Page 4 of Anchored to the Storm

There was no stopping my body as it jolted. Then my knees buckled. Fortunately, my ass landed on the bed. Sitting there, I looked up to the only family I had left. “Why do I feel like my mind keeps playing tricks on me?”

There was a long, weighted pause, but the man eventually approached the bed and sat next to me. Setting his beers on the closest nightstand, he opened one and took a lengthy swig. It must have been liquid courage because after the guzzle, he admitted, “Because everything we’ve been taught demands none of this is possible. It takes time to teach your brain otherwise.”

I tapped my chest, saying without words what only a few would ever understand.

Styx nodded. “Oh yes, but the heart has known the truth all along.”

It was amazing how he understood. Wait. “Why are you talking as if you have…” My words slowed as my mind revved up. “… walked in my shoes.”

Gramps guzzled more beer, then explained, “Many moons ago, I was trippin’.” Absentmindedly, he waved over his shoulder to the steel door behind us. “Not like you in the backyard minutes ago.” He smiled. “I mean, I tripped—like on some excellent LSD.”

You are so annoying. “Got it.”

“So, one night, lying on a beach, staring into the night above me, I thought my high was doin’ me right when a woman appeared. Wet from the ocean, and naked—Oh, so beautifully naked⁠—”

“Styx, please stop. I already have to imagine you with Noma⁠—”

“Well, that’s just a weird thing for you to do.”

I placed the towel over my face, lay back on the bed, and proceeded to smother myself.

“So fucking dramatic.” He took another swig. “Anyhoo, what is a man to do with all that hotness being offered?”

I dropped the towel to my side and glowered at him. “Move on with the fucking story?”

“Okaaaay. Fine.” He stared off at the white wall cabinet as if witnessing this woman all over again. “After the ‘deed’, imagine my fucking surprise when she walked into the water like a goddess, then poof, grew a tail and swam away.”

The room went quiet as I tried to wrap my brain around what he was saying. Then, I sat up. “That? That is how this story goes? My high-as-a-kite grandpa got laid while basking in the moonlight?”

“Many moons ago.”

My mouth opened. Then closed. “So… then what? What does this have to do with the debacle I’m in now?”

His humor faded away to the point I almost regretted being so hard on him. “I went back, for many more moons, hoping for one more glimpse of a creature who had… altered me. If that makes any sense.”

Oh, it did. “Seeing Saleeni changed everything for me. Now water sparkles, in any form I see it,” I confessed, thinking he might have had a similar experience.

Styx leaned back, eyeing me. “Ya don’t say.”

I blinked. Fuck. “That didn’t happen to you?”

He sat forward, now appearing baffled. “No. I just had a constant boner.”

I cringed. “I’d love for that image to leave my mind, thank-you-very-much. And ew. I’ve never had that for Saleeni.”

Gramps leaned away, studying me again. “Ya don’t say.”

“She’s a little girl!”

“Not no more!” He winked, kicking his feet out and stretching his legs.

I jutted out my chin. “Well, I only learned that three nanoseconds ago.”

His head wobbled in agreement. “This is true.” He proudly patted me on the shoulder. “Well done not being a perv.”

Staring at him because I simply didn’t know how to handle his idiocy, I finally said, “Can you please get back to your story?”

He snapped his fingers as if just realizing he had gotten off course. “That’s right. Shit, where was I?”