The Jaws of Life

9

The guys woke up that morning and decided they wanted to go out on the boat and try to catch some fish. They asked Alia and I if we wanted to join them, which we immediately told them hell no we didn't want to go out on the water and touch slimy fish. They tried to convince us saying we could work on our tans, but we still said no. Even when they told us they wouldn't share with us and we'd go hungry, we still insisted that it was worth not eating for. So, off they set, just them two, to go try and catch some fish for our supper.

Alia and I decided to hang out in the cabin for the morning so we could do some mini at home spa treatments. I started with a green tea and honey face mask, whereas Alia went for a pomegranate one. We both broke out the nail polish that Alia brought, me going for a classic white and her going for a baby blue that's so light it almost looks white.

"My wedding dress was this colour." Alia tells me as she paints her toenails. "It sucks you couldn't come."

"You planned had the wedding during the one single month of the year I was unavailable." I say to her in exasperation. "You couldn't have picked any other day?"

She grins at me. "No. I couldn't wait."

"I can't believe Jaime was okay with it." I muse aloud. He's never seemed like the kind to be okay with one of his friends dating his little sister.

"Oh man he was not happy when he first found out about Tony and I. And you know we had just started talking again, we had maybe seen each other like five times since my dad died?" she says. "And then its like surprise, I'm dating your best friend who doesn't know I'm your sister."

"God, poor Tony." 

Alia laughs. "Yeah, poor guy. He thought one Preciado was a lot to deal with and then he's there looking at two of us. Surprise of his life."

"Still can't believe he didn't know. You guys look exactly alike."

When I say exactly, I mean pretty much exactly. If they told me they were twins, I'd believe it. They both have thick black hair, dark brown eyes so dark that they look black and those classic Preciado dimples. The main difference between the two is that Alia's a girl and Jaime isn't. Other than that, fairly identical.

"I think he was in denial." Alia jokes.

"Or really into Jaime."

"I swear to God I'll smudge your nails." she says to me with a laugh. "I still remember how mad Jaime was." she continues. "Honestly I thought he was going to legitimately murder Tony. Like, for real."

"He came around though. Clearly."

"Yeah." Alia says with a happy smile. "He saw how much I meant to Tony and realized he didn't want to be the person getting in the way of Tony's happiness."

"He's a good guy." I remark, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible as to not illicit any questions that I'm trying to avoid.

"He is." Alia confirms. "I just wish he had someone who saw that, you know? He's such a good guy but all people see is the never serious, wild version of him, but there's more to him than just that. Like he's fun, yeah, I'm not saying he's not, but he's also just really thoughtful and he does anything anyone needs." she stops, cutting herself off from saying more great things about her brother. "You know what I mean, you've known him forever."

"I remember once we called him at like 3am to pick us up from a random party and he was there in 15 minutes, no questions asked. That was cool of him."

"Oh man, he yelled at me so much after we dropped you off though." she tells me with a laugh. "As soon as you closed the car door he was screaming at me, telling me I was irresponsible bringing you there and everything. God, he went crazy."

I can't picture Jaime yelling at someone or even getting pissed off at all. I've seen him be mad like two or three times before. I think the angriest I've ever seen him is one night when Alia and I were out at another place where we shouldn't have been. We had been at a bar that Jaime had been performing at, but we weren't paying attention to him. We got the interest of a couple guys who were obviously older than us, and they knew they were older, but they didn't care. We didn't either, at least not until they started getting a little too grabby with us. We both tried to get out if it by making jokes, telling them to be careful with the merchandise, but they kept trying to get us to go off with them.

This got the attention of Jaime who stopped his set just to come over and see what was going on. One thing led to another and next thing we know we're all getting kicked out of the bar for fighting. Jaime had a black eye for the next two weeks, Alia and I were grounded for a little while longer. 

That memory always stuck with me though. Just the way Jaime came over and started defending us with not a single second of hesitation. I felt... protected in that moment. Even though we were vastly outnumbered, and admittedly, Jaime was not winning the fight, it still felt good to have someone fight for me like that.

"That surprises me." I admit to her. I study my nails and realize they're painted pretty bad. My left side looks like I had a 9 year old do it, and my right side looks like I had a 11 year old do it. Overall its my best work yet.

"I think he was more mad that I brought you into it." she tells me. "He always told me to leave you out of my shit, that you were too good for it."

I raise an eyebrow at her, not really believing this. "Really?"

"Oh yeah, he always wanted to make sure you were okay. It kind of annoyed me." 

I open my mouth to ask her about more things Jaime said about me, but before I can even get a sound out, the door to the cabin swings open, hitting the wall behind it. Jaime and Tony appear in the doorway with a bucket, excited grins on their faces.

"We got the fish!" Jaime yells at us, shaking the bucket towards us.

This is really the guy I've had a crush on?