Chapter 20 Dancing in the Moonlight #2
Being slapped by a six-foot grizzly bear would’ve hurt less than Marín letting me know I’m like a sister to him. My schoolgirl smile immediately transforms into a grin like a horse showing its teeth, and then I press my lips together, trying to look carefree.
“Why does your face look like an asshole?” Loren screams, dying laughing. “I’ve seen dog’s asses that are cuter!”
I can’t even answer him. I’m having a stroke. Siblings? I’ve touched his penis!
Blanca appears out of nowhere and grabs my arm, yanking me away from Marín. “Baaabe! Come here. I have a question about menstrual cups.”
I follow her with my lips stuck together and wrinkled, pretty much like an asshole.
“What’s going on with your face?” she whispers, trying to contain her laughter.
“He said…we’re already basically like siblings. Like siblings. Like sib-lings,” I mutter through clenched teeth.
“Oh, God…” She glances back, where Marín and Gus have paired up.
“Do you think you’ll go to hell, Gus?” I hear him say.
“To hell? Let’s see, let’s see. Assuming I believe in hell, why would I be going there?”
“Because you’re so slutty,” Loren yells. “And because you take four hours to come. You make the rest of the men on earth look bad, so that condemns you to eternal flames.”
I hear Gus give some foul retort, and I want to step in and tell him to stop being such a show-off, but I’m still in shock.
“Are you listening to me?” Blanca says, speeding up and steering me past everyone else.
“No. I was listening to my ex say that having the cock he has is a mortal sin.”
“Well, listen to me because this is serious: That comment…sounds weird to say the least.”
“I know. It’s not even that big. It’s got some girth, that’s true, but you wouldn’t exactly be saying: ‘OMG, the Italian Stallion’s descendant just showed up to pound me.’”
“Coco,” she pleads. “We’re not going to get anywhere if you keep deflecting. Marín told you that you’re practically siblings.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t beat a dead horse, please.”
“Look, you’re an idiot… You sound like you were born yesterday! When a guy says that after you grabbed his dick, it’s because he’s trying to check.”
“Got it. You’re still destroying my dreams, by the way, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Read between the lines, Coco. You’re so good at interpreting symbolic paintings, this should be easy. If he needs to check it’s because…it’s not clear to him!” she exclaims quietly.
I pull away from her a little and start to smile. “You’re nuts, you know that?”
“Trust me. I’m a lawyer.”
“And what does that have to do with the price of fish?”
“Well, there’s definitely something fishy here. Lawyers are twisted, but we don’t usually get stuff wrong, believe me. The thing this morning put him in the danger zone. He’s insecure. This guy”—she glances back—“he’s been touching his foreskin thinking about you.”
A cackle bursts out of our mouths, and we squeeze our linked arms.
“God… Good thing I told you,” I say. “I needed that.”
“Loren wasn’t doing that?”
“Loren?”
“Yeah, stupid question. I can already hear him: ‘Coco’”—she puts on a serious voice to imitate him—“‘forget it right now or you’ll be responsible for everything bad that happens in the universe for the next five hundred years.’”
“What’s with all the giggling?”
Loren and Aroa have caught up, and he grins at us. He knows we’re making fun of him and that it’s out of love.
“We were saying that you’re always so understanding and no matter what happens you’re on love’s side.”
“Love is so cringe. You’ll understand some day. I’m trying to do you a favor, but you can’t make a horse drink.”
Love is cringe—it’s probably true—but only when you’re not one of the people involved.
* * *
I can’t see us from the outside—mostly because it’s physically impossible for me to do so unless I can figure out astral travel—but I think we’re pretty close to being a summer beer ad.
We take a dip in a beautiful sea. It’s clear, turquoise, and rough (the Mediterranean isn’t always flat), and we goof around in the usual splashes and attempts at chicken fights.
Gus ends up moaning because Aroa won thanks to the superhuman strength from the fairies she’s descended from, but he gets all mixed up and says he was defeated by the elven power of her ancestors.
“You can’t do it like that!” he says, grabbing his shoulder and explaining that it smashed into the sand on the bottom. “Like I was Captain America!”
The silliness takes hold of all of us, and soon we’re all running around the sand, wrestling each other while we scream things like “with the power of Hitman” or “I’m Wonder Woman.
” Without a drop of alcohol, by the way.
Forget spinning classes, Zumba, and the Chicago Marathon.
We’re panting, sweating, dunking each other, launching each other into the water, playing chicken fights.
The only one who always comes out victorious is Marín because he’s too tall for us to be able to tackle him and he always ends up charging me like a bull, hoisting me onto his shoulder, and then chucking me far out into the water.
In the fraction of a second it takes for me to land in the sea, I say I love him a hundred times.
Sunset finds us sitting on the sand, our towels buried under the dunes we’ve been creating with all our frolicking. We’re all lined up shoulder to shoulder. Blanca is to my right; Marín’s to my left. Next to him, Loren grabs my bun and yanks me backward.
“This. This is the life,” I murmur.
Marín looks at me out of the corner of his eye, and I flop backward and laughingly poke Loren so he’ll leave me alone.
“This… Coco.” I look back at Marín, and his eyes, fuck… His eyes are so clear, tinged with the orange of the receding day, the creeping night. I would dive in headfirst. To his mouth, to life, even to the ocean.
“This?” I ask because this silence, while we’re both staring at each other, makes me uncomfortable when there’s an audience.
“This and all of you. That’s the life.”
When he puts his hand on mine, on the sand, I have to work hard to rein in my emotions. So you’re saying…there’s a chance?
Maybe. And maybe this group can, finally, put down all the weights we’re carrying.