Page 23 of Wild Life (STEAM-y #2)

Love with the Power of the Ancestors

Maris

“I still can’t believe you were keeping all these books from me.” I skimmed my fingers over countless spines, all neatly stacked together inside of the richly colored wooden trunk. I was still stunned that it hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the sea with how sturdy it was.

I was like a kid in a candy store, as I searched the stash. The boys were all here. Dickens. Vernes. Hemmingway. I even spotted the beat-up dictionary that Aleki must have studied every day to widen his vocabulary and fight boredom.

“It was there, in p-plain sight. You could have open-ed it.”

“Yeah, but it was your private belongings.”

Aleki shot me a smirk. “When has that ever s-stopped you before?”

I pointed my finger at him. “Are you calling me a snoop?”

Sure, I wasn’t above prying. Hell, I had learned to hack phones to find dirt on the guys I was sleeping with while they were snoring right next to me. The FBI was no competition for my skills. I’d been raised on Matlock and Carmen Sandiego. Investigation was my unofficial middle name. Still, Aleki hadn’t had to call me out like that.

He brought my digit to his lips and pressed a soft kiss to the pad. “I would never if I value my l-life.”

His gravelly voice still disarmed me and had a way of melting my insides, even if I was still annoyed that he’d withheld it for so long.

There were a few covers with shirtless men and busty women in flowy dresses.

“You were really holding out on me. Look at all these romance novels!” Though I was a Mafia girl, I loved all romance books so much that a part of me wanted to strangle Aleki for keeping them a secret.

He avoided my gaze. “They were Ma’s.”

I could tell from the wear and tear of the pages that she hadn’t been the only one to read them.

My attention was disrupted by the big fat letters on the cover of a magazine. Playboy . “Man, your dad’s tastes were…diverse,” I said, eyeing a copy of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales right next to the image of a blonde with huge round breasts. I flipped through the pages—for the articles, of course.

“The sea is a l-lonely place.” For a change, it was Aleki’s tan cheeks that turned cherry red. As a serial blusher, it was amusing to witness it happen to someone else.

“Are you nervous I’ll hurt your magazine?”

“Why would I c-care when I have the real thing?”

Now, it was my face that turned crimson.

“Which rem-inds me…” Aleki grabbed something from between the nightstand and the bed. A white plastic bag, which was tied at the top.

Droplets of water flew as I undid the knot that bound the handles. The thick material swished as I opened it to peer inside. “ Jane Eyre !” I squealed, pulling out the weathered paperback. It had seen better days, but the binding was still intact, and the pages were remarkably free of water damage. “This is my favorite book!”

I had read it over ten times and never tired of the love between Jane and Mr. Rochester.

“What’s it about?” he asked, cocking his head to examine the book over my shoulder.

“It’s the original single-dad–nanny romance. And the age gap is chef’s kiss! Where’d you find it?”

“It was f-floating in the bag where I was fishing.”

I inhaled the musty scent the pages still held, as if it had just been plucked off the shelf of a library. “Damn, this island is weird. It’s like someone keeps sending you gifts.”

“Yeah, I guess s-something out there is m-making sure I get whatever I need.” His eyes bored into mine with a heat that singed my soul.

The attraction between us was hard to fight. It was there any time we looked at each other. Although we had kissed and made up after our fight, he hadn’t pressured me for more. Except, it was clear that we both lusted for much more.

I cleared my throat, unsure how to navigate the tension, before redirecting my attention back to the trunk. A glint of red beckoned me from between two books. I pulled on the fabric, and a silky pouch slightly larger than my palm came loose. A gold snap secured it shut. “What’s this?”

Aleki took it from me. “It was my mother’s.” He rose to his feet and walked to the shelves near the dining table.

Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it.

I was vocal when it came to admitting my own emotional baggage, but Aleki had been alone for years with no one to share his feelings with, so maybe it would take him longer to break the habit.

“Quiet your thoughts and f-follow me.” He took my hand and led me out of the hut, Jane Eyre still in my other hand.

Poaka bounced up and scampered along behind us as we walked past the fire pit and toward the thicket.

“Where are we going?”

“Out for pizza.”

“You and those Cosmo magazines.” I rolled my eyes, then spied a small bottle in his grasp with the red pouch. “The last time you pulled out an unnamed jar, things happened.”

“Scared it will hap-pen again?” he teased.

“You wish,” I muttered, trying to play off my chest flushing with warmth at the memory of the sticky mess of the honey night .

His deep rumble vibrated through my core, warning of the sins we had yet to commit. Since the night when he had covered me in honey and I had given him a blow job, we’d only kissed, and suddenly, my mind was playing out fantasies I had never dared to act on before.

“Don’t overthink it.” Aleki knew whenever my thoughts were racing. “We’re here.”

I took in the dazzling sight before me. Sparkling water skittering over polished rocks, smooth like black pearls. The canopy overhead was thick, but beams of light broke through the leaves, spotlighting the brook with a golden glow. The scene was magical.

“This is beautiful,” I gasped.

Poaka ran for the brook and dipped his snout low for a drink of the crystal liquid.

Aleki and I took a seat on the bank and watched Poaka hop around to avoid the running water catching his nose.

“It’s so peaceful here,” I said to Aleki over my shoulder, enjoying the tranquil sounds of the birds chirping in song overhead.

He placed the red pouch in my lap. “Open it.”

I unfastened the snap and withdrew three small cards. Photos.

“Oh my God, is that you?” A chubby baby with a gleeful smile looked back at me. He was no more than a year old. His cheeks were chunky, and his thick hair was sticking up in all directions like he had just woken up from a nap. His grin was wide, only a few teeth ornamenting his gums.

“That was on my f-first birthday.”

“You were so cute!” I flipped to the next photo. A woman with long dark hair with the same baby, in front of a sheet cake with balloons in primary colors. Baby Aleki had his little arms wrapped around her neck, and there was a black beaded bracelet around one of his wrists. The pair were cheek to cheek, completely blissful as they stared into the camera.

“That’s my m-mother,” Aleki said.

“She was beautiful.” Her dark eyes and silky black hair complemented her flawless brown skin.

“She was.” His voice carried a heaviness just underneath the nostalgia.

“You look like her.”

“You think?” he asked, tilting his head with interest.

“Totally. Your eyes wrinkle the same way at the corners when you’re happy.” I looked back, catching his warm gaze. We were often able to say so much more to each other without words.

His lips met mine in a gentle kiss, moving slowly, savoring me. When we pulled apart, his eyes wrinkled at the corners. Happiness.

I flipped to the last photo. “Your dad?”

“Yeah.”

Aleki and his mother were joined by a man with his arms around them. His skin and hair were lighter—sandy blond. He was handsome and fit completely with the little boy and his mother. They were the picture of a perfect family.

“Your parents loved you a lot. I can feel it from these photos.”

“I l-love them, too.” Present tense. Love never died, even when the object of it had.

“They’d be so proud of the man their son has become.”

A shiny film cast over his eyes, and he blinked it away. His heartache made my own heart hurt. He had been handed a shitty fate, and I couldn’t even begin to unpack the trauma he must have endured…alone.

He lifted my hair gently, pulling out the strands that had tucked between my shirt and skin.

“What are you doing?” I packed the photos carefully back into the pouch and set it aside.

“Quieting your mind,” he replied.

His fingers gripped my scalp, applying pressure as he massaged the base. Goose bumps broke out over my neck as the indulgent sensation washed over me. Ugh, it feels so good.

My nose picked up on a perfumy aroma, and I let out a whimper. “Is that jasmine?”

“Yes,” he said from behind me. “I use it for hair oiling.”

“Hair oiling?”

His fingers worked between my strands, kneading just above the hair line above my ears, and all the tension in my body vanished.

“Ma used to oil my hair as a child. Her m-mother and grand-m-mother did it to her when she was younger, and since she didn’t have a d-daughter, Ma did it to my hair to carry on the tradition.”

“Ahh. That’s why you have such beautiful hair, then.”

“That, and Ma’s genes.”

From the looks of the photo I’d just seen, he was telling the truth. His mother’s hair had been gorgeous, like onyx. “This is such a beautiful ritual.”

“Sometimes she would use a m-mix of oils. I made this one from j-jasmine flowers and coconut oil.”

“What was she like?” I asked, shifting positions and tucking my knees under my chin as he coated my locks in the fragrant oil.

“A lot like you. Spirited. L-loud. Funny.”

I chuckled. “She must’ve been a great woman. I wish my mom had been more nurturing like yours. I would have loved to have my hair oiled by her as a kid. I would have begged her to if I had known it felt this good.”

“Do you miss your m-mother?”

I played with the pages of the book next to me as I considered my answer. “Yes and no. Does that make me a bad person?”

“Never.”

I let out a sigh. “I obviously miss her. What kid wouldn’t miss their parents after they died tragically when they were so young? However, if they were still alive, I think I would still have struggled with seeking love from outside sources.”

“Maybe if my dad had survived the cata-maran accident, I would still have blamed him for it.”

“Do you blame him now?”

Aleki gathered my hair into a high ponytail with one hand and raked his fingers along my scalp at the base. “If it weren’t for his n-need for adventure, my f-family would have been safe at home. I had wished for it on that l-last trip—that we’d never have to go on a b-boat again. Someone or something must’ve been l-listening to me.”

I remembered my own wish before the car accident. “Right before our car crashed, I wished to live on a tropical island far away from my parents. For years, I blamed myself for killing them. I guess the universe was listening to both of us.” The laugh that left me was heavy and void of anything positive. The universe obeying children’s wishes was wild work. Many times, I had wished that Bit, my toy bat, had turned into a real one. I would have taken that instead of the whole deserted-island deal. “I wish I’d never made that wish.”

“I don’t.”

His confidence startled me, and I looked over my shoulder. “Why not?”

“Because I never would have met you.”

Our lips met again, and the kiss grew deeper and more consuming than before. Our broken pasts were fusing together into a complete present, with the promise of a future worth wishing for.

We broke apart after some time, and Aleki refocused on my hair.

“Read me your book.”

Poaka overheard the command and abandoned the patch of mushrooms he had been busy feasting on to plant his burly body next to me.

I rubbed his head before rocking in my seat and folding my legs into a pretzel. I cracked open the paperback. “You’re going to love this one.”

The brook babbled softly in the background as I thumbed through the pages, finding the first chapter.

Aleki oiled my hair tenderly and carefully, as if I were his whole world. And I read for my boys in the only world I wanted to be in.