Page 93 of Grace

“‘Bout to hit her now. Let her know we’re about to take off.”

If my damn brain would let the fuck up…

“She gone be good when she see that.” Jug tossed his chin toward the red gift bag then walked to the back of the plane. “You, too, my nigga.”

“Okay, folks. It’s the captain here.” My cousins went up when hearing the voice from the overhead speakers “I know it’s early, but now that we’ve gotten all the kinks worked out, we’re going to get you down to St. Vincent where the temperature is a sunny eighty-five degrees—”

“Damn! We bout to be real, real lit out this bih!” my little cousin, Jonathan, shouted.

He’d better not have his street pharmacy on him or Customs would eat his little ass up. I’d warned him last night.

“Yes,” the captain continued. “You have every reason to be excited. Right now, we’re going to ask that you turn your devices on Wi-Fi…”

Shit.

I tuned him out to text Witherspoon something before opening the Word and flipping between Philippians chapter four, verse six and second Timothy chapter one, verse seven.

“And when the juices meet the meat!” We bobbed our heads, rolled our shoulders to the beat in our minds. Of course, my performing ass went the extra mile to stand on one leg balanced on the barstool and twerk a little. “And when he feel this heat! And when I skeet-skeet, that nigga knees get weak!” Corinne, Shizu, Becky, and I grabbed our shot glasses, licked the salt, tossed the tequila shot back, and finally sucked on the lime.

“Ahhhhhhh!” I exhaled, waggling my head wildly.

Corinne spit out the lime slice and shouted, “Damn!”

Becky shimmied and Shizu did the dancehall Thunderclap dance on the other side of the bar. It got the attention of the other patrons. Slowly, the reggae tunes floated blissfully in the air as we hid under the palm thatch roof of the bar tent from the blazing sun. The poolside bar wasn’t too packed, but definitely populated with wet patrons wanting their next liquid escape. It was minutes before two in the afternoon, which was our reservation for an excursion. We stopped here to get oiled up to enhance our Vincentian adventure.

“Hit me!” Corinne smacked the bar top.

The bartender began sliding fresh shots to the four of us. Once collected, we found each other’s eyes before singing out of tune, “Be mywhoooooooooore!”

Then we licked, swallowed and sucked. When she could manage, Shizu pulled out cash to tip the bartender.

“Damn, I can go for another,” Corinne mumbled.

Shizu agreed. “Same.”

“We can save it for the party.” I bounced on the barstool. “Drinks’re on me tonight!” I threw my arm in the air. “My word.”

The girls laughed at my silly ass. Finding it funny himself, the bartender collected our glasses. And just when I caught myself going to check my phone again, I stopped. It was inside a plastic protector pouch, hanging around my neck.

“Shi-Shi, you cool on ‘im?” Corinne asked with a spark of mischief in her eyes.

“Cool on all these niggas!” I rolled my neck. “Gotta remind them bitches of my name!”

Although it may have appeared so, I hadn’t even begun to feel the tequila. It would only be a matter of seconds for me, but not quite yet. No. What I was feeling was frustration and regret for opening myself again to a guy who seem to not have a fucking clue.

Chelsea texted me back late last night, telling me there were a total of ten people traveling with them. So what did my dumb ass do? Bought up tickets for their group of ten and my group of four at one hundred eighty-five dollars a pop for this excursion I told her we had to meet by the beach at two pm today for. She sent a “Roger that” to my instructions and assured they’d be down here. Then I woke up to a text from Jas just before eight this morning apologizing for just getting back to me. He said they had boarded and were about to take off. But I hadn’t heard from him since.

It took every ounce of womanhood in me to not send him a single text today to check on him. The urge to and the fact that he’d been so elusive these past two days had been giving me teenage Shi-Shi with street guys vibes. I was no longer a girl and would not behave emotionally irrational over a guy who didn’t have the decency to just check in. I’d just take the two thousand dollar “L” along with the lesson and keep it moving.

“How do you plan to do that, Shi-Shi?” Becky seemed to be gassing me, but I didn’t care.

“Show these Vincentian niggas what Shi’s working with!” I smacked the bar top, ready to stand.

“And what’s that?” My blood instantly heated at the sound of those velvety cords. They were deep and his Harlem accent so sharp in the Caribbean.

Then I felt a warm object slide over my right shoulder. It was a purple square box. The gold calligraphy gave it away. A box ofPor el Amor del Amor,the reserve line. These were premium, had to be a two-hundred-dollar box, easily.

After catching the box before it fell into my lap, there was a gentle yank of one of my braids. I whipped around, finally feeling the first wave from the shots. Standing, my damn breath was stolen. He wore sunglasses, a fresh white crew cut t-shirt, pink trunks, and black water shoes. In those four basic swimwear pieces, the asshole made my lungs seize and damn spine jolt. I could identify the breath of his pecs in the t-shirt and his hairy legs were suddenly added to my favorite feature list.

---