Sexy SEALs by Sarwah Creed
11
It was a long ass drive, but I sucked in a breath as I arrived back home at the bed-and-breakfast. My legs felt like jelly and I couldn’t be bothered to take my bags out of the rented car. I told Nan the cost of it all, and all she was worried about was me making such a long journey alone. Also, I spent most of the journey drinking Red Bull, and Coke so that I wouldn’t have to stopover the night. If I did, then I would be stuck. I’d left leaving right until the last minute, even Lucy and Amanda both left in the early hours of the morning, whereas I was too lazy to get up and do the same.
“You going to stand out there all day like a stranger?” Nan asked, as she rushed up to me, once I got out of the car. I didn’t realize till I stood up, how long I’d been sitting down in the seat. It felt like a second skin.
“Nan?”
She shook her head, “Judy. How many times?”
Yes, how many times had she told us never to call her Nan, Grandma or anything else that could suggest that we were anything more than sisters or maybe she was one of my many young aunt’s. It was so funny, she was all about image, and I was the complete opposite.
“Judy, so nice to see you,” I said as I wrapped my arm around her designer dress, and then she pushed me away.
“Not too much, I’ve had it pressed only yesterday and we have a lot of guests coming in. So, you need to stop hovering around as if you’ve lost a bone, and help your dear old mom. She needs the support, both Greg and Claire have gone home. Quarantine and all that, they wanted to be with their family. We’re running things all alone.”
More like mom is running things alone.
Whenever I spoke to mom, all she did was complain about Nan spending more time being a celebrity rather than helping in the bed-and-breakfast, and all Nan did was complain about mom not understanding the pressures of fame.
Greg was the chef, and Claire helped clean the rooms, with both of them gone. This meant that we would have to do all the cleaning and cooking. I sighed as I thought about if coming back was a good idea, then it hit me.
What was I going to do here?
I loved the outdoor, but at least if I was full-on helping with the B&B then it would make the quarantine, a lot more bearable. The idea of staying here and keeping busy, would stop me thinking, there was nothing worse than an idle mind and whenever I was lost in my thoughts, all I ever did was think of dad.
How I missed him.
“Yes, dear, I was in Days of our Weeks. Do you want an autograph?” She asked a guest once we headed inside, who no doubt was waiting to check-in at reception, not get an autograph. It was then that I had a look at the place, it really had changed. There were pictures of Nan for the last twenty years that she stared in the show.
Yes, stared in it.
Her fans were told that she was retiring and needed a break from the show. Nan was getting a little too big for her boots, and every year demanded more money, more screen time until the new producer decided it was time to save the ratings and not worry about Nan’s demands. They paid her to leave quietly and she’s never said exactly how much they paid her, but when she offered mom a life away from the one that she had back home, she took it with open arms.
Dad died and it filled the house with memories, ones that she was happy to say goodbye to, to get away from our old life. She used to spend every night awake worried that she would have bad news, and when she did, it didn’t fill her with relief. Just more sadness.
“Mom, I waved, I saw a crowd that was building at the reception desk. It made me smile, to know that things were going in the right direction. At one time I was worried that they would have to sell-up and mom may have to go back to her job as a secretary and if it wasn’t for Nan, then I wouldn’t even be at college. Her money had helped pay for that too. She’d always been generous with her money, even when dad was alive.
Lucy and I promised to stay in touch, but that was when we thought we could visit each other. Who would have thought that we would have been back to square one, five years later. We were being quarantined again. The effectiveness of the vaccination was declining every six months with so many new strands, and we didn’t know what news station to believe, but one thing that was clear, we were to stay in and that meant coming back home, and by the look of things, people wanted to be quarantined here.
I didn’t blame them, we had a low infection rate and with the lake, mountains and natural walks that people could take and only 2 hours from the city. It made perfect sense for them to not want to be locked up in their apartments and wanted to be out. We all had three hours to prepare for the quarantine, and judging by the look of things, people had a bag just in case they had to escape.
I took my time as I walked to the elevator. Remembering the last time that I was here, and hoping that I would feel at home. I loved being here, it just didn’t feel like home. Sitting and waiting on news on dad, felt like home. Here just felt like Nan and mom’s home. Something that after speaking to Adonis, I knew I had to get out of my head. It was all in my mind, and that just made me feel even more frustrated. As I reached my door, I hesitated for a second, and then I opened it.
Mom had kept everything on my wall, everything from dad’s photos to medals were on my wall. Just the way I left them. I wondered if at times, she even came in here, when I was around.
It didn’t matter, I took a quick peak out of the window and could see more people were coming, the car park was filling up, and I had to get down and help.
I dropped my bags, ready to leave the rest in the car, and then headed back to the door, locked it and then ran down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I felt like a little exercise, before I made it to reception.
Nan said she needed help, but then usually that would mean I would check out the rooms or getting them ready, I wouldn’t be on the reception desk. Besides the bed-and-breakfast only had twenty-five rooms, but the expansion meant that there were six apartments too, which was probably why there were so many people.
One person on the desk was enough.
As I walked down, I could hear some noise. Some people were complaining and then I heard Nan repeat the words.
“Are you sure that you didn’t come here for me? I’m quite famous here in Creak town.”
“No, I came to see Kiara Lane. Is she here?”
My heart started beating uncontrollably as if I was going to have a heart attack, not that I knew what the experience would be like. I started sweating, I didn’t know their voices, but I could only imagine that they were here for me.
“Can you tell her that Adonis and Chaz are here?”
Yes, it was them.
What the hell was I going to do?
I hid. That was the right thing to do, behind the wall, next to the elevator, and I knew exactly what to do, I had to sneak out of here and turn off my phone. I couldn’t face them. Sure, we exchanged photos, I thought I would never meet them.
I should have been happy that they were here, but all I could think to do was slip through the kitchen and get out of here as fast as possible.