Wheels of Steel, Book 3 (6 page)

Robin followed her back to the kitchen and while Belinda grabbed the sushi she grabbed the tea and they got into that huge bed of Peter’s and watched pay-per view movies on cable until it was time for Robin’s mother to come home.

Robin felt pretty good. She bid her friend goodbye promising to return and then she met her Mama for dinner.

Robin’s new routine was to sit with Belinda for a while. She tidied and did laundry and they watched tv or a rented movie. And then came the day that the phone rang and Belinda was talking very lovingly to her man. Robin got up to move out of the room to give her privacy but Belinda stopped her.

“Robin! Peter wants to talk to you.”

Robin shook her head. “I don’t-”

“This is freaking long distance!” She held out the phone and Robin reluctantly took it.

“Hi Sweetheart.” Came Peter’s voice.

“Hi Peter.”

“Thanks for looking out for B. I tried to call you to tell you to keep an eye on her for me. My Mom is going to come by every few days but…well you know how Moms can be.”

Robin relaxed a bit. “I know. I don’t mind hanging out with your girl.”

“Jason wants to talk to you.”

She bristled. “I didn’t…come here for that.”

“It’s fine. I don’t get into people’s business the way B does. I just thought I’d mention it. Can you make sure that she is taking every bit of her medicine? Sometimes she tries to slack off on one or two of them and they don’t work well if she doesn’t keep them in her system for the full ten days.”

“Yeah I’ll do that.”

“She hasn’t been smoking, has she?”

“No, at least not while I’ve been here.” She said honestly.

“That’s good. When are you leaving for the Bahamas?”

“Wednesday.”

“Oh cool, two more days. Have a safe trip. Can you turn the phone on speaker?”

“Speaker? Sure…” She found the speaker button.

“Hi B, can you hear me?” Peter’s voice said.

“Yep.” Belinda took the cordless phone out of Robin’s hand and then moved to the door and locked it. She then planted herself into a sitting position directly in front of the door.

“Robin?” Jason’s voice came across speaker. No…they had not set her up like that!!! Robin crossed the room to yank the phone from Belinda but the bigger girl placed it behind her back. Robin stood there in front of her glowering in anger. Belinda gave her a twisted smile.

“She’s here, Jason. She’s just mean mugging me. Go ahead.”

“Robin, don’t be mad at them. I asked them to do it, and they didn’t want to. But I needed to talk to you.” Robin automatically reached for the door knob before remembering that’s the reason that Belinda was sitting in front of it. Damn, they had really thought this out.

“Robin, I know that you’re pissed and hurt right now. I don’t want to be broke up with you. I love you.” He paused. Robin looked around, for some way to escape his words. It was agony to hear him say the words that could break her.

“I know you’re mad. But I know you still love me too. I got drunk. And I did something stupid. So I’m going to tell you what I did. Because if you’re going to break up with me then at least you’ll know everything and that’s better than not knowing.” He seemed unsure.

“We got to the hotel and checked into some poolside rooms. James got us ten rooms, nothing more than two double beds and a bathroom. The real party was the pool and Jacuzzi. I was too drunk to swim and knew it but me and Peter thought it would be okay to at least get into the Jacuzzi. Once we were in there we took off our underwear. You couldn’t see anything with the bubbles, I swear it!”

Robin stood silently listening even though she told herself that if the door was opened she would be out of there.

“Amberly got in. She was wearing underwear, I’ve seen her in a swim suit, so it was really no big deal. It just got stupid after that.” Jason took a deep breath. “She sat on my lap. I wasn’t wearing pants and…I just started to kiss her.”

Robin closed her eyes.

“And then I started to take off her bra and Peter asked me what the fuck was I doing, and I thought…yeah, what the fuck am I doing? And that was it. Nothing else happened. It stopped. I swear, that’s the god’s honest truth. ”

Robin couldn’t help it. She started crying quietly. Why did he have to do that? Why did he do that and then go off to Japan with her?

“Jason…” Belinda said quietly. “She’s crying. I think I better hang up now.”

“Robin! I’m so sorry. I wanted you to hear it from my own mouth. Nothing like that will ever happen again-!” Belinda disconnected the phone and stood up allowing her to leave. Robin tearfully yanked open the door and ran out of the apartment. She didn’t visit Belinda again.

Images of Amberly and Jason filled her dreams and when Wednesday finally came, she was never so glad to leave behind her cold dreary city. As they flew across the country, Robin’s quiet caused Betty to touch her hand. Robin looked at her mother.

“You can always get back together with him, Robin.”

Robin shook her head. “He had inappropriate contact with a girl and he doesn’t know why it was wrong to ask that same girl to go with him to Japan?” Robin shook her head dispassionately. “I am done with him.” She turned back to the window and looked out at the world below her.

They had just gotten a few inches of snow over the last few days and so when they landed in Florida and the air was actually muggy she felt a true system shock. They carried their coats in their arms and were wearing pants and short sleeved tops as Mama had cautioned her to do. But Robin was still in awe when they entered the terminal and saw people wearing shorts and tank tops even though it was considered winter.

Mama got them a taxi mini-van to carry their massive amount of luggage. And at the hotel they had a great room to share that was big and luxurious. Mama asked her if she wanted to do some exploring or if she wanted to hit the pool.

“Pool!” That was the very second that Robin decided that she was not going to ruin her vacation by being sad or angry. She decided that she was going to be brand new. And why shouldn’t she? No one knew that Robin Mathena suffered from panic attacks, was afraid of crowds, could barely meet a boy’s eyes. All anyone needed to know is that Sweetheart had lost her baby fat over the last few months and had a rocking new body and had already been in love and now considered herself out of it.

Robin put on a two piece bathing suit that she had planned to wear beneath an oversized shirt due to the amount of flesh that showed past the skimpy material. Ignoring the oversized shirt, she slipped on matching flip flops and when she came out of the bathroom her Mom raised a brow.

“Um…where is the rest of your suit?”

Robin laughed. “Mama. I hope you are not planning to wear no granny bathing suit.”

“Robin you have way too much ass for that suit! Go put on some shorts.”

Robin found her shortest shorts and slipped them on but kept them unbuttoned while her mother went into the bathroom and changed into a dreary brown bathing suit with old lady appliqués on the top. Robin gave her a long look.

“Mama, I want you to wear your hair down.” It was pinned up into a french twist.

“What? I’m about to swim, it’s going to be a mess!”

“And I want you to put on some more lipstick and I want you to take off that bathing suit and go through my bag and put on that other two piece I bought. We gonna burn that thing you are wearing!”

Betty opened her mouth to protest but then closed it. She tilted her head at Robin and then she smiled. “Okay.” She grabbed the two piece bikini out of Robin’s bag and went right back into the bathroom and changed.

When the two went to the pool, it was a fact that the light skinned woman with the long black hair that ran past her shoulder blades did not look like she could ever be forty-five years old. Her perfect body looked great in her multi-colored bikini that was cut high to show off her shapely legs in slip on heels. The caramel colored girl next to her that had the sexy gray/green eyes was shorter, curvier, and had caught the attention of many men that couldn’t take their eyes from the sight of her swaying hips.

Several men asked to join them or offered to buy them drinks which surprised Betty. She was unaccustomed to opening herself up to the attention of men. As their trip progressed she would learn to enjoy the attention. She certainly would become surprised that Robin was into partying to the degree that she was. It was something that she probably learned from her time with Jason and college kids.

Chapter 4

“Robin.” Robin squinted and then held her hands up to block out the sun. Mama was standing over her hammock. She was wearing sunglasses but the sun was still bright. “You cannot fall asleep out in the sun like that! Look at you! You are going to be pitch black by the time you get back to Cincinnati!”

Robin chuckled and then reached down for her Coco loco rum drink and almost fell out of the hammock. All she did was to laugh whenever Mama said something crazy like that.

She took a long sip of the delicious drink even though the ice had mostly melted and it was watered down. “Mommy…rub some…um. What’s that stuff called? Rub it on my shoulders.”

“Sunscreen?”

“Yeah.” She wasn’t quite drunk, but she wasn’t completely sober either.

Betty did not approve of Robin’s drinking especially considering her ulcer, but the one and only time that she mentioned it, Robin had calmly explained that vacation was time to indulge a little and that she would rather not have to sneak off somewhere in order to enjoy a little drink. Betty had not wanted her sneaking off somewhere to drink and so had dropped the subject. But over the last few days, a small drink had turned into lots of small drinks. But she would not nag her. She knew that Robin was dealing with a break-up and she could have been morose and hard to be around. Instead Betty found that Robin was the opposite. She didn’t allow herself to fall into a funk and she was truly fun to be around. They danced for hours and went to the casino and shopped. Maybe at times she did go a little overboard, but Betty appreciated the effort that it took for her to at least try.

She picked up the bottle of sunscreen while Robin sat up and straddled the hammock. She was just wearing a bikini and too-little shorts and was flashing anybody who looked in their direction. Betty grabbed a towel and tossed it into her lap. Robin just looked amused and then sighed in pleasure while her mother rubbed the lotion into her warm flesh.

A man walked by; the same man that Betty had noted on several other occasions. She always seemed to see him, his eyes watching her from a distant corner until she caught him and he’d look away. She would have never noticed him otherwise because he wasn’t a black man. He wasn’t white either; some race where the men were tall and dark skinned. This non-black man had thick wavy hair that was more white and gray than black. And he was tall enough to be a basketball player…and built like one too. He wasn’t with the two young women that she sometimes glimpsed. They looked enough like him that she knew they were probably his kids. In that way she marked his age and was a bit surprised that she had even bothered. She would have never noticed him, except for the fact that he noticed her first.

Since arriving on the ship, Betty had taken a cue from Robin and had begun wearing her long hair down and paying more attention to her makeup. She dressed a bit more stylish, sometimes wearing Robin’s clothes. Robin had brought nice outfits along with her but she had spent hours shopping for skimpier, hipper outfits. Betty didn’t necessarily like what Robin sometimes chose to wear, but again, this was her daughter’s vacation as much as it was hers so she didn’t make too big of a fuss.

Robin pushed down her glasses and caught the guy that was checking out her mother, but trying to seem as if he wasn’t. He almost tripped on a limb trying to slyly sneak looks at her in her black two-piece and sarong that contrasted so starkly against her pale skin. Robin stood carefully so as not to fall. It was easy to fall out of a hammock…especially when you added a few rum drinks to the mix.

“Mom. I need to go pee.” She leaned in to whisper to her. “Lay in the hammock, take off that sarong and listen to the music. If that man comes by once more you tell him hello. Okay?”

Betty looked at her daughter in surprise. But she wordlessly did as she was instructed. When Robin returned after peeing and with a fresh drink her Mom was talking to the cutie. Robin walked right past them. Good, if Mama got laid then she would stop worrying about what she was doing. They only had three more days in the Bahamas and she hadn’t gotten laid yet.