Mikey says, “We’re contracted to protect Daisy, Lily and Poppy, so we’re not leaving their sides.”
Rose glares and then mutters curses while she searches for her pepper spray in her handbag.
Poppy has fallen behind, fixated on a vendor’s booth selling porcelain sugar skulls, and Dave, her bodyguard, hovers over her. She seems highly unaware of what’s happening, and Sam is sprinting towards Poppy, leaving Connor, Loren, and Ryke alone.
“Traitor,” Rose calls at him. “Your gender needs you!”
“So does Poppy!” he shouts back.
Rose purses her lips, and I focus on the surfer tee heckler, who follows our guys for every step they take. He’s not alone. With his two buddies, they jeer in Spanish. I can tell by the way they pump out their chests, their muscles flexed and their arms gesticulating.
Three guys. Maybe these people aren’t random. Lo said that three guys have been pestering them all day, wherever they go. Maybe they found them again.
“Should we…？” Daisy hesitates to run to Ryke, but I hold her jelly arm in a firm grip.
“No, let’s stay out of it.” Though I want to be closer. So we keep our pace.
Ryke yells in Spanish so loud that my ears blister. There is pain in his voice, beneath the anger, and Lo struggles to detain him as he thrashes. “Connor,” Lo says, looking for help. Connor is listening intently to these three guys, not intervening.
We’re only five feet away. Surfer Tee yells at Ryke and Lo with just as much venom, and then laughs mockingly like he’s won a battle. Our lives are open to the public, like we live in a glass house, and people enjoy tapping on the walls, waiting and waiting for a reaction, for that little bit of entertainment. Forgetting that we aren’t performers or mannequins put on display.
Forgetting that we can feel all the same.
“CONNOR!” Lo screams for help again, Ryke tearing through his arms. He’s stronger than Lo. This has always been fact.
“Let him go,” Connor says in a stoic voice.
“What?” Lo breathes out the word. It pains me. I’m so close to him now. I reach out like I can touch him, but I feel a large hand on my shoulder. Garth.
He draws me to the side by a foot or two so I’m not smacked by flailing limbs. Daisy slips out of my grip, and Rose leaves her to strut further ahead towards the fight. Daisy stays upright on her own, swaying only a little.
“Connor, help me,” Lo pleads.
“I won’t,” Connor says like he wants Ryke to fight these people. “Just let him go, Lo.”
Then Surfer Tee creates a V-shape with his fingers and obscenely sticks his tongue through it. His eyes have shifted. And they land right on me. Chills race down my spine.
Lo glances over his shoulder, finding the source of the ridicule.
It was me.
All of it, I realize.
Maybe they’re saying my vagina is too big. I’m gross. I’ve slept with hundreds of faceless men. I’m diseased and disgusting. I am not fit to be a mom. I am and will always be a sex addict. Nothing more than that. I have heard it all and read it on social media. Though never have I witnessed it in Spanish.
I take another step forward, and Lo screams at me, “LILY, STAY BACK!”
My heart stops. The wrathful, pained look on his face plants me here as much as his voice. And his eyes flicker to my belly. I didn’t mean—I wouldn’t put my baby in harm’s way. I wasn’t going to. It’s just…Lo.
He breathes raggedly and nods to me like, please, Lily.
I nod back.
When he ensures that I won’t risk my safety, he spins back to his brother. In a single instant, Lo removes his hands off Ryke, and this is when I think Ryke will lose all self-control and throw a fist first, tapping into his aggressive side. He’s snapped. Long before now. But he doesn’t even have his fists barred yet, not even raised for a right hook or a sucker punch. He steps forward, then stops.
It’s so quick. The tallest of the hecklers charges him, his eyes set on Ryke. In three lengthy strides, he nails his knuckles into Ryke’s jaw. I can feel my heart beating out of my chest.
That is a sucker punch, one that lands Ryke on the cement pathway.
The other two hecklers jump on Ryke, which causes Lo to snatch their arms and land a punch or two.
I flinch as a pair of knuckles connects with Lo’s face. “Stop!” I shout at the hecklers, finding my voice with Lo’s pain. The dark ocean water is on our right, shops on our left, the moon overhead, the dock in view. We’re not that far away from the tugboat which’ll bring us to the anchored yacht.