Page 32 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)

SHANA

L EMON HEAD: Omg I said we’re fine. Stop texting for updates, you’re ruining the fifth act of Titus Andronicus, and shit is gettin’ cray.

LEMON HEAD: HE MADE A PIE OF HER KIDS, SHAY. Did you know how dark this shit got? I def skimmed in English class. Did not remember this plot. barfing emoji

Laughter bubbles out of me. Dad does love tragedies, doesn’t he? The bloodier, the better.

SHANA: Thank you for reading to him. It means the most.

LEMON HEAD: No prob, babe. I love this old thespian. He’s grown on me.

She really does love him.

I never imagined, when I found out Lemon Perkins, my childhood best friend’s ex-arch nemesis, took this position as my father’s care tech, that we’d become like sisters.

Or that I’d be lucky enough to have someone who cares for Dad as much as I do. Isn’t it important that he enjoys these last few months?

A tear slips from the corner of my eye and rolls down my cheek, but I wipe it away and smile when my phone buzzes back to life with a pic of Dad and Lemon snuggled in his bed with smoothies and matching sixteenth century bonnets, complete with feather quills and all.

LEMON HEAD: I lied. I’m not reading that big ass script. I borrowed a VHS from the library, filmed in like the 1700s by BBC. Papa Holiday ADORES it btw. Major brownie points received. I’m catching up to you.

Gosh, I love her. There’s no doubt he’s in amazing hands. I sigh a relieved bundle of nerves into the air and turn away from the window. To the large, burly man that makes my insides flutter, crammed in the seat beside me as he drives us over the land bridge.

“Everything okay with your dad?” Dustin asks, slowing as the department of motor vehicles worker flags us to the side lane. “Construction on the dam again? It’s because they keep fuckin up the buffers with their bullshit apartment buildings that they even need to keep fixing the shit at all.”

“Mad about it?” I tease, lacing my fingers over his, formed around the gear shift that he pushes into second as we come to a pedestrian’s pace on the detour.

He brakes when another worker with an orange outlined stop sign halts the traffic, easing onto the clutch with thighs I’m paying far too much attention to the thickness of as he throws our hands into first.

“Guess we stop here and wait until they open this back up.” He leans back in his seat once we’re parked, stuck in line with a bunch of other cars while they work on clearing the dam.

“And yes, I’m very mad about it. Hunter and I used to play at this shoreline as kids.

It’s sick what assholes like my dad do when they buy up land and then all the sudden the place where you used to hide with the reeds and turtles, listening to cicadas sing, feeling tadpoles skim your toes, whittling bark into whatever your mind could think because there was actually a spot of nature available to still think in… is a fucking hotel now.”

I frown. “I can see what that would do to your image of him, but can I ask you something?”

He nods, and I will my confidence to keep up with my mind, because he’s helped me in so many ways in my life. With getting into therapy, which is going really well it turns out. When we were kids, and my mom died. Even now.

“Do you think you hate the man your dad is …or the man he was ?”

“Ouch, Shay.” He lets out a breathy laugh, but I can hear the truth behind his joking tone, and I squeeze his hand harder.

“All I’m saying is, I don’t get a choice to love who my dad will be one day. To see how our relationship might change or grow. I don’t want to be that bitch, but don’t waste yours. People change.”

“I’m starting to see the parts of you that must resonate with my bratty little sister now,” he teases, but I throw him a serious look, and he gives in. “Fine. Tell me like it is, it’s okay. I probably need it.”

“It’s nothing bad, Dustin. You care so much that you bleed out everything you have inside to make life comfortable for everyone else.

But where’s your comfort? If the relationship with your father is always a sore subject for the rest of your life but both of you are here and willing to make it different, begging for it to be so, what are you waiting for?

An invite? Death? Because I can tell you, one may come sooner than the other, and it might not be what you hoped when you imagined your future with the only man who will ever be that man to you. ”

“Fuck.” He rubs the back of his neck, jolting when several honks sound from behind us and the road worker knocks on his side window.

“Carry on!” he shouts, and my goosepimples prickle, body heating as a blush spreads over my bare legs and arms.

“Sorry if that was too serious.” I fear I’ve takaen it too far, opinions being subjective and all. Certainly, where parental relationships are involved. But he simply squeezes my thigh, rubbing his hands over my skin to warm me up.

The goosepimples settle down, until he’s massaging slow circles in the apex of my thighs and my head hangs back in bliss.

“I’m so lucky,” he whispers.

“How do you figure?”

“Got the sexiest dancer in all the city in my passenger seat, legs spread wide and dripping, soaking through her flimsy leggings, just begging me to bend her over and slip inside, stretch her how she likes.”

He rubs me to orgasm while he drives, and I can hardly handle how hott he looks with one hand on the wheel and the other between my legs. “You shouldn’t be allowed to look this sexy,” I mutter breathlessly.

“Oh yeah?” He puts his fingers to his lips and sucks them clean. “You shouldn’t be allowed to taste this sweet.”

My cheeks flush so brightly I can feel the heat atop my skin, but it doesn’t bother me the way it used to.

Matter of fact is, I love this man, and I’ll drip from his chin for the rest of my days.

“Can’t I open them yet?” I whine, saltwater licking my ankles and feet.

Thankfully, they’re bare, because Dustin did give me that hint at least. I’ve been holding my sandals at my side while we trudge through the water’s edge.

“I know you said it was a walk, but you are a bit of a stalker, so I have to ask…you’re not luring me to my death in some oceanic cave, are you? ”

“If I were, I wouldn’t tell you,” He teases, dropping the blindfold to reveal a tall, stone building I know and love. One he looked deep inside my heart to carve out and put here before me.

“The aquarium where she…did you know this was the one my mother worked at?”

The Oceanside Research and Conservation Center for Aquatic Life. ORCCA for short.

“I did.” A worried brow creases the center of his forehead when my tears start to bead. “Is it okay? That I brought you here? I asked your father if he thought it would be too much, but it’s just a few miles from the hotel, so—”

“It’s perfect, Dustin.” I rise to my tiptoes and kiss him on the lips. “Just like you.”

“Well, I’m no marine creature with multi-sentient limbs, but I’m pretty good, right?”

“You’ve studied up on cephalopods, too?” I grin wildly as I shake the sand from my feet and slip on my sandals, skipping through the large double doorway, lined with tiny carvings I used to trace with my fingers.

Even now, as I skim the stone with my hand, I feel the peace and wonder this place used to bring me.

I feel my mother.

“Thank you so much, Dustin. Thank you!” I throw my arms around him, pushing him against the doors and slamming him with a kiss.

“Anything for you, Shay. I mean that.” He nudges me forward.

“I got us the VIP passes. It’s empty today.

Most people don’t come at this hour, the lady told me on the phone, so…

” He slides his tongue across a silver gem that’s new as of today.

It has a purple stone in the center that I can’t help wondering about.

Was it put there for me? Like the purple flowers?

“Show me some fish, Shay.” He winks when I seem unable to move from my spot of elation here in the lobby and walks ahead of me, into a blue-lit tunnel, surrounded by jellyfish.

It’s beautiful. The whole place. I remember my seventh birthday party here, with a cake and turtles we got to pet right over there.

I can see her now, in the corner, walking in with my candles a glow, leading the birthday song as my friends gathered around.

Lucy was there and her brother whom I still for the life of me can’t remember the name of.

The memories fade so fast. To think that neither Lucy or my mother are alive to see this place, and never will be again, is heavy.

“I miss her.”

We walk around the exhibits for what seems like an hour, before we finally reach that place. The special one that haunts my happiness and tangles within my soul. The place she was most at peace, her very own dance floor.

I touch the glass I used to see my mother come alive behind. “She’d swim with them. She wasn’t afraid.”

“You remind me of her. What I remember at least.” He wipes away my slow rolling tears. “You look just like her, beautiful. Brave.”

“Hah!” I almost double over. “Me? Brave? You sure you’re not talking about one of those Flinger models before me?”

He frowns.

Okay, that wasn’t fair.

“I mean, I’m not brave. I’m the furthest thing from it. I’m insecure and worried and anxious all the damn time…”

“And,” he brings my wildly flailing hands back down to my sides and forces my body to the tank, bracing me in front of my reflection like he did in the studio, “you’re a successful businesswoman, an award-winning teacher, a talented athlete…and quite frankly a damn good fuck, waffle cone.”

“Is that my new nickname now?” I twist my lips at him through the tank, and he lowers his to my neck in response, hot breath lingering in a place that feels connected to much more.

“Can’t call you a virgin anymore, can I?” He licks a solid line down the side of my neck. “Not when I’ve felt the inside of you wrapped around me like a glove.”

“That feels so good,” I tell him as he guides us to a dark corner. “But won’t people see?”

“Someone very very wise recently told me she likes watchers,” he teases, “but we only have twenty more minutes to hotel check in, so we better behave, hadn’t we, waffle cone?”

I groan, wishing he wasn’t right. “Okay.” Disappointment flickers through me at the idea of leaving a place this peaceful. This quiet darkness my mother once called her home away from home. The place my father watched her as he fell in love.

Maybe she’s here now.

My grumbly poet of a boyfriend must see this, because he’s on his knees in a flash, offering me his hand and bowing like a prince straight out of every movie I never bothered with. I was too busy dancing in front of the mirror.

But this prince seems to yank me right through the looking glass and spell me in all the ways I didn’t know I needed. A guide, to aid me in my shift from complacency into something more. To break free.

Be the Shana Holiday that isn’t alone.

Not the last of her kind.

“Will you dance with me, Shana Holiday?”

And we do, by the glow of the neon lights, surrounded by jellyfish and magic.

His skills have improved. My heart patters like a schoolgirl at the way he holds my hips, confident in his lead and strong in his moves. It’s assuring as a teacher, but even more as a partner.

His partner.

“You’re scarily good for this for a newbie.” I throw his earlier words back at him, grinning from ear to ear so there’s no mistaking my teasing here.

I truly am proud of him.

“Who knew six foot everything, bear-like country boys could be so swift on their feet? I’ll have to start a beginner male dance class, so all the big oafs in town can show off their pizza positions.”

“Are you making fun of me, my sweet, compassionate teacher? You wouldn’t, would you?

” He pretends to take a dagger to the heart, and I roll on top of him, tangling him in kisses and defense tickles as we fall deeper in love.

I wobble a bit as I stand, Dustin catching me in his arms, but I came up so fast I guess the air left my lungs with my breath.

“You’re breathtaking?” I joke. “Just a bit lightheaded suddenly.”

A yellow octopus swims to the rock at our eye level and swats a tentacle at the glass, blinking at me.

“Feels like a sign,” I say, “like my mother is trying to tell me something. Even in the darkness, our light will still shine. Love will still find us. We can grow together or…” I trail off, grasping desperately for a reason to confirm it’s her, but before I can finish my sentence, the little yellow dude inks the water and darts away.

“Feels like Truman the Octopus,” Dustin corrects, and we laugh about that one until we’re back in the car and on our way to the next big adventure. Maybe it was a Truman situation. Or maybe it was her, giving me her blessing.

Either way, I’m doing it, this journey with the man of my dreams. And for the first time in my life, I’m confident about something that isn’t dance.

Here we come, Business Elite. If we can handle cherry popping, waltzing lessons and an octopus inking, what can’t we do together? Hope blossoms inside me that we’ll save the studio, too.

“And I love that for us,” I blurt out loud, weird and awkward as ever. Dustin presses back a smile, but who even cares about embarrassment at this point?

I’m me , after all. And I’m beginning to like her just how she is. Weirdness and all.