“What were you doing in the water? Were you trying to kill yourself?” he asked with widened eyes.
He did mention just now that I couldn’t swim.
Could it be...?
“Bradon, you don’t happen to really think that I can’t swim, do you?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him.
“You can’t...swim...” he murmured.
This time I could tell that he was less certain than before and there was an unmistakable look of hesitation and confusion in his eyes.
“Listen, I don’t know who told you that I can’t swim but I can. I can swim just fine,” I stated, slowly and clearly.
Bradon looked confused and he didn’t seem convinced about the fact that I could swim while I wondered how much longer I needed to deal with this nonsense of his.
“I’m not a pro but I’m quite a competent swimmer. Just so you know, I’m not going to simply and randomly drown in a swimming pool, and in case you haven’t realized, I had an instructor with me as well,” I explained while wondering why I had to point out the obvious.
How did he end up with the conclusion that I couldn’t swim, anyways?
Bradon looked at me without saying anything and I realized that he was still carrying me in his arms. I wasn’t even sure whether I was interested in knowing how this misunderstanding came about anymore.
“Can you put me down now?” I asked gruffly.
“Are you going to go back to the pool?” he asked as his arms tightened around me.
“I won’t. I promise, so can you please put me down now?” I requested.
It seemed like I had to kiss my freediving introductory class goodbye for good. Bradon hesitated a little before he gently let me down onto my feet. I turned to face him with my arms crossed over my shoulders the moment that my feet reached solid ground.
“Nevermind, whether I can swim or not. Where have you been?” I demanded to know as I turned the tables on him.
I folded my arms over my chest as I waited for him to explain his sudden absence. If he thought that I was just going to let this matter slide, he was about to find out that he couldn’t be more wrong. I didn’t want to be nosy and I didn’t care much about him and what he did but I truly believed that I deserved a proper explanation this time around.
“Something came up at work,” he replied simply.
I scoffed at his uninformative answer. In fact, I didn’t even want to count that as an answer. It felt like he was basically telling me to mind my own business because his work and what he did had nothing to do with me. He might not have been wrong had his ‘work’ didn’t leave me stranded on the island alone for a night and almost an entire day. The conversation was clearly over as far as Bradon was concerned because he walked past me without uttering another word.
“Wait!” I called after him as I reached out to grab onto his arm.
“What do you want?” he asked as he turned back to face me.
I held onto his arm with both hands as I thought that his arm felt so heavy. There was probably no way that I could hold him back by force so the fact that he was still with me was because he wanted to be.
“Answers. I want my answers...” I demanded as I glared up into his face.
His clothes were all wet and so was his blond hair that now looked a few shades darker than usual. He looked wild like a lion that had taken a bath in a river. It wasn’t at all an unpleasant sight to behold. His blue eyes looked as fierce as ever as he stared back at me but at the same time, I thought that he looked quite tired. Whatever he went off to do must have required a lot of his attention and energy.
“Did you...go back to the casino?” I asked in a small voice.
Flying there and back must have taken a lot of time and if he had to work on top of that then it wouldn’t be surprising if he didn’t quite get any quality sleep.
“Something like that. There’s nothing that you need to concern yourself about,” he replied dismissively.
“Did something happen? Something that you can’t tell me about?” I asked as the hold that I had on his arm relaxed.
His gaze met and held mine for a short moment before he slowly nodded his head. Everything about his demeanor felt like he was begging me not to ask him any more questions. Whatever it was, he wans’t going to tell me and that might be because he coudn’t. I didn’t like it one bit but I made the decision to be more understanding. After all, I also had many things that I couldn’t tell him. However, I hadn’t completely changed my mind about not wanting to let this slide; at least, not without a suitable price.
“Ok. I get it. I’ll stop asking...” I said softly before I let go of his arm completely.
Bradon was no longer in a hurry to get away from me. The wind had picked up and the sky above us had started to change color as the sun had started to set. A small shiver ran through my body and I realized that it had started to get chilly. That reminded me that I didn’t have much on while Bradon’s entire outfit was wet from his dumb decision to jump into the swimming pool.
“I’ll buy you whatever you want,” he suddenly spoke up.
Is he trying to bribe me or something?
“Is this your way of apologizing?” I asked after recovering from my initial astonishment.
“Is it working?” he asked before grinning at me.
“Does this mean that you’ve realized that you should be apologizing for what you did?” I asked in return as I continued staring at him.
–To be continued...