I was awoken from my post aerobics nap by someone pulling the earbuds out of my ear. It was him again. The bouncy Jamaican, not the Italian. “Come on… we’re playing beach volleyball” he said, reaching for my hand. Luckily I was able to talk myself out of that one. Don’t they know my whole point of coming to the beach is to lay on my butt and get a tan?! He stuck out a pouty lip as he popped up off my beach chair and walked off to retrieve the volleyball.
I may have pulled the 'I look like im napping on my belly, but really I've got one eye open watching this volleyball game" trick for a few minutes, until I really did doze off again, but not for long! Both their game and my sun-baking session were cut short as an afternoon shower rolled in. Mom and I packed up our stuff and headed towards the lobby.
During the short bout of ‘liquid sunshine’, mom and I were relaxing in the lobby taking advantage of the wi-fi access when Mr. Shaddy comes strolling through.
"HI MOMMY! HI BOO!" he shouted out when he saw us.
We rerouted him to a chair near us, since he was on his way to play soccer but it was raining, he excitedly asks if we want to play dominoes. I, equally as excited, respond YES! I love dominoes. Love them. The 2nd time I was in Jamaica we played them nearly every night with the locals at a bar across the street from our resort.
He hopped up out of the chair and bebopped his way out of the lobby (no really, I wish I had video of him walking. He’s so damn peppy all the time.)
About that time, Mom wandered back to the room/bar/bathroom to do something or other, and Shadrick comes back, plops down and asks for my room number. Jokingly I ask if he’s gonna send flowers there, although really he just needed it to ‘check out’ the dominoes set from the resort, the flower joke got legs and turned into a full blown discussion though spanning topics such as how boys like flowers too. Mom appeared back at some point and we started playing.
It only made sense that a small bet was born, and when Shadrick beat me by a few games I jokingly agreed that he would get flowers. After about our 5th game we had learned that Shadrick is a dancing machine (that explains his constant peppiness) and that he had recently gotten back from Europe where he was on tour as a backup dancer for Beenie Man. By that time, mom was clearly kicking both of our butts in dominoes and the weather had cleared up, that’s when Shadrick shot me that familiar face. “Come on, come play soccer with me”
Let’s momentarily back up. I’m not really all that athletic of a person, I mean I played softball, did gymnastics and can toss a football… but I’ve always absolutely hated soccer. HATE. No interest in it whatsoever. Except for the mere fact that Chrstiano Ronaldo and David Beckham happen to play that godforsaken sport.
So I did what any soccer-hating chick would do… laughed, and said “I’ll meet you at the field in 5 minutes”.
Imagine my excitement when Mom and I stroll back to our room only to find our bathroom adorned with hibiscus flowers.
TO BE CONTINUED! [updated : find out part 3 here!]
