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I shoved him playfully, and he stumbled back, falsely offended.
“Best figure out your little curse problem before it spreads,” he said, disappearing into the house.
Audry was safe for now, and that’s all I could control.
Chapter 47
Audry
Ishifted in my chair near the hotel windows. The sunlight flooded in, casting a glare on my phone. I hated being cooped up, and I longed to go outside. Even from here, the beach waves called to me. The scent of sunscreen from hotel goers taunted me, along with the fresh tans of those who walked in from the fresh air.
I couldn’t do this much longer. I wasn’t made for captivity.
“Would you like another, Miss Santora?” the waiter asked. He was a lanky man, his hair a bit disheveled and lacked muscle that I had grown accustomed to with Kai.
“No, thank you.” I shook my head, continuing to daydream out the window. My life had changed so drastically. I barely stepped foot into other bars beside the hotel. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw myownbedroom with myownbed. I was shuffling between different backdrops that didn’t quite fit with who I was. They didn’t truly fit with who I was becoming, either.
Miss Santora, I thought, glancing at my hand. My ring finger was devoid of commitment but filled with possibilities. Kai was ready to marry me, and I had stubbornly turned him down. Ididn’t want marriage on those terms. To be honest, I’d never even thought about it.
Marriage was more of this pestering demon in the back of my head, shaped suspiciously like my mother. Once I settled down, things would be different. I had heard those words so many times. I gripped my hand into a tight fist, anger growing towards explosion.
Kai only wished to marry me to keep me alive, and a marriage of convenience wasn’t what I wanted. I wouldn’t be my mother.
I had heard the story so many times, it felt like a movie. My mother, down on her luck. She never said she was a sex worker, but it was implied. My father found her one day, and it was love at first sight. She had ‘no stability and no sense of…fashion,’she would always correct. If you focused on the words, though, she had no sense of love…of commitment…of family. Whenever she told the story, her eyes would cast downward and glisten with tears.
My father’s jaw would tense as they went on and on about how her uncle refused to let them see one another. It wasn’t good for the ‘family business’ or whatever. I had grown to find out my mother had no family here…and her uncle was most likely her pimp. But family stories are never exactly truthful. They were more like kernels of truth wrapped in ribbons of sweet lies we tell each other and ourselves. But the more one starts pulling those threads, the more reality comes into focus.
The ending of the story is always the same: Marriage. My father rescued my mother through marriage—and probably a pay off or two.
I swallowed down the negative emotion bubbling in my throat. I didn’t want to start a marriage like that—hell, was I even ready for marriage?
I thought of my mother’s round belly when she was pregnant with Andrew. Did I want that? Did Kai want that?
Miss Santora. I tried to replace it with Kai’s last name, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Had he ever even told me?
I snorted aloud. “The fucker proposed without even telling me his last name.”
The cloud cover rotated, more sun peeking in and washing my body with warmth. That was it, the last straw. I wasn’t going to sit here, trapped in my head and in the four walls of this stupid hotel. There was more to life. There was adventure out there, and I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me—not even the thought of my own death.
“If I wait around avoiding Death, it’s just going to pop up behind me, anyways,” I reasoned, pocketing my phone.
The beach was packed, and the crowd offered a sense of safety it hadn’t before. What bad, murdery, gang thing could happen out here?
The tide washed up, children screaming and running as the water tickled their feet. The waves brought the sweet, salty scent that mixed with the smell of hotdogs and sunscreen. The weather was nice today—the cold at bay for now. It was always a crap shoot here in this season. One day frigid, the next boiling hot. There were a few days in between with a light draft, but very few and far between.
I dug my toes deeper in the sand, enjoying the freedom being out offered me. Kai was going to freak out when he found out.
The hair at the back of my neck stood up, and I glanced around the crowd. The feeling of someone watching me invaded, but as I glanced at the crowd of families and couples, I shook the paranoia away.
“It’s nothing,” I said to myself, leaning back on my towel.
Time moved by quickly as I lounged in the sun, my mind floating away from me. The crowd thinned with each passing hour. In a jolt, I scrambled up. The sun slowly sank in the sky, casting an orange glow across the dark water. I must’ve dozed off.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I had my taste, and now it was time to go. On the floor near my chair was my phone, face up in the setting sun. I tilted my head, confused. My phone was in my lap. I made sure of it. I looked around the small group of people left on the beach, but none of them looked particularly suspicious.
With a single shake of my head, I pushed the thoughts away. I gathered my towel up and made my way toward the sidewalks. I stopped to slip on my tennis shoes—I opted for those instead of sandals, just in case. The same feeling I got earlier washed over me.
