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My lips twitched as I fought a smile. “There’s a deadly disease that causes people to only see the bad side of things. My abuelo likes to refer to this as pessimism.”
“Your grandfather is the ringleader of this whole ordeal. And I’m not a pessimist.”
“She’s a realist,” Gracelyn joked, forcing her voice to be deep and masculine.
I started to laugh, the sound coming from my throat akin to an angry toad’s battle cry. “Shut up.” I playfully swatted her arm.
“Ow.” She poked out her lip and feigned being hurt, making her hazel eyes go big and round.
“I can’t take you bitches anywhere,” Mel chastised, laughing quietly. “There’s our shuttle.” She pointed to a sleek white bus idling nearby.
We approached at the same time two older women did, allowing them to go ahead of us.
As we waited, the sun continued to sink lower in the sky, slowly draining the light.
I glanced back at the resort and withheld a sigh. This would be our last time traveling leisurely. Indefinitely. I could count on one hand the number of times trips were taken for luxury versus ‘business.’
Melantha began climbing onto the shuttle. I followed, and Gracelyn brough up the rear.
“Sit anywhere you’d like,” the driver instructed in an upbeat tone, his bushy mustache lifting as he smiled.
I thanked him with a small one in return and then skimmed the interior. The seating was set for two per row, and there were already a few people up front.
Ignoring the stares aimed at her colorful hair, Mel breezed by all of them, wholly unbothered.
It was always done in one fun color or another. This time she’d gone with a deep violet, peacock blue, and white ombre bangs. She was one of the few individuals I knew who could rock it.
Mel could pull off anything, really. She had a classic kind of beauty. She’d always reminded me of those retro pin-up girls, complete with a small diamond Monroe piercing.
She wound up claiming three seats that were midway from the back. Directly to the right of them were a cluster of four guys that, with a passing glance, appeared to be in their early twenties, so around our age. Behind them, sitting by her lonesome, was a pretty redhead with ear-pods in.
Not the biggest fan of confined spaces, I placed my suitcase in the baggage cubby and then claimed the seat nearest to the aisle.
Gracelyn squeezed past me and sat by the window, leaving Mel no choice but to sit behind us.
“How long does it take to get to the airport?” Grace asked.
“Thirty minutes?” I guessed, pushing my sunglasses up to rest atop my head.
“For future reference, I was going to ask if you needed help, but you looked like you had it,” a husky voice snaked across the aisle.
“Huh?” I glanced over, nearly doing a double take as I got my first real look at who was beside us. If life were a cartoon, my jaw would have dropped through the floor. Somewhere in the back of my mind the Weather Girls began to sing about raining men.
“Your bag,” the guy closest to me said, nodding his head towards the luggage cubby.
He was sporting a rather dapper hairstyle—an undercut that was long on top and short on the sides.
The smooth strands were dark brown with naturally lighter pieces weaved in. It looked good on him—really good.
“Oh, well. Thanks for considering,” I quipped, cringing internally as soon as the last word fell from my mouth. Thanks for considering? Way to be super awkward, Lana.
“Anytime,” he replied smoothly, brandishing an amused grin. His teeth were so white, I wondered if they were real.
I didn’t want to ogle him. Then again, yes, I did. I mean, damn. Where the hell had he been hiding at these past two weeks? This trip would have been ten times better if I’d had this piece of art to look at every day. Preferably from underneath or on top of him.
One of his most notable features was his eyes. They were gorgeous.
I would call them blue, but that was like saying the sun was yellow, such an average adjective and hardly accurate. This was more a myriad. They reminded me of the sea, vibrant and serene, something churning deep within them that wasn’t easily identifiable.
Our staring contest was short-lived as two more girls got on the shuttle and passed between us, both looking as hungover as I was, only way more put together.
I shifted my attention off the eye candy across the aisle and did my best to get comfortable, toying with the necklace my abuelo had gifted me just before I left for my trip. He’d given Mel and Grace one too, as was customary for him when buying anything for me.
They were all different, each affixed with a silver pendant of some kind. I had no idea what any of the symbols meant, but it was my abuelo so that didn’t matter.
