Afraid to Love ✔

Part 9

(Airport terminal)

Larry

"When you say we invited to Mia's party, you no tell me the party wasn't in Paris." Lau complains as we board the airplane.
"It's a family party, her father's side of the family. And her father was from the Dominican Republic." I explain.
A little after takeoff Lau asks, "Have you met him?"
"Mia no tell you already? What you talk about past weeks?"
"What?"
"Mai's parents die." I quickly put in my earbuds.
"Wait, what happened?" he asks pulling my earbud out. I look at him and his face told me he didn't know anything. I shake my head, I guess it is early in their whatever for her to say anything about their parents. I only found out a few week ago.
*'Ladies and gentleman we have reached our cruising altitude.....'*
"Maybe Mia should tell you. Hey have you heard this song?" I try to distract him with the new music I found and it works for a while.
"Larry?" Lau calls me impatiently. "Tell me what you know, please?" He whines giving me sad eyes. I sigh, okay I will give him the highlights.
"About 10 years ago, Mia and Mai's parents were hit by drunk driver coming home from a New Year's Eve party. Their mother's mother adopted them and moved them to France." I quickly put my earbuds in, turn the music up and check my messages.
"That's all you know?" He removes my earbud again. Not really, but he shouldn't hear this from me. I shrug and return to my music. He needs to talk to her. Maybe if I... I try to think of what I can tell him that would help.
"When we meet Mia, she was in therapy." I tell him as we exit the plane, but he know that.
*Thank you for flying with us. Please enjoy Carnival!*

Laurent

Mia and I are, never thought I would say this about a girl, friends. I think she trust me a bit more.
Larry spots Mai's driver and he takes us to her in bagggage claim. Mai's hair was cut into a long bob with a swoop bang. She's wearing a red one piece with the front and back midsections exposed under a sheer shirt, floral skirt with sandals.
Mai's family party was held on a large estate property with a private beach. The party had great music, Soca, Zouk, Dancehall, R&B, Reggae, and Hip Hop. There was plenty of food and a wide variety of beverages.
After showing us to our rooms Mai dragged us to a closet full of beach clothes.
"Choose whatever you want or wear what you have. I felt bad that you were the only ones not told when they changed it to a beach party. So I had a few of our designer connections send some of their summer catalogs." She turned to look at me. "Mia's already on the beach, come out when you are ready just follow the music." She closes the door when she leaves.
I chose a pair of long plaid swim shorts with matching sandals and sunglasses and grab a hat and shirt from my room. Larry picked out dark color shorts and a matching shirt but he wore a pair of Jordans.
I found Mia easily, her laughter lead me right to her. It wasn't my laugh but it still made me smile. She was surrounded by people. I recognized the Australian instantly. Mia was laying on a lounge chair, next to a shorter paler female with short spiky blonde hair and the Aussie was sitting beside Mia's legs.
Mia was wearing a long floral dress, large sun hat and sunglasses. When I greet Matt, the Australian turns towards me.
"You must be Laurent, I'm Chris. Pleasure mate." He stands and extending his hand to me.
"Yeah," I shake his hand briefly. He sat down on the chair with the shorter pale girl. She's uh...cute. Not really but ...
When I didn't get the hint. "Sorry mate I was in your spot, please." Chris said referring to the spot beside Mia. I move to take the spot he'd recently vacated placing my hand on her leg.
"Laurent, this spunk is me bird, Helen." He smiles, Mia giggles and Helen pushes him, "Hi, I'm Helen, his girlfriend." She says leaning forward to shake my hand I lightly kiss her hand then release her.
"Is that what he said?" I quietly ask Mia. Mia laughs, "Not quite." She whispers back.
"Close enough." Chris said.
"The point is that it sounds bad." Mia admonishes him. He just shrugs his shoulders.
"We were discussing their performance for the Fall Showcase." Helen said handing me a small glass of almost clear liquid.
Mia quickly wraps her hands around mine and shakes her head removing the glass. "Helen! Please don't give this stuff to my friends, you know it makes you feel like you're sitting on the sun inside a volcano." She hands the drink to a passing female. "Give this to my sister. Tell her, 'kanpai!'" She smirks, "That should keep her busy for a while."
"What about the Fall Showcase?" I ask.
"I'm waiting to hear back about it. That's all." Mia smiles at me. I can't help but smile back and lightly squeeze her leg.
"It's just a matter of time, love." Helen touches Mia's chair.
"Anyway, no business right now, it's supposed to be a party." Mia sits up. "Come on Helen, let's go get wet." Mia stands up and removes her cover up, hat and glasses, then laid them on the chair. My heart skips when I see she is wearing the white bathing suit from the photoshoot. I couldn't take my eyes off Mia as she and Helen ran into the water. They play close to reef then Helen runs over, shaking water on Chris and ran back to the water laughing as he swats after her.
"I think they want us to play too." Chris laughs.
Mia is laughing watching the couple play until they start kissing.
"Can you swim?" she asks.
"Yes," I respond.
"Great you're it!" she taps my shoulder then swam further into the water towards the ocean. I swam after her. Chris is laughing when I came up for air. He had Helen over his shoulder and I spot Mia behind me treading water. "I caught mine, yours is getting away mate!" He calls. I turn and Mia starts swimming towards me, I quickly grab her as she tries to maneuver around me.
She smiles when I pull her to the surface. "I didn't think you had seen me." She laughs.
"The water is clear how could I not see you." I smile staring into her eyes, smoothing her hair away from her face. She is so beautiful. "So what now?"
"You were it and you caught me. So what do you want to do now?" She pulls her hair back. Don't ask me questions like that, you'll be naked in the ocean screaming my name.
I release her then dove down, resurfacing with her legs over my shoulders. Chris quickly moves Helen to sit on his shoulders and charges us. Helen and Chris try to knock Mia off my shoulders but Mia manages to easily knock Helen into the water instead.
I thought Mia was having a good time because she was laughing after we defeated them a few times, but she pushes off my shoulders suggesting we take a break.
Mia swam away as soon as Helen agrees. I follow her as she heads towards a smaller part of the beach that was surrounded by big rocks. When I reach the beach she was sitting in the sand holding her knees, with her head down.

Larry

"How was your flight?" Mai asks.
"Excuse me, your sister asked me to deliver this to you." A younger girl hands her a small glass of almost clear liquid. "Kanpai!"
"Thank you!" Mai smiles at the girl.
She takes a small sip of the drink then laughs, "How'd your brother handle the flight?"
"It okay, what that?"
"Mia's way of telling me to loosen up. You want a taste?"
"Sure." I reach for the cup but she pulls it away and kisses me when I lean forward.
I lick my lips and smile at her.
"Taste good right?"
"Yeah what is it?"
"Something Mia's friends brought. She says it's lethal because you don't feel it."
"Really it that strong?"
"No, I'm not explaining it well." She checks her watch. She took a gulp from the glass then kissed me pushing some of the liquid into my mouth. I swallowed the liquid and watched as she finished the glass.
"Feel drunk or even buzzed?" She smiles.
"No. I not feel anything."
She kisses my cheek then leads me through the crowd to a cabana by the beach. The music was louder here but it feels good moving through me. I dance while her eyes are glued to my hips. After a few songs, "Still feel okay?" She yells over the music.
"Yeah."
"Come rest, for a while." She drags me into the cabana.
"No I not finish-." She covers my mouth.
"I love your stamina but you've been dancing all out and nonstop for over ten minutes, take a break."
I was going to dispute it but she turned her phone towards me. The stopwatch says 10:23 then stops it. I sat down, sweat pouring and my heart rate was crazy.
"Like I said lethal." She hands me a large bottle of water. "Understand what it does now?" She wipes my face, neck and back with a towel.
"Yeah." I am starting to worry she trying to kill me.
"Drink the water, you're going to need it."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want you to dehydrate." She looks me up and down.
She lifts the water to my lips, it tastes like clean air, wet clean air. I finish it quickly, grabbing another quickly finishing that too. "Aahhhh," I sigh.
She smiles pulling me closer, "Feeling better?"
I kiss her lips softly, running my hands across her skin. She moans softly closing her eyes then pulls away. "What's wrong?"
"You."
I look into her eyes, "What?"
"I can't be casual with you, I'm far too attached but I don't like my sister in the middle of your drama."
"Drama?"
"Jenna." She gives me a look. "I really like you but you need to clean up your mess. I was thinking about a relationship with you but you aren't there yet." She kisses my cheek then leaves.
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A lot of feelings in this one, as a whole I'm a little messed up but I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think?