21. Rhodes
TWENTY-ONE
Rhodes
Deferred Maintenance: Everything a building needs and does not get is still owed. The bill does not go away while it waits. It only grows.
The rental guy has six scooters lined up in front of the little office by the gate. Banksie is standing beside one like he's giving it real thought.
"No," Granger says.
Banksie doesn't turn around. "Nobody asked you."
"I'm saving all of us the trouble of scraping your body off the pavement."
"I'm seventy-one, not dead."
"Those aren't the only two options."
Tallulah laughs next to me, and I look before I can stop myself. Her sunglasses are on now. Her hair is knotted at the back of her head. She's got the same canvas bag from breakfast slung across her body. She looks the same as she did yesterday, yet different in a way that is only noticeable to me.
"Grandbank." She steps in between the two of them. "I'm begging you to rent one. I want to watch Daddy have an aneurysm before lunch. I believe in you."
"Traitor," Granger says.
"We've got one life, Daddy."
"See?" Banksie points at her. "At least one of mine respects me."
"She only wants to watch you wreck," Granger says.
"Daddy!" She smacks his arm. "Never say that again."
The rental guy watches all of it with the flat patience of a man who has probably seen this a hundred times with multi-generational family outings. He doesn't even raise an eyebrow that they are joking about an old man driving, and likely wrecking, a scooter.
I put my hands in my pockets.
This is what today needs to look like. We've got Banksie threatening to break his neck, Granger talking him down, and Tallulah in the middle making it worse. Me, one more body in the group.
Nobody saw her leave my room this morning and nobody's looking at us like anything's changed.
Banksie gives it up, finally, and takes one of the little rental cars with Granger. I'm not sure what finally changed his mind, but I think it's best for everyone involved.
Tallulah leans toward me. "He would've been terrifying."
"Then why'd you egg him on? You're wicked."
"Because I believe in living life, not living in fear."
She watches the two of them fold into a silver Fiat built for people half their size, and I watch her do it. For a second, I forget I'm supposed to be looking anywhere else.
"We should give them a head start," she says.
"Or go first and stay way ahead."
That earns me a smile. I look back at the counter before I do something stupid like try for another one.
"We'll take one, please," I tell the attendant.
He reaches for the car keys.
"The scooter," Tallulah says.
I look at her.
She pushes the sunglasses up onto her head. "What?"
"You want to share a scooter?"
"Yes. Why? You got a problem sharing with me, dirt bike boy?"
"None whatsoever. I just thought we were doing a two-seater, too."
"And miss out on riding a Vespa along the Italian coast? That's quintessential Italy, right? Hell no. We're getting a scooter, and you're driving."
The rental guy's eyes go back and forth between us. I take a deep breath and raise my hands. "We’ll take a Vespa, please."
I take the helmets he holds out before Tallulah can rewrite any more history.
"You've got your license?" I ask.
"I'm riding behind you. I already conceded it's safer."
"So you're admitting I'm the better driver."
She pulls the helmet on and works the strap under her chin. "Don't push it."
I turn back to the key and the paperwork, because watching her fingers on that buckle has no business being this interesting. There were supposed to be fewer of these thoughts today. Getting her out of my system was the whole point.
Granger taps the horn as he pulls out and waves through the open window. Banksie already has a finger on the dash, correcting something Granger's decided to ignore.
Tallulah laughs through the helmet. "They're going to kill each other before they get there."
"Your family survived generations. They'll make ten miles in a Fiat."
"That's optimistic."
I roll the scooter off the curb and get on. Tallulah climbs on behind me without making a thing of it. Her thighs close around my hips, and I'm not half as good as she is at pretending it's nothing.
Her hands settle at my sides, light, more for show than anything. I glance back. "You're going to have to actually hold on."
"I am holding on."
"You've got two fingers on my shirt."
"I see what you're doing."
I start the engine. "Suit yourself."
The first turn out of the property is sharp enough that she folds before we reach the bottom of it. Both arms slide around my waist and lock. Everything in my stomach pulls tight under her forearms.
We catch Granger and Banksie at the next intersection, where Granger's already off the GPS. Banksie's halfway across the console, pointing through the windshield. I pull alongside. Tallulah lifts a hand to wave.
Granger rolls the window down.
"You're going the wrong way," I tell him.
"My father says it's faster," he yells over the diesel engine. "I don't know how he knows, but I'm done arguing with him."
Banksie leans across. "He figured out I was right."
The light changes and they're gone. I follow behind them. Tallulah's chest presses into my back, and I feel more than hear her laughing.
The road drops toward the coast, through little pockets of stacked houses and back out over open water. Laundry is strung between the balconies overhead while lemon trees crowd the stone walls. Every few miles the sea shows up between the buildings, so bright it looks turned all the way up.
Tallulah keeps one arm around me and points with the other every time she wants me to see something. She points to a church wedged into the cliff, then a dog riding in a bike basket. I point out a fishing boat coming into a little harbor with gulls screaming behind it.
Every time she leans up to talk, her mouth lands right at my ear. I catch about half of it. The rest gets lost somewhere between her chest against my back and the memory of what that mouth feels like on mine.
I keep my eyes on the road and decide I've earned some kind of fucking medal for it.
Granger pulls into an overlook ten minutes on, and we follow in behind them. Banksie's out of the car before the engine quits, already complaining that Granger drives like he's got a crate of eggs in his lap. He mutters something about calling a car back to the villas.
Tallulah swings off and pulls her helmet loose. Her hair's a wreck, and the only thing I can think of is that I want my hands in it. I take the helmet she holds out instead.
"Thanks."
"Yep."
Her eyes hold mine half a second past safe. Then Banksie calls her from the wall over the water, and she goes.
Just like that she's a Maybank again, crossing to stand at her grandfather's side while he points down at a fishing village tucked into the bend of the coast.
I stay by the scooter and hang both helmets off the bars. She looks back at me once from beside Banksie, and tips her head at the view, indicating for me to get over there without saying a word.
After Granger and Banksie finally cool off, we head back to the resort. It was an uneventfully normal touristy thing to do, the four of us. And it was amazing.
The table's set for more than we've got. Somebody counted wrong, or nobody wanted to pull the extra chairs, so there are two empty seats down at the end where Cain and Greer sat last night, and the little booster where Sisue kept flinging bread.
Libba drops into a chair and looks at all the room. "It's quiet."
"It's not quiet," Banksie says. "You people just got smaller."
"Cain and Greer flew to Greece this morning," Granger says. "Keller left before any of us were up. Coop's in Spain chasing women, I suppose."
"Dad!" Tallulah says.
"So it's quieter, then," Libba says. "How about that?"
Reeves lifts his glass an inch. "To the ones who didn't bail."
"To Coop's tiny Spanish barnacles," I say, and Granger laughs into his wine.
Across the table, Tallulah dips a piece of bread in olive oil and passes the dark green bottle down without looking at me. "At least nobody's ordering the whole fish tonight."
"Don't," I tell her.
"I'm only saying. Some people can't be trusted around a fish."
"That fish had it coming."
Libba's head turns between us. "What fish?"
"Nothing," we say, close enough to together that I worry it might register as something akin to a couple finishing each other's sentences.
I reach for bread I don't want and tear it and keep my face easy. This is supposed to be the easy part, both families at one table, something we've done a hundred times.
Under the table, her foot finds my ankle. It stays there, sliding slowly along my boot.
I don't look at her. I take a sip of the wine I've barely touched and set the glass back in the ring it left.
Wade has Reeves going about two Italian guys who nearly threw hands at the trailhead this morning, and the table laughs, and I laugh half a beat late because I haven't heard a word since her foot found me.
Her toes press once into the inside of my ankle. I'm holding my piece of bread like it's the only thing keeping me in the chair.
Libba's looking at us. Her eyes go to Tallulah, then to me, then back, like she's checking her math.
"Banksie." I get in before she finishes the sum. "Tell us about the time you drove your daddy's truck into the pluff mud on a bet. That's still my favorite."
Banksie lights up. "Now that's a story."
Libba lets it drop, but she files it somewhere behind her eyes and reaches for her water.
Banksie's off, and we've all heard it a dozen times, and we lean in anyway.
Under the table, her foot slides back to her own side as she leans in to add her piece, grinning.
Down the table, Reeves catches my eye and tips his head toward the terrace steps. I follow him down. The party stays up top where the light is. The stone shelf at the bottom has a rail and nothing past it but black water.
He leans on the rail. Ice clicks when he turns the glass.
"You're loose tonight," he says.
"I'm always loose."
"No." He keeps his eyes on the water. "Not like this."
I set my forearms on the cold stone and don't say anything. Neither does he. Reeves can stand in quiet longer than anyone I know, in no hurry.
"Haven't seen you like this in years," he says. "Something's gotten into you."
"Good wine, better company." I shrug. "I like having all of us in one place. Doesn't happen much anymore. Not since Lizzy, and Dad before that."
Above us, the music shifts and somebody laughs. I realize it’s Libba. It's always Libba with her big personality and endless supply of light fun.
Reeves turns the glass again and the ice slides.
"Family's a strange thing," he says. "You spend your whole life sure it's the one thing you'd never touch. Then you find out what you'll do to keep it. What you're willing to do for the ones who are yours."
Funny words for this family. Hearing him say this, my mind immediately goes to Vin. We found the line and didn't cross it, leaving the man who ordered the hit on our father breathing, and called it worse than torture. I'm the only one who still thinks we called it wrong.
I keep it to myself and drink what’s left in my glass.
"You good?" I say.
He drains the glass, ice knocking his teeth. "I've never been better. I've got a beautiful woman who loves me in Italy, a boy and his baby sister asleep in Mississippi with his grandparents, waiting for his mom and dad to come home. What else is there?"
His hand lands on my shoulder, and he pushes off the rail. Whatever Charli put back in him since they fixed it, it's still strange to see on Reeves. He goes up the steps into the light and the noise and leaves me at the rail a minute longer while I finish my wine.
I head back up to hit the john. The passage between the wings runs dark and narrow, the party gone to a hum behind the walls.
She's ahead of me in the dark. When she hears me behind her and turns her head, we both stop.
Her hair's down now, one hand still damp from the sink where she pushed it off her face. The sconce at the far end barely reaches us, enough to see her face and the fact that she isn't moving on.
Neither of us reaches for a reason.
"You following me, Stone?"
"I guess I just got lucky."
"Yes, you did."
My hand's already cupped behind her head. Hers is already knotted in my shirt, hauling me the last foot till my back hits the wall and she comes with it. The stone's warm from the day. She's warmer.
Her mouth opens under mine, and I get the sparkling water with lime off her tongue, and every last thing I sat on across that table comes off the leash at once.
I slide a hand down her back and pull her in. She makes a sound into my mouth that makes my dick twitch. We go fast and quiet, both of us half-listening past it, one ear on the corner where a footstep could turn up any second and end this in a way we don't walk back from.
Her nails dig in through my shirt, and my thumb finds the strip of bare skin above her waistband. She shivers against me, and it's all I can do not to groan.
I slide my hand farther under her shirt just before the voices swell at the end of the alley, and light spills around the corner. Tallulah is off me before I get a full breath.
She backs toward the noise, dragging her thumb beneath her bottom lip, then smooths her shirt like she has been standing back here doing absolutely nothing.
"You've got a little..." She taps her mouth.
I swipe the back of my hand across mine, and her grin flashes in the dark.
"Got it."
Then she's around the corner and back in the middle of our crew before I can pull her in again.
I look down at the faint pink smear on my hand. Jesus Christ. My dick is still hard enough to make walking back into that party a problem.
I stay against the stone and listen to everybody thirty feet away laughing, wondering how they would react if they knew what we were doing in the shadowed alleys while the party goes on.
I give myself another few seconds before I push off the wall and head toward the restroom.
I don't hate a single fucking thing about my life tonight.