Bare In Bermuda (3 page)

Henna glared at him, lips curling, eyes narrowing as her head put the dots together. “Do you think I'm a hooker?” Did Eduardo think she was a hooker? A naughty thrill shimmied up and down her body. Now that would be a fun bit of fantasy…role-playing.

“Aren't you?” the bartender asked. “Because I'm pretty sure your Colombian friend thought you were a hooker.”

Did he? Her grin widened and she nearly laughed. Too bad he had to go. She picked up her phone and texted Simon.
Caballero Caliente thought I was a hooker.

“How do you know he's Colombian?” she asked Anton as she held her phone waiting on a response.

Awesome! Tell me you went for it. Please. I live vicariously through you.

“The accent,” he said. “You do know that all Spanish speakers don't sound alike, right? There's a difference between how Colombians speak Spanish and Cubans speak Spanish.”

“Are you Cuban?”

“Everyone in Miami is Cuban.” The meticulously groomed Anton, with his exceptional musculature, clearly spent a great deal of time on his appearance. He moved around the section of the now nearly empty bar near her with the pretense of cleaning and stocking, but with the same actions and stances of a silverback gorilla trying to attract a mate. She watched him as he flexed and moved, feeling like an anthropologist observing apes in the wild. No appeal. Not even a little.

She looked at her phone, and the message she automatically typed to Simon before she hit send.

No :(. He had to go before we could negotiate a price and a service. Totally bummed! He was hot and sexy. Officially ruined me for lesser men regardless of the amount of time they spend in the gym. Is it weird that I would have been happy to pretend to be a hooker? Because it does feel kind of kinky.

“Everyone in Miami is Cuban? I didn’t know this,” she said to Anton after the message was sent. He did nothing for her. The moment had passed anyway. If Eduardo returned, so would the moment. Could it be possible that the Anton's of the world no longer held universal appeal? That was a sobering thought.

“Be right back,” Anton told her then walked to the other side of the bar to serve some patrons.

Her phone chirped. A text from Simon fills the screen.

You are repressed. Have you never role-played? Not even once? Honestly... You really need to get out more often. I would pay Waverly thousands—no I'd actually buy her that car she wants—if she'd come up to me in a bar and come on to me like a well-practiced escort.

Henna texted back.
The cute bartender offered me $50 for a blow.

LOL!!! Are you going to go for it?

Anton returned to her as her fingers sent a response to Simon's text.
Foxy bartender just does nana mucho for me. Sad :( Oh!!
Amante
does NOT mean almonds.

“Do you want another? On me. I don't believe you're not a hooker, but I get that you'd rather go for the big money client rather than a fifty. It's possible he might be back. He was pretty into you. Looked like he had a lot of money, too.”

Her phone buzzed.
Did you get his number?

No. I'm supposed to wait for destiny to bring us together again.

LOL!!!
Henna could hear Simon laughing in her thoughts. She missed him already. But if he had been with her, she never would have approached Eduardo. Life had its payoffs.

“If I were a hooker, I'd charge a whole lot more than fifty to blow someone.” She smiled at Anton as she raised her empty glass. “I'll take that drink.”

“You got it.” He walked away from her with the empty glass.

She sent Simon another text.
How much does a professional blowjob generally cost? Because I'm thinking $50 might be a little insulting.

Anton returned with a filled glass lined with mint leaves. “Mojito. Cuban like me. You like Latin men?”

“Who doesn't?”

“How much do you charge? Just curious. I've always thought about hiring a real professional. Just for the experience. As a rule, I don't need to pay for it, but I figure you only live once. Right?”

Her phone chirped. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't divide her attention between her phone and the person she conversed with, but Simon was a part of the conversation from her perspective. Besides, he didn't feel well and probably needed some cheering up.

Not that I know from personal experience...
Henna rolled her eyes as she read. There were things Simon didn't want her to know, but that she knew anyway.
But you have to pay for the entire hour. This would be around $300 for a girl of your caliber.

She glanced from her phone to the bartender. “More than that tip you received,” she said with a saucy wink.

Pretending to be someone else might be the ticket to resetting some of her fairly deeply entrenched habits. Simon was right. She needed to break out of her claustrophobic life for even just a moment. He was no better than she, but that's what friends did. They helped each other especially when they couldn't help themselves.

There is a compliment in there somewhere! :)

Anton grinned. “I knew you were a hooker.”

Absolutely! Falling asleep. Let me know if destiny makes reappearance.

Chapter Two

“I think the industry name is escort.” Henna put her cell phone away and looked at Anton. “So what's a hunky Cuban guy like you doing working in a bar?”

“I’m a model,” Anton said. “This helps pay the bills. I thought about getting into your line of work. I'm just not sure I could go gay for pay. But then again, I won’t know until I give it a try. Do you work with an agency?”

“Wait...” She held up a hand and concentrated on the cacophony of noise, trying to pick out one certain sound. “Do they make announcements in the bars?” She leaned to the side and nearly fell off of the stool. The crowd at the gate area was gone.

“No,” he said. “We get more people missing their flights because they're sitting at the bar and not keeping an eye on the departures boards for updates.”

She grabbed her purse and jumped off the stool. “You are great. Thanks for the drink. Good luck with the modeling!”

Henna ran without a backwards glance from the bar to her gate. No one remained in the boarding area except for the agent who had taunted her. He stood at the door to the jet way. The plane, with jet way still attached, could be seen outside the window.

She waved and hooted at the gate agent. “Please! Please let me on!”

He watched her approach, his face lighting up as she neared. “And here I thought you had abandoned all hope and left,” he trilled. “Because I'm feeling benevolent and I really don't feel like the idea of dealing with you again, I'm going to let you pass. That and I found an extra special seat for you. You're just going to love the people you're sitting between. Ticket.” He held out her boarding pass, which she snatched from his fingers. He jabbed his thumb in the direction of the jet way. “Go.”

Her frustrated, angry, and somewhat befuddled brain screamed at her that something wasn't right. Something was missing. Something important. Why did airports turn normally intelligent people into dunderheads? She ignored her inner voice until she reached her aisle. Then, as the flight attendant closed the door to the airplane, she felt the lack of her carry-on dragging behind her.

“My carry-on!” She waved down a flight attendant counting passengers. “I left my carry-on in the bar. The sports bar right outside the gate.”

“You need to take your seat.” The flight attendant smiled a practiced professional smile. “Now.”

“I forgot my carry-on in the bar,” she said, moving up the aisle. “I need to go and get it.”

The flight attendant barred her path like a bridge troll. “The door is closed. You need to take your seat.”

“What do I have to do to get you to open the door?” Screaming in frustration tempted her. Not a very Henna like thing to do. Picking up Eduardo in the bar didn't fit her normal pattern, but she'd done that. Somewhere between going ballistic and just accepting the loss of her bag remained a solution.

“You don’t understand. My two thousand dollar dress for my sister's wedding is in that bag. And the shoes. The seven hundred dollar shoes are in the bag. Along with about two hundred dollars’ worth of underwear. And the makeup. I'm not even going to tell you what I spent on makeup. Please. I need my dress. I very purposefully didn't check it because I didn't want to lose it.”

“You spent two thousand dollars on a dress?” The flight attendant stared at her.

“I’m really not dealing very well with my sister getting married. She's twelve years younger than me. I figured a great dress would help.” The truth, told to a stranger, liberated her from having to continue to lie to herself. “I really need my fantastic dress and my stupidly expensive shoes, or I just might not be able to make it through the next couple of days.”

The look of something close to pity and understanding filled the woman's face. “You're going to need to take your seat,” the flight attendant told her firmly yet gently. “I'll see what I can do about your bag.”

“You really don't understand. I really, really need my bag. How can I get off the plane, run and get my bag in the bar, and get back on?” She smiled hopefully.

“Nothing that won't equal your day ending in a jail cell.” The flight attendant continued to smile. “Please take your seat. I promise I will see what I can do about your bag.”

Henna’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Her bag with her French dress, her Spanish shoes, and her Italian underwear might as well be on Mars. She checked her boarding pass and seat number. Wedged between a man who overflowed his own seat and a chubby woman who shared hers with a small baby rested a middle seat just for her. She knew these people. The woman had verbally abused the gate agent. Together he'd put them on his own version of the naughty step.

“I'm there.” She pointed to the small space that overflowed with books, magazines, and baby paraphernalia. The large man on the aisle glared at her then harrumphed as he hefted his bulk up. The mother with the baby grumbled in her seat as she started to shift the contents from the middle seat.

“I told you we should have just bought a seat for Junior,” the woman with the baby scolded the fat man.

Filled with hope, she smiled and asked, “Do you two want to sit together? I'll take the aisle or the window and you three can sit together?”

“We paid for an aisle and a window,” the woman said firmly. “The middle seat is yours. And don't use the overhead compartment. I have valuables and breakables in there, and I don't want them crushed.”

Henna glared at the woman, reached her hand up, and popped open the overhead compartment.

“I said...” The woman stopped speaking when Henna raised a finger to silence her.

Henna exhaled slowly, not unsure that steam didn't curl out of her nose. “Don't go there. With the day I've had, I'm just done being nice.”

The contents of the nearly empty overhead compartment were shoved to one side with a flick of her hand as she flung her purse into the empty space. A small cheer went up from the passengers around her.

With a purposeful slam, she closed the overhead compartment then took her middle seat, holding on tight to her book. “And just so we're clear, the armrests are mine.”

When the plane reached cruising altitude, the seatbelt sign came off, and the pilot let everyone know they were in for a bumpy ride as they skirted Delores, but soon enough they would have smooth sailing to paradise.

With Len to her right and Cathy and Junior to her left, Henna sat in the middle seat with the book she just couldn't get into as she thought about Eduardo. Why didn’t she get his number? Why? She could have just asked.

After rocking and bumping across the sea for nearly two hours, the ride smoothed and she knew the answer. He’d intimidated her. The control she normally held tight to when picking up a man slipped from her grasp Eduardo’s presence. He’d owned her and the conversation. For once, she wasn't the boss. She’d been dominated. Like picking up a stranger in an airport, it was a day for firsts.

Eden getting married so suddenly had been a bucket of cold water down Henna’s back. At some moment in her life, she’d passed that intangible point that marked the difference between being single and being alone. There was a time between her thirtieth and thirty-third birthday’s in which all of her friends, with the exception of Simon, met someone and got married. They fell like dominoes. One weekend everyone was single. The next they were half of a couple. Six months later, the wedding invitations started to arrive. Recently, she’d been invited to a round of baptisms, briss’, and first birthday parties.

The irrefutable truth was, she had found many men who could have made perfectly fine husbands, but not one of them had lasted. Smart, good looking, professional men who nearly universally married her girlfriends in the end. Each man had been just flawed enough for her to reject. Or if they had been good enough, they hadn’t called her back.

Two notable times she'd been half of a couple. Each time the relationship failed. No matter how hard she worked to make it perfect, no matter how giving and exceptional a girlfriend she'd been, they'd dumped her. What made it even worse was, she'd been replaced both times by women who Simon assured her were not nearly as great, pretty, smart, and accomplished as she was. It was possible friendship swayed his opinion, but she liked to believe he was right.

She’d learned too late that there was no perfect man or relationship. Trying to create the perfect relationship, at least according to Simon, might have been the thing that had been the slow killer those two times she'd had a boyfriend.

As much as it pained her to admit it, her mother had been right. There really was a point at which all of the good men would be taken. Worst part of all, the good men who were left had started dating younger and younger women. The men she worked with who were still single and in her age range, all had girlfriends in their twenties. The hard truth might actually be that her ship had sailed. She hadn’t been on a real date in a year, and the last man she’d slept with had been a twenty-two year old bartender who thought her name was Sheila.