Chapter 1

Winter in northern Michigan gets cold, damn cold, every year. There is always enough snow on the ground to suit the most finicky snow lover. Hell, during the worst of the winter, we walk through tunnels of snow piled high along the sidewalks, higher than I can even reach in some cases. The college has some high powered sidewalk snow blowers that can send a solid column of snow about forty feet into the air. By January, every sidewalk has become a trough through the accumulated snow that can easily reach ten feet in height. Yet, depending upon one's destination and point of departure, it is very possible, hell damn likely, that it will be necessary to walk across an area of the campus on which snow does not accumulate, for whatever reason, probably because there is a constant wind of about thirty miles an hour. (All right, maybe not thirty mph, but it sure feels like it.)

By the time the second semester is underway by a few weeks, the only thing on the mind of most guys that I know is the pending arrival of spring. Our dorm even hosts a "End of the Snow" party just to celebrate the change from all white everywhere to the possibility that green grass may actually exist on campus somewhere.

My name is Erik. I am a "just turned" twenty one year old second year engineering student at a college in northern Michigan. I live in a residence hall of all men, sharing a room with another engineering major, Mickey White. Mickey is from New Jersey. He has a million stories of living in the "hood", most of which are pretty depressing, yet he just happens to be one of the nicest guys I have ever known. Mickey's outlook about life in general, and women specifically, can be pretty tough. To the people who know him well, to his friends, there is honesty and sincerity and a definite sense of caring that breaks through the facade, but to a number of the guys in our dorm, just his appearance and posture scares the hell out of them, never mind the stories that he tells sitting around the beer keg on a Friday night.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday break, Mickey had spent a few days at my house as a part of a ski outing we had planned. Over the course of several evenings, the conversation around our fireplace drifted to Spring and then to Spring Break and then to a pause, where we both looked at one another as if we had just experienced a revelation. We would plan a trip to Daytona Beach over Spring Break and absorb enough sun to last until summer. Oh, we made plans, elaborate plans, the plans of great dreamers with fertile imaginations. There was endless conversation of "I heard" and "I can just see" and "Can you imagine" thoughts that peppered our banter and bolstered our enthusiasm. It was fun to dream, but we both knew that neither of us could afford such a trip.

We had made no effort to restrain our enthusiasm or muffle our conversation, and I was not concerned that any of my family might overhear, but I was very, very surprised when my Dad called a few weeks ago with a proposal.

"Son, when you were home for Thanksgiving, you had quite a time entertaining yourself and your roommate with the notion of going to someplace in Florida for Spring Break."

"Yeah Dad, we did. Mickey has never been there either, and it has been a really rough winter for snow up here, and it just sounded like such a great time. But you know as well as anyone that we can't afford to do that. I have to work all summer just to save up enough for this place."

"I know. That's why I am calling. Your Mother and I have a proposition for you."

"What's up?"

"Nothing's up. We just had an idea, and want to sound it out with you."

"Okay, what do you have in mind?" I was terrified that he would propose that we go there as a family.

"Well, your sister says that all of her friends are going down there. Now you know how she exaggerates, but we did check, and at least several girls from her school are indeed heading to Daytona Beach for their vacation."

"Yeah, and so what?"

"So your Mom and I thought that maybe Mickey and you could take your sister and one of her friends down there with you."

"Aww, come on Dad. I don't want to have to drag my little sister around on vacation and baby sit her."

"Don't sell your sister short, Son. She is perfectly capable of taking care of her own entertainment, but I won't let her go alone, and her friend can only go with her if you two go along, just to provide a safety net for them. You don't have to do anything else, just be visible to them and their friends and be there if they need you."

"We still can't afford it, Dad."

"That's the other part of the deal. Mom and I will pay for both you and Mickey, the whole thing-- gas, food, hotel, all of it, for both of you."

"You're not just teasing me, are you Dad? You really mean you'd pay for the whole trip?"

"Yes son, we will do that, just so that we can have some peace and quiet around here. You'd think beaches everywhere would cease to exist after this Spring Break, to hear your sister tell it."

"I need to ask Mickey, when he gets back from class, but then I'll call you."

When Mickey returned from class that evening, I laid out the proposal that my father had offered.

"What are you, nuts? Your sister is, what, all of fourteen? I'm supposed to be responsible for keeping her safe? God damn, Erik, she's got a better body on her than half the girls in this university, and you want to parade her around on a beach with a sign that says 'Don't Touch'!"

"Come on Mickey, Hanna is almost seventeen, and she's my sister. I don't think of her body as "hot."

"Well, she's not mine, and I can be truthful. Your sister, however old she is, has a killer body that every guy in this world, other than you, would love to jump! How does you father propose that we prevent that, anyway?"

"I'm almost afraid to tell you this part." I paused, trying to figure out how to say the words but have them have different meanings. "He has booked us a room with two king size beds -- he already paid for it and the security deposit too. I guess he figures if we all have to sleep in the same room, we will be able to keep tabs on her."

"I can't believe you agreed to this."

"Did I mention that she is bringing along her best friend?"

"I can just imagine. The lookers always have the doggiest girl friends. Have you ever seen this one?"

"I don't even know who she has invited, but I do think some of her friends that I have met are very pretty."

"You are just saying that to appease me." Whenever Mickey gets excited, he begins to talk in the neighborhood slang, and he was definitely excited. "Lemme tell ya dis. I'm gonna go on record here. This is a dumb idea; dumbest thing ta ever come from your mouth. It's not going to work out the way you think or the way your dad thinks. It's gonna be a disaster, but it's gonna be in Florida where it is warm, so I don't care. Yea, I'll go with ya, and I'll look after your little sis and her friend, even if I have to tie 'em to a tree on the beach."

"Mickey, you are just too much!"

"Seven glorious days in the sun," I declared as we motored down the interstate. "Seven days out of the snow and cold to the land of beaches and bikinis."

Mickey, sitting next to me, was already checking his watch, I guess trying to estimate our arrival time.

"Forget it, Mick. We have to stop overnight in Atlanta. My dad said fifteen hours was too long for anyone to drive."

"You drive half, and I'll drive the other half."

"Won't work. The rental car that Dad got allows only one driver, and he had to list my name. We'll get there tomorrow, and besides, don't complain. He's paying for it anyway."

My father had assembled us together before we left to make sure that all four of us knew "the rules". The girls were not allowed to drink anything with alcohol. They were required to be back to our hotel room by 10 pm each night, and they had to let us know where they were going to be each day so that we could find them if we needed to. But the best part was when he said that Mick and I did not have to watch over them, and that we were free to enjoy ourselves but that we needed to remember that big brothers have a duty towards their little sisters to protect them. Then he immediately declared Micky to be an "honorary big brother" to both girls.