Chapter 68


I wasn’t entirely sure when my re-found confidence was going to end, but I was enjoying the terrifying high of it for the time being.

Malania and I ignored the desperate attempts from Carsen and the other two suits to get us out of the surf. Maybe it was the sex or maybe I was so good at pretending that I was fine that I fooled myself as well.

There were a lot of paparazzis out and about and their presence seemed only to grow in volume the longer that we stayed.

We both did a good job of pretending that they weren’t there. I think it was a little game we both played, sharing mischievous grins as though we were both incredibly aware of how much we were frustrating them by not answering the questions some of them shouted at us from afar.

“We need to leave, Mr. Jackson!” Carsen hissed at me, standing on the wet sand in his patent leather black shoes, avoiding the ocean lapping by his feet.

“Mal!” I shouted to her, standing a few feet from Carsen, “You ready to go?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think she’s ready yet.” I replied to my guard without giving her a chance to speak. Carsen wasn’t happy. I knew he was going to give it to me at the next chance he got to speak with me alone. I knew I was making his job harder, but I was so fed up with not being able to have a normal life.

And who knew? Maybe this would be the very last chance I got at freedom.

“I’m going to have to call for back up…”

“Man, I just want to have fun with my girl… Gimme a few more minutes…” I caved.

It was in my best interests to keep Malania safe too, I didn’t want her to get caught up in the crowd of paps.

Carsen seemed to accept my bargain and watched me wade over to my girlfriend who was waist deep in the water. “We should probably go…” she murmured when I reached her.

I wrapped my arms around her and smiled, “yeah, it’s starting to get a little crazy, I’m sorry.” Her hair was wet and her body was glistening with water and she looked crazy beautiful. I could barely keep my hands off her. I pressed my lips against hers as her hands found mine.

“Mr Jackson, shouldn’t you be preparing for your case?” a man with a camera asked. He had no regard for his brown slacks and sandshoes as he made his way in to the water.

Malania and I were headed for the sand, ready to find our towels to leave. “Don’t you think that people want to know you’re taking this seriously?” he pressed us.

“The charges are a joke,” I replied back, “why should I take them seriously?”

My response seemed to make all of the paps lose their shit. They all broke the invisible barrier that kept them away and almost respectful of our space.

They all began firing questions and remarks at us, trying to make us bite. I made the decision not to say another word, but something managed to trigger my anger.

“Your woman’s got a bangin’ body, Mike, good going!”

I had an arm around Malania. On one hand he was right, she did have a banging body, but she was my woman and I didn’t like that anyone ogling her let alone objectifying her right under her own nose. I felt her almost recoil and I knew the comment bothered her.

I immediately reached for the towel that Carsen was holding out for me. I draped it over her shoulders. “Say what you want to me, but don’t you disrespect my girlfriend.”

“Michael, it’s okay,” she said softly, but I knew that it wasn’t.

There was always some asshole just waiting to piss on the parade. I pulled a towel around myself and let Carsen and the other two guards make a small shield around us.

By the time we made it back to the SUV, quite a crowd had gathered and I waited with baited breath for one of them to start tearing shreds off of me.

“Are you okay?” I asked, turning to Malania once we were on the road.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?” she asked. We were both still wet with our towels draped over us, sand dusting the floor of the car and the seats we were on. She had a tiny bit of sand on the bridge of her nose. I smiled and reached over, brushing it off with the bend of my forefingers. “I’m okay.”

“Boss, your check out time is at midday, we’ll drop you off and pick you up after we’ve finalized your accommodation.”

“Thanks Carsen,” I called to the front and regarded him with appreciation for not telling me off or allowing me to know that he was bothered by our very public appearance at the beach.

**

I dropped my towel when we closed the door of our villa behind us. Malania had thrown a t-shirt on over the top of her black bikini.

I followed her upstairs where she began to open the bag that we shared all of our belongings. She started folding up her clothes and placing them carefully in to the bag before working on mine.

“Hey, we still have like an hour and a half-“ I told her, “what’s the rush?”

She looked up at me, her serious expression softened. “I just don’t want us to leave anything behind.”

“I don’t mind, if we clean up now we don’t have to do it five minutes before we leave.”

Her hair was still slightly damp and a little frizzy from the sea. She had tied it up in a top knot and roamed the room, making sure to pick up anything that had been discarded the night before.

“Did you have fun at the beach?” I asked her, knowing that she cleaned as a means of dealing when she felt a little stressed.

“Yes,” she answered. I made my way to the side of the bed that was closest to the bathroom where she stood. “Come on, relax – what’s up?”

“Nothing,” she smiled and I felt for a moment that maybe she was telling the truth.

“You’re okay with everything that we talked about this morning and taking that pill and you’re okay with swimming openly at the beach while people stood around and gawked and took photos and totally okay with some creep making a comment about how hot you are?”

She chuckled, “Well… when you put it like that, it seems as though we’ve had a really jam-packed morning.”

I shrugged, “Just a regular morning of my crazy life.”

She nudged me in the gut, “Hopefully not all of our morning was a regularity in your life.”

“I mean – no, not all the parts.”

“I’m sincerely okay,” she replied, letting me distract her from picking up the room. I kissed her lips and encircled my arms around her neck.

“Good, because I need us to be okay. I need you and I to be solid as we move through this first week cos I have a feeling this next week will probably be the hardest part—you know, getting used to having to appear in court.”

“Baby, you and I are solid,” she told me with certainty as she held my gaze. “That’s probably the only thing I’m sure about right now.”

The confidence in her words gave me some comfort. I didn’t want us to have any problems. I wasn’t sure I had the energy for it.

I kissed her again and let myself fall back on the bed, pulling her closer to the space between my legs. I tilted my head up, gauging her reaction to see if she really just wanted me to leave her alone.

“Michael, you’re going to make the bedding damp,” she warned me with a playful roll of her eyes. “Come on, get up…”

“I’m sure housekeeping can manage it,” I shrugged, “I’m not totally done hanging out.”

I wasn’t sure if she was aware that I was attempting to make a move on her again. I still felt guilty over the events that transpired in the morning; I almost wanted a do-over where I wouldn’t have to get my guys to procure a pill that would end a life before it had the chance to begin.

A little part of me still felt sick about it despite the fact that I managed to push the niggling feeling aside.

I let it go; maybe she was still bothered too and if she was, I could understand. I didn’t feel as though she was angry with me still, but perhaps the new experience had been marred by the early morning aftermath.

I decided to get up and help. She probably would have grown frustrated with me leaving mess after myself. I picked up the bathroom, throwing the used towels in to the bathing area as requested by housekeeping and then I began to put away our belongings.

“Michael… can I ask you something?”

I looked up and found her leaning against the doorway, her head against the frame and arms folded a little insecurely against her. She was still wearing a the white tee over her bikini. The dampness of the bikini made it a little transparent in her chest area.

I tried not to focus on her chest or her bare legs where she had discarded the towel from when we came back in.

“You just did,” I replied cheekily.

She gave me a brief smile that told me she was a little serious.

I dropped my smile and gave her that seriousness she was looking for, “Sure, sweetheart, you can ask me anything.” I stood by the basin waiting for it.

“Just for my own sanity,” she began, “if the situation was different – if you weren’t starting this trial – if I was in a more stable mind frame – say, down the track a little…”

I knew what was coming. She wanted assurance. I waited for her to finish.

“Would you have rushed out as quickly to make someone get me a pill?” she asked.

“No,” I smiled a little sadly. I hated that she felt she had to ask. I hated that she made it seem like I had panicked. She had panicked too. I saw the anxiety instantly fill her up when she considered the idea of a child of her very own.

She was not ready and despite how much I loved children, I didn’t particularly think that I was either.

“Do you really feel like I did that? That I did such a stereotypical male thing? That I did it so lightly with only my own selfish intentions?” I asked.

She shook her head, “No, I don’t Michael, I guess I just…”

The problem that I sometimes found with Malania is that when she mind was idle, her anxieties found their way inside of her. When we kept busy together, she was light and happy. At the beach when we arrived, we built sand castles in the damp sand. We engraved our names cheesily in to it and watched the water wash it away. We swam together and splashed each other and laughed and joked at the paparazzi.

Now that it was over, she had been given too much time to think.

“You want me to tell you that if in another time down the track this were to happen, that I’d freely accept any outcome?” I pressed her. I wanted to verbalise her feelings for her because I knew that sometimes she found it hard to communicate what she wanted from me.

“I guess so…”

I shoved my travel bottle of cologne in to my travel bag and zipped it up, picking up hers too. I made my way over to her and gave her another smile. “I’d hope that I wouldn’t make such a dumb mistake again, but if I did, I would freely accept any outcome – pregnant, not pregnant, becoming a parent—whatever, sure.”

“You keep calling it a mistake…” she moved out of the way for me and watched me put the two travel bags in to the open suitcase.

I turned back to her. “I love you,” I told her, “maybe I’m not using all the right words—but what I mean is, is that when our relationship is able to take on a more normal course, spending more time together, traveling together, when we both get our jobs back on track and when I decide to marry you, I’d prefer that we plan a family or together decide, ‘hey let’s start having kids’. I would never refer to any child I have as a mistake, Mal, but I think it would be a mistake to not enjoy us and have time as just us before we start throwing ourselves in to being a family. We both have so many things we want to do together….”

I was glad to see her smiling.

“Thanks…” she murmured, “That’s what I needed to hear.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself better… I know you think you suck at communicating—sometimes I’m not great at it either.”

I zipped up the suitcase.

“No, I’m oversensitive today… probably just everything… you know?”

I nodded. I knew. Sometimes dark moments enshrouded both of us when we reality visited us.

I reached out for her hand and waited for her to extend hers. I pulled her closer to me. “I love you…” I repeated again, smoothing my hands over her hair that was beginning to dry.

“I love you too.” I let her make the first move to kiss me this time. “I might go shower and get all that sand out of my hair,” she suggested.

“Alright, I’ll finish up getting everything together, do you need anything from your travel bag?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

I watched her head in to the bathroom as I moved our bag downstairs, leaving the jeans that she wanted to wear on the bed.

After everything was sorted, I made my way back upstairs and glanced out of the balcony window thinking over the night before having accepted that it just could have been my last night of freedom.

I almost felt nauseous as the thought hit me.

I wondered how Casey was faring, how things were for her health-wise. I wondered about Diane and whether or not there was any part of her that had remorse for what she was doing to me.

“Michael?” I heard Malania call me. The bathroom door remained ajar.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” I called back, breaking from my reverie.

“Can you come here…” I opened the door slightly, giving her privacy. Even though we’d made love the night before, I knew better than to overwhelm her by expecting her to be immediately okay with me seeing her naked.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Can you…” her voice sounded soft and almost too shy to continue with her request.

“Can I…?”

“Do you want to come in here and… hold me?”

I felt a smile spread across my lips. Of course wanted to get in to the shower naked with my girlfriend. I was a hot-blooded man. It had taken us so long to get to the part where I got to comfortably enjoy being vulnerable with her and I was aware that I still had to show patience.

She didn’t need to ask me again or explain herself further. I lost my own t shirt and my trunks and opened the shower recess and let myself in. I gave myself a moment to savor her. She had her back facing me and I found myself staring; admiring.

“Are you doing okay?” I asked her, resting both of my hands upon her bare hips as I inched closer to her. I let the warm water run over my body and watched goosebumps rise to the surface of hers from my touch.

“Yeah, I’m fine… I just wanted to be close to you again.”

She turned around, slipping her arms around me. I smiled at her and pushed her hair from her face. She still managed to conceal her nudity from me by pressing her body against me.

“Well that’s totally fine by me.” I kissed her forehead.

“I didn’t say it this morning, but I had a good time last night…”

“Yeah?” I grinned at her, “You think that you’d be up to do it again with me one day?”

She giggled, “maybe one day…”

“What if I promised that the next time you partake in such activities with me, I will make sure you’ll feel things you’ve never felt before…” I continued to tease her running my fingers over the bare skin of her shoulders.

“Really?” she averted her eyes up to mine briefly. Her cheeks were a little flushed.

I may have been shy myself, but I knew what I wanted when it came to the girl that I loved. I wasn’t shy about my own performance. I knew I was good and I knew how to make her feel good.

“Really, really…”

“Maybe I’ll be interested in seeing if you can make good on your promise later tonight…”

I kissed her lips lingeringly, “I won’t let you down…”

“Good… but maybe first you’ll organize some form of protection.”

“I will take care of that, yes ma’am.” I smirked hoping that she wouldn’t make too much of my slight erection.

“What about if Kaito comes back? What are you going to do then to make me feel such things?”

I laughed and my mood was instantly killed. “I guess we’ll wait for him to go to sleep… or we’ll take a drive to the giving tree, so I can show you how giving I can be.”

Malania finally just laughed. “Well, you just have an answer for everything—“

“Mhm,” I nodded, happy with myself.

“Come on baby, let’s hop out, by the time I finish doing my hair and getting dressed and ready to leave, it’ll be check out time.”

“Okay, I’ll leave you with it…” I kissed her again and left her in the shower to finish up.