“Would you say this was ashellof a good time?” Trey wiggled his eyebrows playfully at her.
“Please don’t ruin this with dad puns.”
“You liked the…” He paused before continuing with, “…motion of the ocean.”
“Stop! I hate it.” Her words couldn’t be very convincing. She couldn’t help but grin, laugh, and love every ridiculous nano-inch of him.
“Guess I’ll have to come up with some more reasons then.”
“Guess so.” In fact, she didn’t mind if he spent the whole night convincing her.
Chapter 20
Sasha
Sasha took a break from being on her hands and knees, coming to rest in a sitting position on the floor. She moved into this position slowly, as though this was enough to prevent any squishing of unseen bodies, hoping to give a hypothetical tiny person enough of a warning to move out of the potential footprint of her ass. Oh, God. Now she was thinking about how enormous her butt must appear from their perspective, like the planet Jupiter on a collision course with Earth. It was better not to think about it for too long.
Sasha was probably wasting her time with this search. It was getting late, and her eyes were tired, which didn’t help when looking for something the size of a large grain of rice. She’d slipped the handsome resort shift manager a hundred dollars to let her hang out in the room overnight in order totie up some loose ends. The man had given her an odd look as he peered into the small conference room, which had already been returned to its natural state with a smallround table and chairs, before studying her face with extra scrutiny. Whether or not he believed her didn’t affect his decision, as he kindly slid the money back into her hand and said, “It’s no problem. Let me know if there’s anything else you need. Buenas noches, señorita.”
Both the resort staff and the higher-ups looked at Sasha remaining at the hotel for a few extra days suspiciously. There had been a group email questioning why it was necessary when she was needed in Belize ASAP. Zack Massey expected everyone to adhere to his timetable even though he flew on a private jet and everyone else scrambled with their own travel arrangements. She was relieved Dr. Cutchin hadn’t let her down as he came up with some bullshit excuse on why she remained, sounding convincing enough to the executive level.
This was the only thing that had gone well for Sasha. Inside the small meeting room, she’d slowly crawled her way across the floor, her glasses replacing dried-out contacts, giving her tired eyes a better shot at seeing something. She didn’t know what she hoped to find or what she was supposed to do if she did find something. Every piece of lint and thread was studied and analyzed in order to discern if it could be something of significance. It was beginning to feel too optimistic to expect to find the couple themselves and she settled for any kind of evidence of their existence.
In a strange moment of exhaustion, she could have sworn she heard something weird…like an ape call. It could have been her mind playing tricks on her. She’d almost forgotten about the lost chimp. Sasha considered calling for the animal but wasn’t sure of its name or if it even had one. Mankind2Mars had paid some local institution for the test subject, and its identification was simply a random list of letters and numbers like B…zero…something. She couldn’t remember.
“Here, chimp. Come, chimp, chimp,” she said in a low voice, not wanting to scare it.
“Señorita?” a voice said behind her.
Not hearing the door open, Sasha nearly jumped out of her skin, hitting her head on the underside of the small conference table. Rubbing her head, Sasha turned and saw a young, pretty housekeeper with a vacuum cleaner in hand.
“Oh, hi. Sorry. I’m using the room. It’s been okayed by Ricky.” Her cheeks grew hot as she realized how ridiculous she must have appeared, crawling around on the floor.
“Okay,” the housecleaner replied. She turned to leave before seeming to change her mind. “¿Le puedo ayudar? ¿Qué está buscando?”
“No, that’s okay, I’m looking…” Sasha wasn’t sure how to answer the question. She couldn’t exactly say she was looking for tiny people without the situation appearing more bizarre. “I’m looking for…an ape?” She finished the sentence timidly because this explanation didn’t sound any better. Sasha had always been horrible at inventing lies on the fly. Why couldn’t she say she was looking for an earring or something? She internally sighed at her failed attempt to appear normal. But, with her luck, the nice woman may stop what she was doing to help her find an imaginary earring.
The housekeeper listened to her answer, confusion spreading across her face. “Ape?”
“Yeah, you know…” But she couldn't remember how to say ape or chimp in Spanish and finally settled on “…un mono pequeño.” She already looked silly, so she paired this response by making anooh oohmonkey noises and scratching the top of her head. “Un mono pequeño. Muy, muy pequeño. I have no idea where that little devil monkey went.”
The look of confusion switched to one of alarm as the woman’s eyes grew wider. “Ah. Sí. Un mono pequeño. Okay, okay. Gracias.” She left, shutting the door soundly behind her.
Well, that conversation had been a disaster. At least the woman left, and Sasha could search in peace. She wasn’t ready to give up even if the whole thing was a crapshoot in the dark. All she could do was keep looking.
Chapter 21
Trey
Trey pissed into the sand outside the shell. With the help of a bright night sky, he could observe many crabs still scattered across the surface of the beach. He was afraid of either one of them wandering too far from the safety of the conch shell, which was the reason for staying nearby. She’d used the bathroom before him, and he’d waited close by with his back turned to give her some privacy while being ready to confront his fear of beach spiders if anything should appear.
It was kind of disgusting there was no way to clean himself. It was pointless to trek all the way back to the shoreline, and it wasn’t smart to use the last of their bottled drinking water when hydration was more important. These were the things they had to consider now. He and his wife could be disgusting together. If this wasn’t a sign of true love, then he didn’t know what was.
At least pregnancy wasn’t a fear since Cat had an IUD inserted a couple of years prior because both their financial and living situations were already tightenough. Having kids wasn’t an option and may never be one unless things drastically changed for them. Thinking otherwise felt like hoping for a miracle almost as much as them being returned to normal height again. Either way, they could never risk an accident.
But even when having the deepest rift between himself and Cat, he couldn’t help but yearn for that kind of life, especially after his brother had children. Yeah, the kids in his substitute teaching classes sometimes curbed his enthusiasm for children as they could be brats who would cut him down to size because one day he accidentally came to work wearing athletic socks with his leather loafer boots. But there were also sweet and inspiring moments where he couldn’t help thinking the future generation was alright and he wouldn’t mind being a dad someday, especially with someone as bright and grounded as Cat.
When he walked back into the shell, following the light of his cell phone, he was happy to find his wife remained gloriously naked. He found every part of her attractive, but all the pieces combined created a beautiful visual symphony of the female form. Plus, she had the foresight to move their resting spot to an area more covered in sand, which had to be more comfortable than the hard surface of the shell alone. She lay there, wearing nothing but a mischievous expression, on a spread of their rumpled, discarded clothes, the curves of her body reminding him of the most amazing kind of roller coaster for his hands to coast along.
