11. Rico #2
The hotel itself is shaped like a hollow square, with the middle courtyard covered by glass ceiling panels, so the rain doesn’t disrupt pool activities.
I thought of everything.
Snow keeps her head up, lips forming an o as I show her everything; the few empty rooms we had, the activities board and adjacent rooms, my different cousins and locals who work, as they rush past us.
Our hands keep brushing as we stroll. It would be nothing to slip my fingers through hers, but I don’t. In fact, I shift over, so they stop.
It’s bad enough that something like nervous pride begins to build, the more I show her.
Nan and I spent two years building the hotel after Fredo died.
We mapped out everything while I was here, then when I had to go back in the field, she made sure our vision came to life.
Everything, from the Kallista sink fixtures in each bathroom, to the Statuario marble floors in the front lobby were researched and picked carefully.
I wanted something that would last, scream luxury, and make this spot a premiere resort that can keep my family eating long after I'm gone.
I was impressed when I first saw everything. Now, though, I’m looking with fresh eyes, and I find myself scanning Snow’s face, making sure she sees everything, too.
Years ago, we were planning a future together, like kids do when they’re in love.
What the fuck were we gonna do after we graduated school?
I’d confided in Snow that Fredo and I were thinking of going to the Marines, and she supported me.
Even if it meant we’d be separated. She believed in anything that made me more than the shit I was into.
“So, what do you think?” I ask as I key in the code to the door that separates the hotel from the main courtyard connecting my family’s villas. Nan and her cousins had been sending back to Belize for decades. There are compounds further south, too, in Placencia, Dagringa, and even one in San Pedro.
When Snow doesn’t respond right away, I open the door and glance over my shoulder.
Once again, she’s already staring at me, with that same look.
We stand there in the doorway. On the outside, we probably look stupid as hell.
But I need to know what she thinks.
I tell her as much when I buck my eyes at her, regretting it immediately when my stitches pull.
Snow’s lips quirk at my hiss and she shakes her head as she goes through the door ahead of me.
She speaks up more as cousins pass by and introduce themselves. A few of them are fans, and I have to take their phones and regulate so they don’t take any pictures of her. Miele tries to take her away, but I shut it down, compromising with her on letting Snow visit her later this week.
I know she’s most excited about having another woman around her age here. She’s obsessed with female rappers, and has been begging to spend time with Snow ever since Reno told her she was here.
But she’s not going anywhere until she answers my questions.
I answer hers to give her a hint. As the day goes on, and we walk the entirety of what my family owns, I talk more than I have my entire life.
I leave no stone unturned, droning on like a fucking tour guide.
We cover my Nan’s cousins, then their children, and finally, my third cousins who I’m closest to.
How Reno is head of my security, and I even get a snort when I dodge revealing NiNi’s real name.
I still can’t decipher the look in her eyes.
By the time we separate to wash up for dinner, the sun is going down, and my fists won’t stop clenching.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I give a fuck if Snow is proud of me or not?
I know if any of my bros would come, they’d be impressed. Nutty would damn near wanna build his own shit here.
You can always ask her straight up.
I cut my eyes to Fredo as I throw on some sweats and a white tee. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”
Fredo chuckles, before sitting up straight on the edge of my bed. “Yeah; a pussy nigga.”
My upper lip curls as I face him fully. “Yo ass talk so reckless to be pushing up daisies.”
Fredo’s smile just broadens. “Rather be dead than a pussy. Snow’s opinion carries weight. Yet, you treat her like shit. Why you give a fuck whether or not she thinks you’re successful?”
“We treat each other like shit, Fred,” I counter, but it’s weak, and we both know it.
“Never took you for the type of nigga who let the lady set the tone. Like I said… pussy.” He shrugs, and it takes everything in me not to square up with this nigga.
The air is stifling in the dining room. It’s just me, Nan, Snow, and Mars, and no one so much as sighs because of my attitude. I know it’s because of me, but I can’t get myself out of it, and I’m all talked out.
Not for the first time, I wish everyone could just read my mind.
But that would be too easy.
So instead, I excuse myself early, and try not to think about the breath of relief everyone probably takes in my absence.
My muscles ache with each step I take, but I’d rather have that than the restlessness from before.
I told myself I wouldn’t leave the gym until I felt better, and that’s what I did.
It took five hours, but it worked.
My mind is mush. After a long shower, sleep awaits me. Maybe I’ll even let Snow sleep in–
A sound stops me in my tracks. Well, I stumble, but I catch my footing immediately.
Just as another sniffle filters out of Snow’s closed bedroom.
I pull out my phone as I continue to my room, accessing the cameras in her new bedroom.
A couple of clicks, and I have the perfect view of Snow curled up. The journal I gave her a few weeks back is open next to her, some words scrawled on the pages.
When I turn on the audio, her soft cries pull my brows together.
The shower forgotten, I sit on my bed and listen for any reasons why she could be crying right now.
But she doesn’t speak, not for any of the twenty minutes I watch the feed. She just cries softly, sniffling every once in a while, before her breathing levels out and the whimpers turn into snores.
I’ve resisted the urge to read her journal. I told myself I’d wait until it was full. But that was before now. What could she have written that has her crying herself to sleep?
Is she fiending? The whole reason I stuck her with ibogaine was so she wouldn’t have to keep going through withdrawals. One of the side effects was depression, but that was only with long term usage.
One dosage seems to have permanently curved Snow’s cravings for drugs.
She’s not a heavy sleeper, but before, I know I could have slipped into her room and stolen her journal.
Now, I’m not so sure.
Something shifted once she was placed in my care. Something pushing and pulling, the more she’s around. I thought I could handle it, but I was not ready when I told Haze I’d help her.
My fingertips brush my eye patch. My cousin’s colleague in San Pedro said I have weeks before we can really assess any damage, though the rest will give my eye time to heal, so it’s a waiting game either way.
It doesn’t stop the headache from forming on that side of my head.
A text from Miele comes through, and I exit out of the camera feeds to go to our thread. Most of it is her asking me for something, but usually, she’s asleep by now.
Miele
She seemed sad today. You should take her on the boat tomorrow. That always cheers me up.
My eyes narrow as I reread her text. Did Miele come into dinner after I left? Something about this nags at me, but when I switch back to the camera feed, Snow is back awake, back crying.
A day on the boat seems like a good idea.
I comb my bottle lip as I mentally run through everything I have to do tomorrow.
Admittedly, nothing that can’t wait until the next day.
I switch back to my inbox and tell Miele to get Snow ready in the morning, before I turn my phone on DND and sigh.
If anything, I can kill her out at sea and pretend she went overboard.