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The pool is dark — silver moonlight reflecting off the black surface of the deep end — and Sylvia’s pearl-drop earrings glint like bullets.
When Travis walks up, he has his hands in his pockets, and his rose-tinted sunglasses still on, despite the shade of night.
Sylvia dips one foot in the water. Cross-legged and sitting at the pool’s edge, with an itty-bitty black miniskirt on, she is careful not to splash stray droplets onto any fabric. “Travis,” she says, accent thick as ever. “I have been thinking about you~”
She says it slyly, but there’s a twinge of the actual seriousness hidden beneath the surface tension.
A lull happens. Travis steps closer to her, shifting his weight from left foot to right. “Syl…?”
“You should sit down with me. It is rude to keep a lady waiting on her own, hmm?”
“You don’t care about shit like that. Not really.” He sits, and splashes his feet in without a care, wetting his sneakers and jeans.
Sylvia feigns some disgust, but the truth is that she would much rather be having this conversation over cellphone while she gets a hot stone massage. She leans her head onto his shoulder regardless.
He can see her better in the pale moon-glow, now. She wore a very short, cream halter top, strapped around her neck, with low cleavage. Her midriff was exposed, slightly tanned from the sun…
Just earlier today, before dusk, she’d been at a goat yoga class on the beach. There were still grains of sand at the ends of her hair, and some dry patches on her bare arms and legs and stomach. He could see all the little bits of sand, now, when he was close to her like this, and the salty smell of sweat mixed in with her Givenchy perfume.
Which was…odd, for her. It was puzzling. She hadn’t showered since then?
A subtle lapse of her usual composure.
Travis clears his throat, pulling his eyes away from her breasts and slim waist — praying that Travis Jr. decides not to pop up healthily in his pants at this inopportune moment. “Th-Thinking about little ol’ me, you said? What about me?”
“Thinking about how you have grown on me lately,” she says, smoothly. “How I would not mind this— Us, to go on for a while more.”
“Hey. This isn’t some kinda weird guilt complex you have after poppin’ my cherry in downward dog, is it?”
“Travis.” She shakes her head and pinches the bridge of pointy nose, muttering something in French. “Non, non. You are so vulgar. You know I love you.”
He looks away. He does; he does know. And he knows exactly what she’s hoping for now. He’s longed for the same, since he took her back to Santa Destroy. “Doesn’t it…worry you? To be married to an assassin? I mean, you kinda already did it once before but—“
“—This was the most perfect place to invite you…like a reunion,” she says firmly and coldly, cutting him off. “So, do not squander this opportunity. I’m only going to ask you this once: Will you keep staying with me, or not?”
Her words seem far out, so far out that they drift off the coast of the seaboard.
Travis has put a hand on her shoulder. “Sylvia. I don’t fuckin’ know. Is this really an option? Shit, I don’t even know if you’ll be completely safe. I might not be able to see you too much. And…”
“That is expected,” she agrees, but doesn’t seem particularly fretful. “I can stay here. I think this place is nice.”
“I mean, if you hide, yeah, it’d probably be fine. I’d do what I could to protect you, but I can’t guarantee anything. Not with all those fucks running around…” Travis drags his silver aviators up onto his head, and his gaze flickers. The pool water ripples and warps the moon’s reflection. “…But you know that already. Fuck, you’ve been involved with it for so long by now.”
“I know~”
“And I figure you don’t give a damn.”
“I don’t~”
She is no stranger to danger. A soft laugh like a musical wind-chime comes from her, despite the dire conversation.
“Still. You have an out right now. You sure you don’t mind living this fucked life?”
“I already decided, I had when you took me back from that peep show. But again, today, I realized it a second time.”
“Huh?”
“It came to me, and I knew. The ocean embraced me again today. Like your voice, with its rolling sea waves…”
“What— What the hell are you saying?!”
“I think we’ll have our very own garden of madness.”
Sylvia takes his hand, bringing it close to her body…and he tries to move upward to her chest. But she yanks him down, painfully hard, until he yelps. “Lower.”
Further down her body, with his palm hovering again, Travis wanders way too far, past her hips and between her thighs, his hand suspended right over her—
“Idiot,” Sylvia hisses, and she grabs his wrist, tighter. “I’ll cut your fingers off, mon chouchou.”
She hums and sets his palm on her lower stomach, pressing it there, right against her skin, where it’s warm.
A few seconds pass. Sylvia breathes in, coolly as always, then back out slow. Her heartbeat steadies. “Do you get it now?”
Ah. Downward dog.
“…Shit.” It wasn’t the bad sort of ‘shit’, but the type that’s slow, that’s a sudden realization slipping out from his lips. Sylvia understands this, and giggles very lightly, and he freezes his hand in place. His cheeks heat up, he draws a sharp breath. “For sure?”
“I got it confirmed this morning. I had a doctor’s appointment before my aromatherapy treatment and chocolate facial,” she recites, like she knew he would ask that already. Sylvia looks to him with a very small and hollow smile; she’s studying his face.
Travis…pats her stomach lightly where she holds his palm in place, slowly giving her a massive grin. “Seriously? So, like…now we really have to tie the knot? Sweet! Fuckin’ A!”
“Now, now, I did not say ‘yes’ just yet, did I?~”
“Bullshit! You can’t resist me. Just don’t expect a diamond ring.”
“I can buy my own. For each finger.”
“And no big ceremony affair, either! Shotgun wedding in Vegas all the way, baby!”
“Fine. But I am not taking your last name—“ her voice is almost cooing, “—Oooh, and you must propose to me properly. Go on!~”
Of course, Travis kneels at the poolside, the yachts passing by in the harbor making the water’s surface sparkle. “Will you say ‘I do,’ my lovely Sylvia?!”
She nods, claps her hands together. “Mmm. I do. Better you than your brother again~”
Sylvia preens, and can’t help but splash the still water with her foot — and then playfully shove Travis in, too. “Ah… La vie est drôle.”