Authors note:
Thanks to blackstallion21 and Nick_Caesar11 for editing and critiquing this piece for me. I hope you enjoy...
Chris stood lost in the throng of people milling around him. It was early June and Miami International Airport was jumping. Families ran here and there, some late for their flights, others desperately trying to locate their belongings amongst the jumbled heaps of luggage on the conveyor belts. The cacophony from overhead speakers spewing flight announcements over the crowd was nearly deafening. He hated the airport, but he didn't want his niece taking a taxi either.
His mind wandered back a few weeks as he waited. His older sister Michelle had called him wanting to know if her daughter Jessica could stay with him for the summer. She was studying Oceanography at UCLA and it seemed that she would be spending the summer in Florida on some kind of internship and needed a place to crash.
Chris had objected immediately; he hadn't left California on a high note, and he hadn't seen or spoken to Jessica since moving to south Florida six years ago. The thought of having to face his niece, and undoubtedly her questions, after all these years terrified him. But ultimately after some cajoling from Michelle, mixed with her threatening him with dismemberment, he had agreed to let her stay.
Growing up, Chris and Jessica had always had a close relationship due to how close in age they were. His two sisters, Michelle and Diana, were both much older than he was. Diana's two girls were older, and had lived further away in San Francisco. Jessica, however, had been born exactly three years and five days after Chris and grew up only a few blocks away, so they developed a natural bond. Most people mistook them for cousins, and for quite a while that was what they told people. They spent every waking moment together, and when Michelle had gone through her second divorce in three years Jessica had stayed with Chris and his parents for eighteen months.
Through everything, good times and bad, there had always been Chris and Jessica, until Chris had a run in with some lowlife gang bangers. They put him in the hospital, and threatened to kill him if they ever saw his face again. So, as soon as he turned eighteen Chris had moved to Florida for college. Jessica was still a sophomore in high school at the time and they hadn't seen each other since.
He could still remember riding around their old neighborhood on bicycles, getting into all kinds of innocent trouble. She had always been just 'one of the guys'.
Now he stood there, scanning the crowd for her familiar face. He didn't really know what to look for. When he left she had been a shy teenager, visibly uncomfortable in her own skin. She dressed like a tomboy; long brown hair in a perpetual pony tail and thick glasses perched on her nose. She was a girl that put her school life before her social life. Her mother had told him that Jess had been the valedictorian of her class; no surprise there.
A light tap on his shoulder startled him, and as he turned a petite raven haired young woman leapt into his arms, nearly knocking him over.
"Chris!" she squealed with delight.
"Whoa, take it easy," he said laughing, "You almost bowled me over, girl."
She planted a kiss directly on his mouth "Thank you soooo much for letting me stay with you!"
"Hey, you know, it's nothing," he told his niece as he sat her down.
Chris held her at arms length and took in the view. She looked nothing like the teenager he had last seen four years ago. Jessica had matured more than he could have imagined. She stood about 5'3", with a very compact, toned body sporting an almost flawless tan. Her hair, dyed black without a ponytail in sight, framed her face, dropping just below her jaw line in a sexy wedge cut. Her green eyes sparkled as she smiled up at her uncle. The nerdy little fifteen year-old tomboy he had last seen had been replaced by a beautiful, energetic young woman. The change was startling, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. He felt a pang of regret as he looked her over. The missed years weighed on his shoulders heavily.
"Wow, you look incredible. Are all the girls at UCLA as hot as my little niece?"
"Oh please. I can't compete with the girls in the Land of Silicone," she gestured at her small perky chest. Chris couldn't help but laugh.
"Well you look damn good to me.," her uncle complimented. "I'm going to have to beat my friends off of you with a stick. Come on, let's get your bags and fight our way out of this madhouse." He grabbed her hand and led her through the crown to baggage claim.
***
As Chris merged his car onto the highway heading north, he stole another quick glance at his niece. He still couldn't get over how much she had grown up. She sat against the passenger door, turned slightly toward him with her legs crossed. His eyes wandered over the tanned expanse of her thighs before flicking forward to watch the road again. Jessica was wearing very short, white shorts that hugged her hips and showed lots of leg, and a black top that tied around her neck and had a chrome ring right over her cleavage. That, he noticed, had also grown well, despite her earlier protestations. In high school, she had been flat as a board, but it seemed that she was just a late bloomer. Now she sported a full round B-cup. He kept finding himself glancing back at her as he drove, and forcibly had to tear his eyes away. Meanwhile, Jessica rambled on and on about her flight and her internship. Thankfully she didn't seem to notice her uncle checking her out.
When they finally arrived at his house, Chris carried Jessica's luggage up to her room, and left her to unpack and get settled in while he threw some dinner together. Thirty minutes later he was just setting the table when Jessica came down the stairs. She had showered and changed into a pair of tight gym shorts and a white tee that clearly showed she was not wearing a bra.
"You didn't have to do all this for me," she said looking at the table. There was steak, baked potatoes, salad and a bottle of red wine spread out for dinner.
"Hey, it's okay," Chris assured her as they sat down to eat, "I don't get to cook for two very often."
The table looked out a large bay window onto a spacious deck and a white expanse of sand. It was dusk and the waters of the Atlantic were a dark gray, broken only by the white caps of the waves rolling in to the shore. They sat talking and looking out at the beach while they enjoyed their first meal together in six years.
"You have a great view from here," Jessica complimented, forking the last piece of steak into her mouth.
"Yeah, it's pretty nice being right on the beach. There are some lounge chairs out on the deck if you want to sunbathe or something and the hot tub is always ready to go. Just make yourself at home. The beach is private, so you don't have to worry about a bunch of people crowding you."
"Thanks, I might do that."
"Want to watch a movie or something?"
"No, I'm beat," Jessica said. "I'm gonna call mom and let her know I'm all settled in and then hit the hay. I have to be up early to catch a bus to the research center I'll be working at." She gathered the few dishes from the table and began rinsing and loading them in the dishwasher.
"You don't need to ride the bus Jess, you can use my car for the summer," Chris told his niece.
She looked at him questioningly. "I can? Don't you need to drive?"
"Yeah, but I still have my truck I had in high school. I'll drive it."
She laughed out loud and almost dropped a plate. "That old piece of shit?" she managed to spit out between gales, "It still runs?"
"Hey, yes it still runs, and it's not a piece of shit anymore," he said a little defensively.
He must have sounded madder than he thought, because Jessica immediately stopped laughing. "Sorry," she mumbled.
"No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound mad." He stood up and stepped to her, hugging her tightly. "Forgive me?"
