Roatan Plunge | Love Travels #2

Five - Lorena

My eyes sputter open and I'm back to consciousness, being pulled above the surface again by someone who looks suspiciously like Óscar Calderón. My near-death-experience hallucinations are really beyond anything I would have expected. Whoever said your whole life flashes before your eyes was definitely lying. Because in absolutely zero instances in this universe would I ever be face to face with Óscar 'I Have Way Too Much Money' Calderón.

The sun burns my exposed skin. And I struggle against the arm encircling my waist. It's definitely real. But I can't be seeing this right.

Except.

Enrique's last name is... Calderón. What are the chances?

I shake my head, my ears roaring with the sound of the ocean. I really really hate the ocean. There are so many things down there that we just don't know about yet. Too many unknown factors.

The arm pulls me again and a deep voice tells me to put my feet down. "¿Estás bien? Can you walk?" he asks, still firmly gripping my waist with his arm, heat prickling at my exposed skin.

"Of course I can walk," I try to say, but instead I'm left wondering how to make my brain move my legs as my lungs burn with ice. My voice comes out as a sort of hoarse whistle.

The man turns again, brows knit together under the bright Roatan sun. How have I been here less than a day and I've already been thrown into the ocean by fate or the restaurant or whatever?

He really looks like Mr. Moneybags Calderón. Even if he's not Enrique's brother—I mean, Calderón isn't exactly an uncommon name in Honduras—Óscar is from the country. But he's at work in Spain, or so I thought.

I shake my head again to clear it, some semblance of normalcy reaching me as I plant my feet against the sandy bed of the ocean. Something squishy brushes my feet and I squeal, leaping back into my rescuer's arms before I realize what I'm doing.

And he catches me with ease, strong muscles brushing against my back and legs as he carries me to shore, lifting me above the water as though I weigh half what I do.

See? Way too nice to be Óscar. I'm just hallucinating.

"Are you okay?" he says again, placing me under a nearby beach umbrella set up for some type of restaurant beach dining or maybe left there by a tourist who voluntarily went for a swim. Despite the sea creatures.

"I think so," I mutter. "Thanks for getting me out of there." I shudder at the memory of the deep darkness swallowing me whole. That's probably the reason I've fabricated the most famous person I've ever heard of. It's like a normal trauma response or something.

"De nada. It's no trouble at all," he says with a smile. My whole face lights on fire when he brushes a strand of wet hair out of my eyes.

"No trouble at all?" a woman's shrill shout joins us and I'm suddenly acutely aware of the crowd that has since gathered to watch me nearly drown.

Excellent. Not at all mortifying. I'm perfectly fine.

"Marcia," the man cautions, tipping his head to me. "It was no trouble at all." The authority dripping from his voice when he says the second part is kinda hot, even if he is dating the beautiful woman now stalking toward us.

A girl who has just been saved from near-drowning is allowed to look, even if she can't taste, okay?

"It is going to be trouble if you injured yourself," she chastises.

"Is my life not worth an injury?" I wonder. But apparently drowning makes the brain to mouth filter power down and instead of thinking my sassy thought, it escapes my mouth, earning a small bark of laughter from my rescuer and a mortified gasp from the young woman now kneeling at my side.