Mint and Mandrake exchange a look. It is at times like these that Mint wonders how years apart hadn't dulled their ability to exchange telling glances. "Mya found the letter, I didn't lie about that," Mint continues. Mandrake sheds his pants and shirt and jumps into the pool, a pale flash in the permeating incandescence. The splash sends droplets of water across Mira's breasts, and Mint loses his train of thought.
"Eyes up here," Mira says, snapping her fingers with a blank expression. "Tell me, quick, before the fucking cops come drag you out of here, you escaped convict," Mira says in a low, even voice.
"She found the letter and she told me that she was going to kill you. I was in prison, I couldn't do shit to help you from there, so when I got a chance, I escaped."
"You cuffed an armed guard to a library entranceway. It could have been months before anyone found him. They're probably going to charge you with attempted murder," Mira says. She even manages to keep a straight face as Mint laughs.
"I did hear that America's illiteracy rate is on the rise. She might have a point," Mandrake says as he appears at their side. With little interlude he takes Mira's chin and pulls her into a kiss and Mint watches, lets the vision settle over him. "Come have a swim?" Mandrake says. He turns and dives in again, this time a clean dive that nets nary a splash. Mira faces Mint, unties the back of her swim top but doesn't let it fall away. "So long story short, you broke out to save my life?" Mira asks.
"And because I love you."
"I love you both, come here, swim with me!" Mandrake calls out. Mira kisses Mint, she lets her top fall away and presses her bare breasts to his chest. Mint cannot remember having ever felt anything like this, and he does not waste a moment. He tunnels his hands into the back of her bikini bottoms, cups her ass and presses himself against her. He has not had a spare moment to remember who they all are, who Mira is. She is his every breath. His every moment. He loves her so much, wants her so much, thinks of her so often that it is no surprise that somehow it spilled over into his brother, a man that is every bit the man that he is.
Mira breaks away and hops into the pool, drifts to the bottom. As Mint disrobes he considers every angle; every possible way the coming scene might unfold. His brother does a languid backstroke, his long arms reaching and propelling him through the water quickly and expertly. Had he been given the life Mint was gifted, maybe he would have achieved things with his impressive swimming skills. Instead he'd relayed stories of jumping into rivers to avoid gunfire and swimming miles to shore, robbing a drug dealer who owned a beach front property and swimming off and stowing away on an unsuspecting someone's yacht. To Mint some of his stories had seemed fantastical-but even Mint cannot deny that they are they are things a man like Mandrake would do, experience. He figures that with enough of the right circumstances he might do them, too.
Mint slides into the water, waits on the side for Mira to swim a few laps. She does a backstroke and then glides beneath the water, surfaces before Mandrake who takes her holds her and kisses her, presses her against the wall of the pool. Mint swims toward them as they make for more shallow waters, and as soon as the water reaches Mandrake's neck and he gains a bit of his footing he is upon Mira again. Mint watches her as Mandrake kisses her mouth, her neck, her breasts, he tries to figure out if she's felt any of this before. He decides that it is new to her right before she opens her eyes and tells him to come closer. Mandrake moves away and Mint slides her bottoms down her thigh. He hasn't any more time to waste, he decides, and once he is inside of her with Mandrake kissing her breasts and probing his tongue into her mouth, he realizes that now is the perfect time to seize the day.
