Our a Cappella Read online

  Our A Cappella

  By Yessi Smith

  Our A Cappella

  Copyright © 2013 by Yessi Smith. All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: March 2014

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1497385313

  ISBN-10: 1497385318

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to my favorite Hookas over at Momma’s Secret Book Obsession: Ty, Nat, Amanda, and Jodie. If it weren’t for you, Trent and Nate would never have been given a chance to tell their story. Love you chicks something fierce!!

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  “Maybe you are the sea

  and I am the storm

  that rages on it.

  Maybe you are the storm

  and I am the water

  made choppy.

  Maybe it doesn’t matter

  and all we ever do

  is dance

  until the salt

  and the rain

  get mixed up

  again.”

  -Tyler Knott Gregson

  Prologue

  If it were up to me, I would have gagged her, tied her hands and feet together, and only permitted her access to her voice and limbs once we were in front of a judge declaring our undying love for each other. But she wanted a beach wedding and since she hadn’t gotten much of what she wanted in life, I figured I could give her that. So I had to stand under the unforgiving Miami sun and wait for her, sure that she was already thinking about running.

  Nate won’t let her run though. He’ll rag on her until her pride gets the best of her, stiffening her spine as she walks towards me. Any minute now, he’ll get her hackles up and she’ll walk towards a future she wants as much as I do. We were already a family: Shayna, Erin, and me. A unity that couldn’t be broken.

  Life had already tried to break us, but as families do, we found our way to each other, our bond strengthened by our tribulations.

  Soon after the ca-caws were spread across the beach, Shayna walks down our makeshift aisle. She looks like a fairy princess as she tosses pink rose petals onto the white sand. My heart constricts, almost stops beating, when she looked up at me, her smile so wide and full of the purity that is Shayna. My perfect little girl.

  I only take my eyes off of her when I heard Love Will Keep Us Alive by the Eagles begin to play. My first glimpse of Erin leaves me breathless. She is the epitome of beauty in a simple gown and flip flops just as battered as mine. When she smiles at me, her beauty intensifies, leaving her radiating.

  When she reaches me, I hold out a hand for her to hold while the other traces the small of her back where she proudly showcases her tramp stamp: a harmonica with the words Our A Cappella written underneath it.

  Chapter 1

  Shayna – December

  Magic does exist. It really, really does. The larger-than-life talking Mouse only proves it. He was pretty cool to meet, but I can’t wait to hug the princesses and tell Tinker Bell that I’m a fairy just like her. Mommy says I’ll get to meet them all. Aurora, Ariel, Merida – Merida’s my favorite with her long red hair and her super cool bow and arrow.

  After meeting her, I wanna learn how to shoot a bow and arrow, too. And little brothers. I want seven of them, all twins. Just like Merida. Although she only has two brothers. But I want seven. And I’ll be the oldest so I’ll get to take care of them like I do my baby dolls, only they will be real babies with diapers. Yuck!

  We ate ice cream and pizza. In that order, because Daddy says the only rule in Disney World is to have fun. We rode tea cup rides and race cars. Uncle Nate bought me Mickey ears and I hope Tia Sofie will let me wear it at my next ballet recital.

  Tia Sofie didn’t come. She said she was too old for Disney, but Jose and I know the truth: Tia Sofie and Pop-pop Dan have a thing for each other. Like they’re all lovey-dovey for each other the way Mommy and Daddy are.

  Chapter 2

  Trent

  Our honeymoon to Bimini was better than any vacation I’d ever been on. We did the regular tourist things, lounging on the beach and wading in the translucent waters. And for the first time in months we didn’t worry about Shayna hearing us as we explored each other’s body, already knowing the depths we would drive one another to. I can’t tell you if every man feels this way, but there’s a sense of sensuality in the familiar, of touching what I know is mine. Erin reveled in the freedom and screamed her delight when my fingers found her most sensitive areas.

  The island itself was beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to go back as a family. But we were literally too entwined in one another to fully appreciate the beauty the island offered us in her simplicities.

  Five months after our wedding, we decided to take a more family friendly vacation and ring in the New Year in the happiest place on Earth. Yep, Disney World. Nate and his dad came down from Alabama to celebrate with us, although Dan wound up hurting his back and stayed behind with Sofia. I have a pretty good feeling that Dan’s back hurts about as bad as my head hurt that memorable night Erin and I left a charitable event early. We barely made it out of Jungle Island before Erin took control and I, for the first time, lost it. Just thinking about that night hardens me, pulsating my blood violently throughout my veins.

  Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck, I force myself to picture the freakishly large characters so I don’t give into my always present hunger and take Erin right here, in front of the poor unsuspecting children. Spending a couple nights in Disney Prison just might be worth it, I think as she walks past me in shorts far too short for a place where toddlers are in control.

  Since Sofia couldn’t come with us, she let her foster son Jose go without her. It’s his first time in Disney and he’s trying to be a hard ass and not enjoy it too much since Zombies and gore aren’t a common theme. Brianna and Jermaine were going to come as well, but Brianna’s morning sickness doesn’t allow her to leave the bathroom for long periods of time, so Tonya came without her sister and has been bickering nonstop with Nate.

  Call me Cupid, but they’ve got their own thing going, too. Erin hasn’t realized it yet and I’m tempted to tell her, but I figure that’s Nate’s job. I’m sure she’ll be happy, because, as they say, misery loves company and Erin is miserably in love with me and wants her brother to be just as miserable as her.

  Nate, Jose and I leave our group for ten minutes so we can buy the girls some ice cream – yea, more ice cream – and meet back with them while they’re in line for It’s a Small World to find a stranger behind them complaining, clearly upset
at something the girls had done. That’s how long it takes for my wife to get in trouble – ten minutes.

  Erin and Tonya chat, completely unaware of the chaos they have somehow created, while Shayna peaks at the stranger from behind Erin, her eyes as wide as saucers. I glance at Nate whose amused eyes meet mine and we shrug. As we near them, I see the stranger’s irritation grow and step in front of him when he reaches to touch Erin’s shoulder.

  “Is there a problem here?” I ask him, accidentally bumping my shoulder into Erin’s.

  “What the hell, Trent?” Erin demands, but I ignore her.

  The stranger shoves me, mumbling incoherently under his breath, so I step forward.

  “I didn’t catch that, man,” I tell him as he backs away from me. “You wanna speak up?”

  “They cut in line,” he mutters, pointing at the girls who are openly gawking at me as if I’m the tyrant.

  I look past him and for the first time notice how long the line is behind us and how close we are to getting onto the ride. The line couldn’t have grown that much in ten minutes, which means that yep, the girls cut in line. Accident or not, you just don’t do that in Disney.

  I take another step towards the stranger, who is being pacified by his family.“I don’t see a problem here, do you?” I ask, using the same tone of voice when I’m on duty dealing with irate criminals.

  “Th-they cut in line,” he repeats, his face reddening in either anger or embarrassment, probably both. That particular tone tends to both intimidate and embarrass so I save it for special occasions.

  I look around, fully aware that this stranger is correct, but Hell-bent on defending Erin.

  “Trent,” Erin hisses, her tone practically ripping my sac open for the on-lookers to see.

  Annoyed, I ignore her. “I think you should go,” I tell the man who looks at his family and agrees.

  “I swear I can’t take you anywhere,” Erin whispers, disapproval clear in the way she glares at me. “The happiest place on Earth,” she says waving her hands around, “and you manage to get in a fight.”

  “Because of you,” I tell her.

  “Because of me?” she counters.

  “You girls cut in line,” Nate tells her, amused at the whole situation.

  “We did not,” Tonya retorts, but looks at the line behind us. “Did we?”she waivers.

  “We did,” Shayna whispers, her eyes still wide. “Are we gonna be in trouble?”

  I laugh and pick her up, kissing her on the forehead.

  “I think Daddy took care of it,” Erin tells her, trying to hide a smile.

  Compared to our escapade in front of It’s a Small World, the rest of the day was fairly boring, with only the squeals of joy from my favorite fairy princess as she took over Disney. Even Jose got into the spirit when we rode the Buzz Light year ride and he outscored all of us.

  At night we order pizza from a local diner and eat in the back patio of the house we rented. The pizza is a creation from God himself and is layered as a lasagna with cheese and meat oozing out of every bite. Unable to keep up with the activities of the day, Shayna falls asleep with her head resting next to her plate. I take her to her room and tuck her in with Erin’s hand firmly in my back pocket. I smile back at her and she leans in to kiss our girl good night.

  “I have to study,” Erin tells me after we shut Shayna’s door behind us.

  I try not to scowl. After all, she’s getting her Master’s in Nursing so that the three of us can have a better future. At first, I had wanted to deter her from the idea of continuing her education. I was happy with the present we were already living, but Erin wanted to ensure Shayna would have a more secure life than she’d had. How could I argue with a logic that included a better future for Shayna?

  But her Master’s classes demand more of her than I know she can handle. She doesn’t complain, but I see the stress building. As she engulfs herself deeper in her studies, I feel a gap between us grow. A gap that so early in our marriage, shouldn’t exist. A gap that I should ignore so I don’t add to the weight she’s already carrying. But it’s there and, because I’m not as good of a man as I should be, I’ll admit that her making time for Shayna and not for me, pisses me off.

  Before she can walk away, I grab her by the waist and kiss her slowly; already knowing she’ll turn down any of my advances. I deepen my kiss until I hear her moan, determined to at least make her think of me while she’s studying.

  Chapter 3

  Nate

  Here I am, not even knockin’ on thirties doors and I’m sick. Not just sick with a cough, but sick sick. Ain’t that some shit.

  For a while now, I hadn’t been feelin’ right. Ya’ know, my energy was low, had a cough I couldn’t get rid of and these night sweats that left my sheets soaked. So I manned it up and went to the doctor. He gone and ran some tests, which led to more tests and before you knew it, he had me doing a chest x-ray.

  I din’t tell Pop or Erin ‘cuz I was sure it was nothing. I’m a healthy eater, with one cheat meal a month at Pop’s diner. I run every day and lift weights. I’m strong and healthy. So I was sure it was nothing.

  Turned out the x-rays showed something. That something still din’t bother me much. Just some fluid in my lungs and a small blurry mass in my chest. Doc said it could be anything so I figured that anything meant nothin’.

  Again, I din’t tell Pop or Erin and I went to work waitin’ on the insurance company to approve a CT scan. An’ lemme tell ya, insurance companies are a pain in my ass. You’d think I’d get special treatment ‘cuz I’m a cop and protectin’ people is kinda what I do. You’d think wrong.

  A couple months passed by and them bastards finally approved the CT scan. An’ that small mass I had when they first did the x-rays had nearly doubled in size. That’s when I knew it wasn’t nothing. This was serious.

  So here I am, all twenty-four years of me and I got cancer. Doc won’t say what kinda cancer I got. Not till they cut me open and do a biopsy, but it’s probably lymphoma.

  Ain’t that some serious shit?

  I decided to put off tellin’ Pop and Erin about the cancer ‘till after Shay’s birthday. I don’t want that hangin’ over their heads when they should be celebratin’. Goin’ down to Miami, I knew I shouldn’t’ve kept on whatever it is Tonya and I started, but there’s certain things that just aren’t in my control.

  Cancer’s one of them. Tonya’s another. They’ll both blow up in my face before long. ‘Til then, I like holdin’ Tonya in my arms, the way she wraps herself around me, how dominant she is in bed. She’s got a whip, no lie. I’ve done the whole handcuffs and blindfold thing. But a whip? Now that’s a woman. Maybe she’ll give me a heart attack one night in bed and I won’t have to worry about the cancer.

  It ain’t just the sex although I like to think it is. I’m in no need of a relationship right now. But she’s got me, not that I’d tell her. She’s easily the most beautiful woman I ever set my eyes on. Her skin is flawless, almost looks like some photographer photo shopped her ‘til there wasn’t a flaw to be found. He missed one scar on her right butt cheek, which comes with its own funny story. From how she tells it, she was visitin’ family in Jamaica when she was a little girl. They were all on a boat when a wave hit the boat hard and she fell butt first onto an anchor. Okay, it’s not funny, but she laughed when she told me the story and her dimples had me laugh in return.

  Her hair looks like a whirlwind of chaos. The messiness originally misled me into thinkin’ she din’t much care how she looked, which made her perfection all the more sexy. Soon as I got to know her, I found out she spends too much time creating the perfectly thought out chaos that is her hair. Which, funny enough, is even sexier.

  Her eyes are a dark chocolate brown which stands out against her lighter toned skin. An’ the way her eyes smoke over when we’re in bed together would undo the most uptight of men.

  She’s got me bad, which only makes my secret that much harder to tell. I’m scared of losin
’ her when she finds out. But more, I’m scared she’ll stick around.

  My momma went through chemotherapy when I was just a boy and I remember asking her if it hurt. I’ll never forget her words.

  She shook her head at me and said, “Nah, baby. I got the easy part. It’s the people who love me that suffer.”

  I never understood her words ‘til now. If my cancer’s as bad as the doc thinks it is, it could be close to a year of hard chemo. An’ the people who love me are the ones who are gonna suffer as they watch me get sicker and sicker, unable to do anything to help me.

  I try not to think about any of that as I lie down next to Tonya. We are, after all, in the happiest place on Earth. At least that’s what everyone keeps tellin’ me.

  I rub Tonya’s back, wantin’ to wake her up so I can kiss her some more, but she’s sleepin’ soundly beside me. She’s so beautiful, awake or asleep, it don’t matter. Unable to resist, I kiss the back of her shoulder. I continue to kiss ‘till I’m kissing her neck. I feel her stir with a soft murmur so I continue to kiss her, drapin’ my arm over her body so I can caress her stomach. Eventually she turns over and looks at me through sleepy eyes.

  “Nate?” she asks.

  “Were you expectin’ someone else?” I ask but kiss her lips before she can say anything.

  Her response to me is immediate. She slips her tongue into my mouth and she tastes like Heaven. I cup the back of her head, letting our kiss grow until she’s tuggin’ at my underwear and strippin’ them off of me.

  This is what I wanted. She will drain my mind of everything but her. Consumed with her scent, her taste, and the feel of her skin, I will finally find peace.

  I flip her over so that she her body is facin’ the bed and I lean over her, kissin’ her back as I slip a finger inside of her, while my thumb caresses her clit. She moans my name repeatedly until she is all that I hear.