Full glasses and burju s.., p.1
Full Glasses and Burju Shoes, page 1
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
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
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Author Links
Marks of the Mazza
Books by Blake Blessing
In the mind of Blake
Who is Blake?
Blake Blessing
Full Glasses and Burju Shoes
Copyright © Blake Blessing 2018
All rights reserved
First published in 2018
Blessing, Blake
Full Glasses and Burju Shoes
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Editing by Jessica Nelson, Indie Books Gone Wild
Proofread by Elle Oberth
Interior Formatting by Gaynor Smith
All of Indie Books Gone Wild
Cover by Premade eBook Cover Shop
For anyone struggling with PTSD.
This book is for you.
As I sprint down the sidewalk, my flip-flops slap against the pavement. Sweat beads on my forehead as I greedily suck in air. You’d think with all of my extracurricular hobbies, I would be in better shape.
My breath comes in short gasps as I round the corner. Thumps of muted bass drown out the sound of my own breathing. I slow down and grab the stitch in my side as I catch sight of a demonstration happening behind the glass walls of the campus dance studio.
Completely captivated by the couple in the middle of the crowd, I come to a full stop. Damn near pressing my nose to the glass, I push up to my tiptoes to see through the gap between students. I barely make out the words to…“Drunk in Love?” A club remix, or maybe a Latin remix.
There isn’t an inch of space between the pair. The woman has on a sports top and black leggings, rocking Latin-chic high heels. The way she moves is so fluid, she completely steals the show from her partner. He moves effortlessly with her, only a prop to her final scene.
Their hips are more than gyrating. No, not gyrating at all. Swinging, rotating, rolling. They are two coordinated waves, moving in synchronized grace but never actually touching.
They stop moving for a beat. The man’s hands barely touch her high on her sides as he guides her into a rolling pattern, back and forth, as smooth as the rising tide. The beat kicks up at the same time their bodies twist in a tight circle together, sharing breaths, noses grazing.
This has got to be the hottest dance I have ever seen. So intimate. We shouldn’t be watching this sensual moment. But we are.
The music stops, and the couple ends in an embrace. The duo holds the pose for several seconds, inhaling deeply. Secret smiles are exchanged when they look into each other’s eyes. They break apart, face the crowd with their clasped hands raised, and take a bow. The crowd erupts into loud cheers and catcalls.
They felt it too.
It’s the flush in their cheeks and the brightness in their eyes, glowing with emotion the dance provoked. I only caught the last minute, and even I’m moved by the energy in the air. It’s fucking contagious.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I pull open the glass door and step inside. Cool air rolls over me.
“Thank you! Thank you so very much for attending our bachata demonstration. We have flyers on the table by the door. If you would like to learn more and/or enter the contest during the 2019 Latin Festival this winter, please contact us via email. It’s listed on the flyer. We will be here for the next fifteen minutes answering questions. Please don’t be shy!” The man’s rich voice projects easily around the room, a heavy Spanish accent lacing his words.
Since I’m still by the door, I’m one of the first people to reach the table. The flyer has a picture of this duo with Bachata scrolled across the top in elegant script.
Backing out with the flyer in hand, I kick into a run. Danny won’t care that I’m ten minutes late. It was finals today. He cares more about my grades than I do, so the stink eye is all that’s in store for me, but I don’t want to take advantage of his grumpy kindness.
I hold the flyer steady as I run. My pounding steps jar the paper, but I don’t have time to slow down.
Bachata Contest, December 22nd for all levels, held at the convention center, downtown Denver.
My mouth lifts into a smooth grin. Hells yeah, I just found my next obsession. Bachata. I imagine myself moving like a goddess among men, worshiped by my faceless, nameless partner. I can totally see it.
I reach the Cracked Door, the best restaurant in Denver and my current place of employment. Still focused on reading the rest of the flyer, I blindly reach out for the handle to pull the door open.
“Oomph!” I grunt.
A stranger about tramples me on the sidewalk, forcing the air out of my lungs. I almost died right here in front of my work. How inconvenient.
“Watch it, carajita,” the stranger growls as he stomps toward the parking lot. He looks angry even from this angle. His shoulders are shrugged up by his ears and the veins in his arms stand out, running all the way down to his clenched fists. He’s not half bad from behind. A good six inches taller than my 5’5”. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, and hips accentuated nicely by his black T-shirt and tan cargo shorts. He has a nice neck, too.
It’s weird I would notice this, but for some reason, a nice neck makes or breaks a man’s attractiveness. If he has a straw neck, it looks like a clay head stuck on a toothpick. If he has a tree trunk neck, then he looks like he has no neck at all. No, you need one that’s in the middle.
“Rude much, buddy?” I call after him.
His only response is to flip me off.
Yowza, people these days. Don’t they know all that negativity isn’t worth it?
The man forgotten, I rush into the restaurant looking for Danny. It’s early afternoon, so there isn’t a crowd yet. That will start around four o’clock. The shades are half open, filtering in orange sunlight through the slightly tinted windows. The place has an old western feel, with bullhorns hanging on all the walls. You would think Danny was a collector.
Only Stace and Andrew are on the floor, so Danny must be in the back. I stop by the bar to stash my stuff before my shift, pulling out my non-slip waitress shoes. Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Back Road” comes on, inciting me to hum along and sway my hips. I keep stealing glances at the flyer on the counter as I hop around trying to lace up my shoes without sitting down.
“What are you doing?” Danny bellows from behind me.
A small shriek escapes me as I whirl around. Danny is the crazy uncle I never had. He was in the Vietnam War and has definitely done his fair share of living, shown in his rough tanned skin and the spiderweb wrinkles deeply etched into his face. He’s lived hard, played harder, and gone back for seconds.
This guy is never without his scowls or dour expressions, but he’s about as mean as Santa Claus and resembles him too. Danny has scruffy white hair and a salt-and-pepper beard that’s two inches too long to be neat. He ain’t skipping any meals, not with the gut hanging over his belt.
“Danny!” I give him my best smile. “Finals are over and guess what?”
He quirks an eyebrow.
Pulling the flyer from the counter, I slap it to his chest. “Bachata, baby!” I back away, hold my arms up as if I’m dancing with a partner, and do a damn good imitation of a salsa dancer.
“What the hell is that?” Danny says gruffly as he reads the flyer.
“The hottest, sexiest dance you could ever imagine. My new hobby, just in time for summer.” I start to twirl in a small circle, but an arm wraps around me and I’m roughly pulled around. Andrew, my dorky, younger co-worker grins boyishly at me as he tries to swivel his hips side to side. Poor Andrew. Dancing just isn’t his thing. It’s also his bad luck he has a toothpick neck.
“I’ll be your partner, Pear Bear.”
“In your dreams, Randy Andy.” I laugh and push him away.
“It says here that Bachata is a Dominican Republic dance. Looks racy, that’s for sure.” Danny scratches his stomach as he flips the flyer over. “You trying for the competition?”
“Nah. I just want to learn. It looked like my kind of thing.” I stop dancing and lean against the counter.
Danny looks dee
“Ya know, kid, I think I know someone who could teach you. He might would do it for free as a favor to me. Let me mull it over.”
“Sure.” I shrug. The bell on the door clangs, and a couple of men come in and scope out the best seating. I make my way around the counter to snag them and start my shift. No official clock-in for us. Danny’s old school like that. We get paid for the hours he schedules if we aren’t too far off from time.
“Kid. What’s the best advice I ever gave ya?” Danny calls.
“Keep the glasses full. Never let the drinks go empty,” I yell back.
It’s noon and I’m fucking roasting in my dress blues. I don’t have a clue who decided to have the funeral at noon in June, in Colorado, but they are idiotas. I hear sniffling beside me and look down at Mrs. Collins.
¡Qué vaina! Now I’m the idiota. I probably just called Collins’ mom an idiot. Doesn’t matter that it wasn’t out loud. The wash of guilt is strong today.
Collins.
Fucking Collins. Best brother I ever had. A few years younger than me, full of life. He never got weighed down like I do. He’s the whole reason I moved out here last month.
“Espo, man. You need to move out to Colorado. I know it’s hard right now, I know life won’t ever be what we thought it was. But listen—no one can be depressed in Colorado. It’s sunny 300 fucking days out of the year.”
It’s like I’m reliving that conversation all over again, I hear him so clearly. We were going to start our own business, he said. Live it up in bachelorhood, he said.
Shit, I can’t even believe this is happening.
How did we survive extended tours in Iraq and Kuwait, doing some damn crazy shit, never knowing if we were going to make it home or not?
So many times I heard the whispered prayers of men wanting to see their mom again, wanting to see the baby born while on deployment, just wanting to live, when everyone was supposed to be sleeping. Shock waves from multiple IED explosions would travel through our tent city, reminding us that we were sleeping in enemy territory.
Why would Collins survive that hell, only to come back here and die two months later? Two fucking months later, in a car accident. Completely random. The brakes of the other car went out, and they hit his jeep head on. Dead on impact. How is that fair?
It’s not.
Collins did too much good in his life to die at twenty-seven years old. Doesn’t the time he spent serving his country mean anything?
What about when he helped save a boy from a suicide bomb?
We weren’t supposed to help that boy. It was a known tactic to send women and children to the troops with bombs strapped to their bodies, in an effort to take out as many of us as they could. But that wasn’t good enough for Collins. I have no idea how he did it. But he did it. He was able to get the vest off the kid and run with him a good fifty meters, diving behind a wall, before it detonated. No lives lost.
That should be enough to earn him a long life of happiness. At the least, God should have taken me instead of him. I came back so broken, it’s hard to even go to the grocery store. The crying children, the 100 different fucking kinds of cereal to choose from. It’s too much. Too overwhelming. Why couldn’t it have been me?
It really makes me question God. Mai raised me Catholic, but after everything I’ve seen… I don’t know. There’s just too much evil in the world to believe in a loving, forgiving God.
A few of the soldiers from our platoon made it in for the funeral. They stand around and behind me, all dressed in their finest to honor our fallen brother. I get the right-hand seat to Mrs. Collins since she knows me best. I’m the only one who was local. The preacher finishes his message, and Mrs. Collins moves up to the coffin laid just below the ground. She’s here alone.
In that way, Collins and I were alike. I only had my mom, and he just had his. Mai was fortunate enough not to see me buried. She died from a heart attack while I was deployed, and I was devastated I couldn’t be here for her when she passed. The guilt is so heavy, so intense. I feel like coffee grounds in a cup of coffee. Always on the bottom. A good stir might lift me up a little bit, may even make me think I have a shot at having a normal life, but I always settle back to the bottom.
Mrs. Collins lets out a wail as she sinks to her knees. It’s so piercing, it steals my breath away. Her heartbreak is tangible. I know now. My mai truly was blessed never to have had to experience this.
Kneeling next to Mrs. Collins, I wrap her soft, wrinkled hand in my own. I have no fucking idea what to tell her. I just sit there, offering her a silent show of support. I say my own prayer for Collins, complete with a Hail Mary for good measure. Whether I believe in God or not, I have to believe he is somewhere better.
The rest of the funeral goes by in a blur. I make inconsequential small talk with the people I know and even some I don’t.
Mostly answering questions like:
“How do you know Patrick?” Army. “Are you in town for long?” Local.
Then I acknowledge statements like:
“He didn’t deserve this so young.” I agree. “This is so hard on Colleen.” Damn straight.
Or my favorite. “He died a hero, even if he died here.” Who the fuck are you to make that statement? It doesn’t matter where he died. He died a hero because of who he was, not what he did for a couple years of his life. That’s bullshit.
So over being here, I head out to the truck.
I yank my door open, ready to slide in, when my phone rings. Danny Barrett. Pai’s best friend from the army.
“Yello.”
“Emil, son. How are you holding up?” I let out a deep breath. This is Danny. I know he cares about me, or he wouldn’t be asking. This isn’t just polite conversation because society expects us to ask and answer these questions.
I scrub my hand over my face. “Rough. It’s been a real rough day, bacano.”
He pauses on the other end of the line. He understands what today is. How it feels to lose someone too soon and the unjustness of it all.
Danny clears his throat. “I’m sorry to hear that. You know I understand too well what you’re going through. Are you doing anything the rest of the day? You know you’re always welcome to hang out with this old man.”
“I know. I’m going to head home. I can’t be around anyone right now.”
“I get it. But I just got you back in my life, so I want you to come see me as much as you can. Let me know what your schedule’s like. I might even try one of these survival courses myself.”
He’s referring to the business I started with Collins. We’re survival teachers and guides. Teaching others how to handle themselves in a “hostile” environment. The kind of hostile that isn’t the middle of a war zone. Joke’s on Collins. He was the one who knew what the hell he was doing. I grew up in the Bronx. I only know what the army taught me. Hope that shit’s enough to keep this business going. But I’m not sure I can work with civilians all day, every day right now. Too much anger and fear. On my part.
“I won’t let you be a stranger.”
“Speaking of. When you were in yesterday, did you happen to see a foxy little redhead?” Hearing Danny refer to anyone as foxy almost pulls a smile from my lips. Almost.
“Yeah, a redheaded kid was walking in as I was leaving. Totally wasn’t watching where she was going.” I don’t know about foxy. Cute, yeah. She looked a little on the young side, though.
“That’s her. Never watching where she’s going. Full of life and spirit. A real gem. Anyway, she hasn’t had an easy life, so I take care of her where I can. She reminds me so much of Sonia, ya know? She loves finding new hobbies and interests. Bit of an adrenaline junkie too. I can’t think of anything she hasn’t tried, if not mastered. Her last hobby was bungee jumping. That about gave me a heart attack. She came in yesterday with this bright idea, she wants to learn bachata.” He says it with a hard k sound.
“You mean ba-ch-ata?”
“You know what I mean, smartass. Isn’t that something you used to do when you were young?” Oh, hell no. I know exactly where this is going.
“One, I’m still young. Only twenty-nine. Two, back when I was about twenty, I did dance bachata. It was the hype back then. I never danced professionally; you should find her a Latin school.”
