the place. He turns around with a slow, easy smile when he hears my voice.
"Oh," the guy says, all warmth. "You must be the boyfriend. Come on in. Leilani and I were just catching up. Weren't we, sweetheart?"
Fear and something worse — something I haven't felt in a long time — is etched on her face. Her eyes meet mine.
"Remy," she whispers. "He's not supposed to be here. Get him out."
The guy is big. Tall. Dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt.
He spreads his hands like he's amused by everyone in the room. "I'm afraid Leilani and I have business to discuss. So why don't you and your friend," he glances at Nat, "give us a few minutes?"
"Get out," I say. My voice is low. Don't recognize it.
"I'd love to. As soon as Leilani signs the paperwork I've offered."
He turns back toward her and takes one step closer. Reaches for her wrist. "Sweetheart, why don't you tell your little friend here what we agreed —"
Leilani flinches.
My vision goes hazy and red, and in a millisecond, I'm across the room and pulling the guy back by his shoulder and slamming my fist into his face. At least I think it's his face. I'm so blindly angry that I'm punching him anywhere, everywhere, with all I've got.
Normally, I'm a lover, not a fighter. But right now? I'm a freaking heavyweight MMA champion.
The guy's strong, though. In my rational moments, I'd never pick a fight with someone like that. But this isn't a rational moment. Whoever this guy is, he's going down.
He charges at me and we fall to the cold terrazzo floor, punching and wrestling. Leilani yells and I see her dive across the bar for her phone.
Somehow, I'm on the bottom and the guy hits me square in the nose. I yell. He punches me again in the eye, and a searing pain washes over me. White sparkles dance in my vision. I'm going to kill this jerk, and I grunt, pushing him up. My fist makes contact with his jaw.
"Hey," Nat says sharply. We don't pay attention and continue struggling against each other. The sound of something solid hitting flesh makes a crack echo through the bar. I feel his body press into me, then relax, and I roll away, ready to take him on.
"I said hey!" Nat yells.
"Ow, son of a—" the guy cries, obviously in pain. He struggles to sit up.
I glance over, in shock. My sister Natalia's brandishing a two-by-four in the air like some kind of pink-haired Star Wars extra with a light saber.
It's then that I notice she's shed the cardigan and is in a tattered black tank top and black shorts.
And the black combat boots. Back at the diner, she'd looked like a librarian in her cat-eye glasses.
Now she's like a character from a post-apocalyptic movie.
"Holy crap," I whisper. "Nat?"
The guy, clutching his shoulder, struggles to his feet. He glares at my sister. "You little—"
Her eyes narrow with fury and she circles him, holding the wood in both hands like a bat.
That's when I remember: Nat was a black belt in kendo, the kind of martial art that uses swords and sticks and that kind of thing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Leilani next to the bar, the phone pressed to her ear.
"Mermosa, on Main Street. Yes, please, please hurry," she's saying, voice high and shaking.
There's pure fury in my sister's eyes, something I've never witnessed in all my twenty-nine years.
"Here's how it's going to go," Nat says, her voice icy. "You're going to never set foot in this bar again. You're going to never talk to my friend Leilani again. And you're going to never come to Cypress Grove as long as you live. Got it?"
He doesn't move — well, none of us move, we're too stunned — and Nat takes a half step forward.
"Florida has something called a Stand Your Ground law. You familiar with that?" she says.
The guy sneers but doesn’t respond.
"I'll take your silence as a no. So, I'll explain.
State law says a person is justified in using deadly force if she reasonably believes it's necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm.
I could have hit you square in the head with this two-by-four and possibly even killed you, and I'd have been justified.
So, you should be thanking me that I only hurt your poor little shoulder.
I certainly felt like you were about to cause great bodily harm to one or all of us, didn't you, Leilani? "
"Sure did," she squeaks, still holding the phone. I struggle to my feet so I can put my arms around her. But I also don't want to get too far from Nat, in case she and this guy start brawling.
"What, you don't think I'll hit you because you're a woman?" he yells, lifting his hand from his shoulder, which is visibly drooping.
I step closer to my sister.
"Come at me, coward," Nat snarls.
And that's when the cops bust through the door, guns drawn.
A half-hour later, Brent's been arrested and hauled away, first to a hospital to have his shoulder treated, then to the county jail.
Leilani, Nat, and I are still here, moving around the bar in stunned, stiff silence. Well, Leilani and I are stunned. Nat's saying goodbye to one of the cops. He's an old high school buddy of hers (they'd been in marching band together) and I have a suspicion that he still has a crush on her.
I touch my nose, then squint my good eye for a look. Sticky, dried blood coats my fingers. I sink into a chair.
"Remy," Leilani whispers, and she's next to me, kneeling.
I stroke her long, pretty hair. Lord, I've missed her. "You okay? Did he hurt you?"
She shakes her head and I spot the tears streaking down her cheeks. "No. He didn't touch me. He only threatened me."
"You sure you don't need a doctor?"
Leilani studies my face. "I'm totally fine. But you're going to have a heck of a bruise."
Nat comes over. "Yeah, he is."
We discuss whether to take me to urgent care, and I wave them off. "Geez, sis, I knew you took martial arts, but you handled that piece of wood like you'd been in several back alley rumbles. You didn't even get that angry when Damien and I put cockroaches in your bed when we were kids."
Leilani steps back, staring at me in horror. "You did what?"
"Pfft. Leilani, I'll tell you everything about him one of these days. The twins were little turds. But they're pretty decent now." Nat leans down and kisses the top of my head. "Glad you're okay, Barf Face."
I grin, which makes my entire face light up with pain. "Oh, bringing out the childhood nicknames are we, Turdasaurus?"
Leilani smiles. "Seriously Nat, how did you know what to do with that piece of wood?"
"I took a lot of kendo classes when I pulled overnight shifts at the resort's front desk. They teach you how to use objects as weapons if threatened."
"Well, thank you." Leilani looks past me to Nat. The two embrace, then pull apart.
"Anytime. We're here for you." She looks over at the two-by-four and grins.
"You want to take that with you as a reminder of your badassery?" Leilani asks.
My sister smirks. "Nah. The only reason I used it was because I didn't want Remy to hurt that guy and get mistakenly charged with assault. He doesn't need that in his life."
"No, he doesn't." Leilani turns to me, and I lift a throbbing hand and thread it through hers. I'm stunned into silence, blown away that the women in my life are slightly crazy, incredibly brave, superheroes.
Nat stretches, like she's just woken from slumber.
"I'm gonna head out. Might go have a drink later with Officer Hughes.
And that'll give you two some time for a soul-searching conversation. Unless you think you need to go to the hospital with that nose. In which case, I can drive you. It’s my last offer. "
"Nah," I say.
"I think that cop has a crush on you, Nat," Leilani says while inspecting my face.
"Maybe so," my sister says, pressing the handle on the door and winking at Leilani.
"I'm going to clean Remy up." Leilani jumps to her feet.
I wave her away, every inch of my face smarting. "I'm fine. Don't worry. Just a little flesh wound. Haven't been in a fight since..." My voice trails off.
"Since fifth grade with Eric Anderson," Nat calls out before she opens the door and steps outside.
"Right, since fifth grade," I mumble. It feels like all the adrenaline is seeping out of my pores, and I'm suddenly exhausted.
But all of my thoughts are on Leilani, and how that jerk was treating her. Is she really okay? "Babe? Let me look at you. I need to know you're okay," I call out.
She returns with a plastic first aid kit the size of a small suitcase. I crack a grin. "You planning on opening a field hospital in your spare time?"
"Silly. I'm okay, just shaken. Let me clean you up. Man, that was something with Natalia, right?" She rests the suitcase on the table.
I blow out a breath. "She was like..."
"Some kind of dystopian, mercenary warrior," Leilani finishes my sentence.
"Right? Or I was thinking more like Dirty Harry. If Dirty Harry lived in Florida and had pink hair and knew how to wield a makeshift, wooden weapon."
She smiles and flips open the top of the suitcase. "I'm sorry you had to get involved in that. Had to see that. But. Thank you. Hang on, I think I need more light."
It takes her a few seconds to blast on all the lights in the place, then return to me. Her delicate fingers tear open an alcohol swab, and I rest my hand on her hip. "When you didn't text, I felt like something was wrong. So, I had to come over. If something had happened to you..." My voice cracks.
I look at her, really look at her, in the light. Pale. Shaken. But unharmed. The relief of that hits me harder than any punch I just took.
"I'm so sorry," I murmur. "That you had to be alone with him for even a minute."
"Shh," she says. "We're both okay now."
Her fingers graze my skin as she dabs at my face. I suck in a breath, hiss, and groan. After bloodying a dozen alcohol-soaked pads, she pauses and studies my face.
"Not too bad. That eye's going to be swollen and bruised for a while."
"I don't think anything's broken, so it's all good," I murmur. "Don't worry about me. Come here."
I pull Leilani onto my lap.
"Missed you. So much." I turn my head so I can look at her out of my non-swollen eye.
"I missed you too. I'm sorry for running out on you like that. I got scared."
"No. Don't apologize. You were setting boundaries, like you said. A good thing. That's natural. Of course, you were scared. Are scared. After everything you've been through. And I didn't make it any easier, insisting that we were just friends with benefits. That was stupid."
She sniffles. "I went along with it. I proposed the entire thing."
"I was scared, too. Scared of how I feel about you, because I feel so much.
Somehow, I thought that being in a relationship meant predictability.
That if we went there, you'd force me to be normal and stable, and not spontaneous.
That you'd somehow reduce me to a life of work and long commutes and routine.
And then when you left, I felt ashamed of myself for thinking that. "
She laughs through her tears. "Um, dude? I'm a mermaid. I'm not sure if I'm the poster child for a normal life."
I chuckle and press my lips to the side of her head.
"I realized I'm so much happier when you're around.
And if I'm not happy, then I lose freedom in a different kind of way.
We can be exclusive and boyfriend and girlfriend and all that good stuff, and proceed on our own timetable.
On your timetable. I want you to trust me.
Want you to know I'm there for you, no matter what. "
She hiccups in a breath. "I'd like that. To be with you. And only you. But I might hit some speedbumps. I'm still trying to find balance. Still coming to grips with the fact that my needs matter, and that I have to forgive myself for what happened with Brent. Still trying not to be scared."
"Oh, babe," I sigh, gingerly pulling her into my aching body. "I'm here to help you, however you need. Here for all your speedbumps and your boundaries and your fear. Here for it all."
Leilani lets out a loud sob, and I stroke her back, emotion filling my chest until it feels like I could burst.
"I'm here for you," I whisper in her ear. "No one's ever going to hurt you again."
Least of all, me.