Fearless Like Us

by Krista Ritchie

  Her eyes soften. “I fucking get that. When I was training for the Olympics, I had a one-track mind. No time for anything else…or anyone else. Sometimes I think if Akara weren’t paid to follow me around, I would’ve been really lonely.”

  “He was a good friend to you back then,” I assume.

  “The best,” she says into an exhale. “And I want to be a good girlfriend, but it’s not exactly easy taking work off his shoulders when I am his work. Now he’s not even letting me pay for security anymore.”

  Yep, Akara decreed that this morning. And I thought I was the dumbass. He’s on Sulli’s detail for free. He’s still paying my salary, though. Where he’s pinching pennies, I don’t know, and I’m trying not to stress over money. He’d just tell me, I’m handling it. As long as I can afford to take Sulli out on a nice date, I’m good to go.

  I scan the sky, then look to Sulli. “You might be his work, but I doubt you’ve been like work to Akara.”

  She watches me uncap the sunscreen. “What do you mean?”

  I lift a shoulder. “You’ve made him happy. For years, he’s stayed on your detail because he never wanted to leave—I saw that. Most of SFO saw that.” I block the sun with my hand. “For what it’s worth, I think Akara taking time away from you is a fucking dumb move.”

  She contemplates this and wades more in the water. “So what’s the solution?”

  “I don’t know. I feel the exact same as you. I want to be a good…metamour.” I cock my head, not sure if the term used to describe my relationship with Akara is catching on or not. Anyway, I continue, “But it feels like the only person who can unsink himself from the hole he climbed in is Akara himself.” I grimace, partly from the sun, partly from the quicksand Akara is in. “It’s eating at me because I’d love to just jump down and shovel him out.”

  “Fucking same.” She sighs. “We can’t do anything, can we?”

  “Right now, I think we just gotta be there.” I hate feeling helpless, but Akara is involved in shit that outranks me and Sulli. “Your nose is burning.”

  “Oh fuck…can you…?” Her voice trails off since I’m already rubbing a layer of sunscreen on her nose. With my fingers, I swipe sunscreen over her cheeks that pull in a smile.

  I smile back. “Who fucking knew, mermaids burn?” The rest of her is tan.

  We enjoy this quiet moment together, and after I finish rubbing sunscreen along her nose, I try my best to pay attention to the drones. But Sulli is a much better sight than the sun and the sky. Her wet hair glistens in the light, and her green eyes are orbed like world globes.

  “You coming in?” Sulli asks with hope.

  What I’d give to drop into the water with her. I can’t take off my boots. The net gun rests next to me. Still on-duty. Maybe if I were Akara, the boss—the one with more leeway to cut corners—I’d cut this one to shreds.

  But half-assing my job will only add more stress onto him, my friend, my metamour.

  “Can’t,” I say with the raise of my net gun. “I have to keep my boots on.”

  Instead of sulking, Sulli immediately pulls herself mostly out of the water. She sits right beside me on the stone, keeping her calves submerged.

  My chest rises in something close to longing. She wasn’t kidding when she said living in the water was dependent on if I’d be there. I smile down at her.

  Sulli swishes the water with her legs, then asks, “Do you think you’ll tell your mom about us?”

  “Yeah, eventually I hope everyone in my family will know too.”

  She shields the sun with her palm. “That doesn’t freak you out?”

  “Not really.” I tuck my hair behind my left ear, then right. “No one’s gonna give a shit what I do with my life, as long as I’m not in jail or doing hard drugs.”

  “Do they not care or…?”

  “They care about me,” I say into a laugh, thinking about the big Italian-American brood I grew up around. “They probably care too much. They’ll be gossiping at every Sunday meal—hell, centuries from now, my aunts will be clanking skeleton teeth in their graves, not able to shut up about my relationship.”

  Sulli laughs.

  Christ, I love the sound of her laugh. Bright but smoky.

  I tell her, “My family is like yours in a lot of ways. They’d drop everything if I needed them.” We both stare out at the glittering pool while we talk. “But I didn’t come from much. They don’t expect a lot out of me, other than to be a good person and to be happy. Add in the fact that my ma sees me as the ‘free-spirited’ one”—I use air-quotes—“and I doubt she ever really saw me settling down. I’m the son who’ll go fuck off wherever my soul takes me.” I raise a shoulder. “Just so happens it’s taken me to you.”

  Sulli catches my eyes on those last words and breathes in. Her hand rests on my thigh, and I place my hand atop hers.

  Our fingers thread, and she says, “I think I’ve put more pressure on myself than my parents have ever put on me.”

  I nod a few times. “You know, I’ve been around your families long enough to know the world expects different things from you. Some want you to be like your parents—to have the same love story as them.”

  She snorts. “That’s fucking impossible.”

  I tilt my head gently. “You knew Akara when you were sixteen like your dad knew your mom.”

  “Akara is barely like my dad,” Sulli says adamantly. “Not that I don’t love my dad or my parents’ love story—it’s epic, unable to be replicated—but I just know now, today, as I sit here with you, that I want to go my own way. Ever since Yellowstone, it’s been the most freeing I’ve ever felt.”

  I skate a hand across her soft, bare back, and she leans more of her weight into me. “Other people out there are gonna want you to be their ideal version of Sulli or the Sulli they think they know. But the only person who knows if they’re capable to handle this kind of romance is you. Not Big Sal down Passyunk or Joey Junior in the row house next door.”

  Sulli looks up, squinting. “Are those real fucking people?”

  “Yeah,” I say, using my hand to block the light from her eyes. “Though, you’re never meeting Joey Junior. He’s a fucking prick and stole my boots in third grade.”

  She makes an angry face. “If I was better at writing, I’d write him a fucking letter.”

  “Yeah? What would it say?”

  “Fuck off, Joey Junior. Sincerely, Banks’ mermaid.”

  I laugh, one that rumbles deep in my chest, and as our eyes meet again, I tell Sulli, “I wish your family gave you more credit. I know you can do this without their safety nets.”

  Sulli rocks into me, “I wish your brother gave you more credit too.”

  I bob my head, both of us exchanging a deeper look, deeper breath together, because we’re going through similar issues with similar families who love us too fucking much. No one wants to see us hurt.

  I can’t look at her for long.

  Pulling my gaze to the sky, I scan for drones.

  Sulli wrings out her wet hair, wearing a sporty bikini that shows off her abs and tanned skin. Beads of water dry on her collarbones, the longer she’s two-thirds out of the pool. “Have you talked to your dad since Akara hired him?”

  “No, and I’m hoping it stays that way.”

  No drones.

  Sulli lifts one foot out and holds onto her ankle. “What’d he do, Banks?”

  It’s always been too easy to talk to Sulli. Shutting her out sounds like hell, and I’m not my brother.

  Thatcher loves descending into that kind of self-torment like it’s Saturday tee time on a fucking golf course.

  I swallow a pit in my throat. “You can’t tell Akara if I tell you. He’d fire my dad out of loyalty to me, and he can’t do that. Kitsuwon Securities needs him.” I take a beat. “I know it might not be fair to put that on you, but he can’t know.”

  And I want you to know, Sulli. I force myself not to add that and put more pressure on her, but maybe she can read t
hose words all over me.

  She touches her lips, focused. “It should be alright if I keep some things private between you and me, and vice versa, between Akara and me.” She drops her hand. “And even if I can’t lie all that fucking well, I’m not that terrible at keeping secrets. I haven’t spilled Luna’s yet to either of you.”

  She’s not wrong about that.

  In the next second, Sulli rotates more to face me. “I want to know about you and your dad, if that’s not crystal.”

  My lip lifts. “You’re coming in clear, mermaid.”

  Our hands are still together. She stares longer at the scars along my fingers. “Did he physically hurt you?”

  “No,” I say with the shake of my head. “My hands are beat-up from working with them most of my life. I worked on cars growing up.”

  She nods, knowing I’ve been a mechanic.

  “On the way to Montana, I told you the last thing my dad said to me before he left.”

  “You’re the dispensable one,” Sulli says with hurt. “That was fucking cruel.”

  I let out a laugh that sounds bitter and pained. “That was only half of it.”

  Her face falls. “It gets worse?”

  I hang my head, feeling the weight of that night bear on my neck. “I was twelve. It was the night my brother died, and my dad—in all his anguish of losing his firstborn son—he decided to turn to his youngest one and tell me, You’re the dispensable one. It should’ve been you.”

  Sulli’s grip tightens around my hand. For me. She’s holding on for me. Not letting go. “Banks…”

  I can’t look up. I stare at the water. “It’s not even the worst thing he said that night. I can’t forget how soulless he looked towards my ma when he told her, It’s your fault. You should’ve never let him ride out there. He’d still be alive if it weren’t for you. I tried to punch him for coming at her like that, and he put me on my ass in a second flat.”

  “Fuck,” Sulli breathes. “He sounds…”

  “Like a monster?”

  “Yeah.”

  I raise my eyes to the sky. Scanning. Then I look down at her. “He’s been distant ever since that night, ever since the divorce, and Thatcher forgave him without an apology or acknowledgement of what he said. They buried it, and if I can help it, I want nothing to do with him.”

  “But you also want Kitsuwon Securities to succeed and not fail.”

  I nod strongly. “Exactly it.” I glance over at her. “You gonna tell me that I should tell Akara?” He might be my best friend, but Sulli knows him a bit differently than I do.

  “No.” She rests her chin on her knee. “He’d probably fire your dad if he knew. Deep down, Akara is as big of a lover as he is a fighter, and he’d hurt himself if it meant protecting you.”

  He’d do the same for Sulli in a heartbeat.

  I nod a few times. “He can’t know.” And another thought makes me crack a smile. Jesus.

  “What’s so funny?” Sulli asks with an elbow-nudge.

  “The boots Joey Junior stole—I was thinking about how my brother gave me his to wear after that, and they were too small.”

  “Aren’t you the same shoe size as Thatcher…wait…” Realization suddenly washes over her face.

  “They were Skylar’s boots,” I say what she’s thinking. “We all only had one pair of shoes, and Sky eventually saved up enough money from working at Cinema World to buy another pair for me. We didn’t tell our ma, or else she would’ve scraped up the money. But things were already tough.”

  “Your dad was a Navy SEAL, right? Didn’t he have some money saved?”

  “You’d be surprised how fast someone can blow money on shit they shouldn’t. Bad investments. Gambling. Not sure about his finances now, but my dad was in deep debt when I was a kid. And he dragged my ma down with him.”

  She loosely holds her knees. “It makes sense why you said I have a good dad.” She takes a sharp breath. “He is really fucking good, and I don’t want you to think I take that for granted.”

  “I never thought it,” I say. “You might’ve been given a lot, but you’re not ungrateful or some sort of brat. You also have good parents to thank for that.”

  “Even if my dad is solely Team Akara?” she wonders.

  “I’m ready for the whole world to be Team Akara.”

  Hell, some already are. A false rumor picked up steam. One about how Security Force Omega is a group of fake bodyguards and every bodyguard is secretly dating their client.

  Akara has been Sulli’s bodyguard.

  So somewhere out there, fans are already carrying Team Akara signs and wearing Kitsulli stickers. What they don’t know is that I’m the number one Kitsulli fan.

  Always will be.

  Till the day I die.

  “Saying that you’re okay with Team Akara and feeling it might feel fucking different,” she warns me.

  I squint in the sun. “We’ll see.”

  Just as I say the words, her phone pings across the patio. Sulli drops back into the water and swims to the other side. Once she grabs her cell off the ground, her face twists at the screen. Mostly looking sullen.

  “You alright?” I ask.

  “Not really,” she lets out a heavy breath. “It was a notification that my voice mailbox is full. I haven’t listened to any of the ones my mom left, and I can’t bring myself to fucking delete them.” Her lips descend further. “I’m just not ready…and I haven’t even talked to my sister.”

  “You want to call her now?”

  She thinks. “Yeah, maybe I can…” She shakes off her wet hand and touches the phone screen. “I figure she hasn’t heard anything yet or else she’d be blowing up my inbox too.”

  Winona Meadows is more of a mystery to me than some of her cousins. Can’t predict whether or not she’d love the idea of Sulli dating Akara and me. Like everyone else, I expect her to be firmly on Team Akara, and I understand that loyalty. He’s the one with long-lasting memories protecting the Meadows family.

  I’m just a guy that showed up in Sulli’s life. Late to the party.

  Sulli dials a number, phone pressed to her ear. “Nona?”

  I watch Sulli’s face drop again.

  “Oh no, I can call back later—no, you go ahead. You’re busy…fuck.” She adjusts her grip, and I can’t hear anything her fifteen-year-old sister replies.

  I stand back up, giving Sulli some privacy. I twirl the net gun again, eyeing the sky.

  “No, no, no, it’s totally fine—go finish your defensive driving class. We can talk another time. Alright…okay. Kick ass, squirt.” And then the phone slips from her palm like butter.

  She tries to course-correct, hot-potato-ing the cell, but the phone plops into the water. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Sulli dives down as I rush over.

  She comes back up, swims over, and I toss her a towel while she climbs out of the pool in a panic. “I can’t believe I fucking did that.” She tries to dry off the cell, then smacks it against her palm. “Turn on, turn fucking on.”

  “Were you done talking to her?”

  “Sort of—the last thing she said was, I love you a waffle lot, and now I feel like shit for not saying it back.” Sulli shifts her weight from side to side, in distress. “Fuck, ugh, I’m already a shit sister for not telling her about you and Akara.”

  “Hey, hey, hey, look at me.”

  She looks pained.

  I hold her shoulders. “We’re gonna figure this out.”

  “How?”

  What would Kitsuwon do? As she squints, I block the sun from her eyes with my hand. Alright, that’s what I would do. He’d fix shit.

  “I have a working phone. We can call her back.”

  Sulli hesitates. “I don’t want to bother her anymore than I did. She gets her license in March, and she’s taking some driving classes before then…what if I text her off your phone?”

  I pass her my cell. “Go ahead.”

  Sulli composes a text really fast and hits send. “I just told he
r that it’s me, and I dropped my phone in the pool.” She adds fast, “And that I love her, I put that in there too.” She tries to relax. “I know you don’t care who takes sides, but I fucking care. I think I’m stalling on telling Nona because I know she’s going to want me to be with only Akara.” She wipes nonexistent sweat off her brow. “Fuck.”

  I wouldn’t know how to win her sister over.

  And that’s where Sulli and Akara are more alike. Winning isn’t really my forte.

  That’s their strength.

  A faint buzzing sound cuts into the short quiet, and I eye the sky. “There it is.” I shoot the net gun at the drone. Capturing the device as it thuds down to the patio. After I shut off the thing, the terrace doors open.

  Akara saunters outside, coming towards us in gym pants and a red muscle shirt. He spots Sulli’s tension. “What are you two doing?”

  I toss the net gun on a lounge chair. “Missing you.”

  Sulli tells him the full story about her wet phone and short call with her sister. He takes the cell from her, and somehow, he dries the thing off with the towel like he’s the Cell Phone Whisperer.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  It couldn’t have been that easy.

  Akara shakes his head at me and her. “I leave you two for three seconds.”

  “Three hours,” Sulli refutes.

  “She almost drowned from lovesickness.” I smack his chest. “I had to give her CPR. It was a fuckin’ ordeal.”

  “The biggest,” Sulli adds. “Like the size of Banks’ dick kind of big.”

  I start to smile.

  Akara gives her a teasing look. “The kind of size you can’t take.”

  “I can take him,” she refutes, shoving his arm.

  “Like you can take me.” He holds both of her arms and walks her backwards towards the edge of the pool. Until he walks right into the water with her. They go down, and I’m laughing when they pop back up. Sulli splashes him.

  Akara wipes off the water, then reaches back towards me, capturing my ankle.

  I shake him off and just jump in, fully-clothed.

  When I come up, we’re all closer together. Treading water in a huddle. Akara pushes his wet hair back, his eyes drifting from me to her, and our smiles slowly fade.