In retrospect, she should have listened.
After she ran down to the beach, they had spent at least twenty minutes in the water before she cupped her hand over her mouth to not vomit Nic’s homemade ham and cheese sandwich.
“I told you.” He said.
“Not the time.” She warned, moving towards shore. He helped her, hurrying the process along. He held onto the surfboard and she tried her best not to vomit. It worked for the most part as they got back to the towels. He handed her her own water bottle. By then she had managed to slow some of it back down, but she could still feel some rising back up.
She gulped at the water, washing away the taste of semi-digested food. He rubbed her back gently. After a while he asked.
“You still want to go back out there?”
She nodded, nothing was going to stop her learning how to surf. Not when she had already spent so much time on it.
“Let’s just wait a while.”
And wait a while they did. He kept his gaze focused on the sea as she gulped down the water. Soon he stopped moving his arm up and down but kept it still around her shoulder. They sat side by side on beach towels. His legs were stretched out while hers were bent at the knees, blocking her view from the sea. His fingertips were light as he drew patterns on her skin. She looked at him, he didn’t seem to notice that he was doing it. His focus on thoughts outside of the sea he was staring at.
She let him, it felt good to have someone touch her skin. To have someone who she (maybe?) liked to touch her skin. There was something special in it, as if he didn’t feel uncomfortable in touching her. As if he wasn’t afraid of what would happen if he did. Did he also feel the sparks that she felt where his fingers touched?
Breaking the silence, she spoke.
“Can we go back in?” Minnie asked, her voice was hushed. It snapped his attention back to the moment. His fingers stopped gliding, much to her disappointment, but he left his arm around her. In a way protective.
“You feeling okay?” He asked, his voice was riddled with concern and care for her response.
“I think so.” She nodded, giving him a sure smile. Her stomach felt as if it were settled and done but she wasn’t sure.
“But the moment you feel sick, you’ll tell me?” He questioned, she meet his eyes and they were full of concern just like his voice. It tugged at her. His face tugged at her.
“Yeah.” She nodded.
He got up first, removing his arm from her shoulders. She missed the feeling of closeness that had been there as he reached his hand out to help her up. She took it, her fingers were smaller than his. His hand didn’t completely swallow hers, they gripped hers softly. She got up and he let go.
He gripped the surfboard and lead her down to the beach.
****
Minenhle survived after that point. She didn’t feel her lunch come back up and she loved every moment of learning to surf. She loved the moments when Nic touched her to correct her stance. He wasn’t on the board but kept swimming next to it, guiding her.
She tried her very best to not stare down at his face, how it bobbed in the ocean. As if he didn’t have a body. She wanted to draw him like that. Floating, in the sea. He became it, just like his eyes.
They only stopped because he had asked if she was hungry. She had replied in a yes and he had taken them back to the shore, she tried to surf her way back. She got pushed off the board multiple times and she got dripping wet to match him.
They ate their leftover sandwiches and drank their water. The sun was still high in the sky shining at six p.m.
“Where did you grow up?” Minnie asked, looking over to met his gaze. She knew what happened when she dove right back into the sea and she didn’t want a repeat incident. Her other option, her most enticing one, was to ask about him.
“In Washington D.C.” Nicholas’ eyes were on hers as he answered. She studied him before asking another question.
“You’re a city boy?”
“Yeah but I spent all of my summers down in California with my cousins.” He told her, leaning back on his elbows. His legs long on top of his towel. A light sea breeze blowing through his hair.
“Is that where you learned to surf?” She copied his action, leaning back but she left her legs bent at the knees. Blocking her view of the sea.
“Yeah, my mom’s brother lived there with his family. He taught me and my cousin, Matthew how to surf.” He told her, nodding. He seemed so relaxed as he talked about his time in California. As if it were another world, ripe and ready for exploration. The best kind of place to be.
“You still talk to your cousin?”
“Yeah, he’s doing well. Got a famous band. He’s on tour right now.” Nic seemed proud at it, his eyes gleaming with something other its usual twinkle. “What about your cousins?” He asked.
“They exist. None of them are in bands and none of them do anything out of the ordinary.” She shook her head, the braids slipping from the bun tickled her head and neck.
“Boring?” He lifted his perfect eyebrows in question.
“So boring.” She nodded, flicking the tips of wet braids over her shoulder. “Do you have any siblings?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a brother and a sister.” He looked back over the sea, as if they were another world but this one less happy. She hoped she hadn’t asked about something sensitive that strained him. “You?”
“Two brothers and two sisters.” She gathered her eyes away from him to the great blue sky. It was vast and dotted with a few sparse white clouds. All of them were fluffy. “I’m the youngest.”
“The middle child.” He said, she turned back to him.
“I can’t see you being the middle child.” She replied.
“Why not?” He raised his eyebrow back in question, his eyes back to hers again.
“You so seem like the ‘youngest child’ type.” Her sentence didn’t make much sense, but it didn’t bother any one of them. He seemed to understand what she meant.
“That’s a thing?” He questioned, a small smile spread across his face.
“Yeah. All rebellious and out of line for the family. Choosing to travel the world and hold girls captive.” She smiled back in response. He kept his smile, but it turned bitter slightly as he spoke.
“Well, my older brother is the favourite.” Nic said, his gaze left hers once again. “Dad adores him. He’s the person who took over the law firm when my Father became president.”
The words took a few seconds for her to process them. His father was the president of the United States of America.
“Your dad is Nathanial Thorpe?” Minnie looked at him in wonder, her brows furrowed.
“Yeah.” He nodded, as if it pained him.
“But he doesn’t have a son named Ni-” She started before her brain fully processed it. Nathanial Thorpe had two sons, Christopher and James. James had taken over his father’s company. “You’re Christopher Thorpe.”
“No one but my dad calls me Christopher.” He cringed at the name. “My mom calls me Nicky.” He smiled, a beautiful smile at the mention of his mother.
“Nicky?” It was her turn to lift an eyebrow in question, the name sounded so adorable on her lips.
“You’re going to call me that too now, I guess.” He seemed to have forgotten all about the talk of his father as he shared a smile with her.
“Nah, I’m going to call you Nic.” She assured him.
“Not Christopher.” He said, bitterly. She didn’t know what had happened between him and his father but whatever it was, it had hurt him. She wanted to give him a hug and soothe the bitterness in his hardened face and brow. To make the smirks and glinting eyes return.
“I can tell it makes you uncomfortable.” She said, carefully. “I try not to be a bitch.” His eyes jumped back to her face, in amazement.
“You cuss?” He asked.
“Yeah.” She looked at him. Confused, she asked. “Why?”
“You don’t seem like that type of girl.” He looked away from her, as if he was trying to find the right words for what he was trying to say.
“What?” She questioned.
“The girl who cusses.” Nic said, looking back up at her.
“Is not becoming of a lady?” She asked, a small smirk played on her lips.
“I’ve seen the actress who plays Mary Poppins curse. She is a true lady, but I just couldn’t imagine you doing it.” He told her. His voice was secretive, his eyes glinting as if it was a secret. One that was filled with mystery and intrigue.
“What else can’t you imagine me doing?” She was careful to try and keep that smirk on his face. It made her stomach flip and roll over.
“Wearing a lab coat.” He smiled. She shook her head at him. She knew at some point he was going to bring it up, she just hadn’t known when.
“Come on.” She rolled her eyes, shifting her weight from arm to arm.
“You never told me how you discovered you couldn’t be Einstein.” Nic’s focus was on her, waiting her explanation before she could argue against telling the story.
“Well, it’s a boring story really.” She shrugged it off. “But in grade 8, for our final Science practical. We had to connect a circuit.”
“Sounds hazardous enough.” She had to roll her eyes at him, he gave her a warm smirk.
“One of my wires wouldn’t connect and so I played with it a little.” She looked away from him, her face was heating up. If she could have visibly turned red, she would have been a tomato.
“A little?” He questioned, even without looking at him. She could see his eyebrow raised in question.
“I may or may not have started a small fire.” Minnie looked at him once again, he was looking at her with his full attention. “Let’s just say, they didn’t make us connect any circuits after that incident.”
“Did you pass?” There was a laugh in his voice, it caused her to smile.
“Yeah, I did really well on the theory paper.” She nodded, “My dad didn’t kill me over it.”
“Your dad strict?” He asked, voice gentle.
“My friends are terrified of him.” Minnie said, nodding her head.
“Why?”
“I don’t know, he just is scary.” She explained. “If I wasn’t on the other side of the country. I wouldn’t be sitting next to a boy this close without being somewhere he couldn’t find us. Nowhere public.”
“How would he know you sat so close?” He dared it by scooting closer to her, his eyes gleamed with their mischievousness. He was close to her towel.
“He has a lot of people who work in his office that would love to marry one of his daughters, anything to climb up the career ladder quicker.” Minnie tried to say it as nonchalant as she could. There was no arguing with that fact. “Whether it be by blackmail or finding a way to control his unruly daughters.”
“You got blackmailed?” The happy tone in his voice had vanished, the glint in his eyes scarce.
“No, my older sister did but she didn’t let it get to the point of marriage.” She said, her eyes drifted back to the sky. “But my father has been talking about marrying me off to one of the Zulu chief’s sons.”
“You want that?” He asked, his voice was a slight higher pitch than she had heard it before. It was pulling at her, to look at him. To look at his face once again and tell him the harsh reality of truth. That no matter how much she wanted to stay forever here on the beach and spend her days learning to surf. She would have to go study something that she hated and marry someone that she didn’t love.
All for business deals. She was a “princess” after all.
“Not at all.” She said, her voice was quiet. Imagining a different dozen futures and alternate universes where her mother wouldn’t try to talk her into it, telling her it’s for her future. It’s her duty for her own future.
“Why don’t you tell him that?” Nic asked. She smiled a sad smile.
“It doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t want to marry the one, he’ll find another one for me.” She explained. The sea breeze made her want to shiver but she didn’t want to. She shook it off. “He is an efficient businessman.”
“He’s willing to give up your happiness for money?” She understood why people froze up on questions about their families right then. The truth was hard to hear, she understood why Nicholas’ had gotten cold talking about his father.
“Yeah, that’s why you have daughters. To sell them off.” She shook her head, her eyes teared up. She didn’t want to cry, she hadn’t talked about this with anyone before. She didn’t understand why she was talking to someone that she had just met the day before about it.
“Lobola?” He said the word as a question. She didn’t want to answer but once she began talking, she couldn’t stop.
“Well that’s part of it. uBaba wants the respect that he will get from it, all the business deals.” She said, her eyes shutting to black, avoiding Nic’s gaze. “The money and cattle from my lobola is small change compared to all of that.”
“Are you going to let it happen?” He asked, but even with her eyes shut she could still see his eyes. Right there in her mind’s eye. They were unescapable.
“No.”
“You’ve got a plan?”
Yes, a very stupid one.
“Maybe.” She shrugged, opening her eyes back to the blue sky.
“I don’t know if I like that sly look.” He commented, a light spark of playfulness returning to his voice.
“I don’t know if I like your sly look.” She looked back at him and as she expected a smirk had taken place on his face.
“I only give it to the best sly looks.” His eyes glinted in the late sunlight.
“I’m honoured.” She smiled back at him, it was part genuine and part playful.
She got up off the towel and she ran down to the sea. All smiles and sly looks. He watched her, in awe before running up to catch up behind her, surfboard under his arm.
****
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