28. Selena #2
“What, like it’s just that easy? You surf, I’ll just magically break into volleyball as a nobody, and—”
“Hey, cut that out.” He gripped my chin. “You are Selena fucking Torres, recent TikTok star and small business owner. You are not nobody. You’re a comeback story waiting to happen, and I have it on good authority people love those.”
“Chase, nothing in my life has been that easy.”
“Have you ever let it?”
He gazed down at me, then swooped his arm around me and pulled me in so I had no choice but to cuddle against his chest.
“You’re a fighter, Selena. You’ve fought for this beach, this town, even those damn turtles. And god, I love that fight in you, baby. But don’t forget to fight for what you want too. To let good things happen to you. You deserve them.”
He really did see me, didn’t he?
“And if I don’t know how to do that?”
“Have you ever tried?”
No. I always chosen the difficult path, some sort of inborn martyr complex. But maybe, just maybe, I could choose what I wanted this time. Maybe I could stop seeking approval from someone who had clearly never cared and take what I wanted.
“Besides, I’m in your life, and I’m extremely easy.” That stupid, fucking gorgeous grin.
“Pendejo.” I kissed him and rolled into his side, letting his warmth lull me into a deep, satisfied sleep.
I woke the next morning in a warm haze. No alarm, no regrets, no ache between my ribs reminding me of everything I was failing to be. Just a deeper, more pleasant ache.
Chase was still there.
That undid me a little.
He was on his stomach with one arm thrown across me, dead asleep. His guard was down, the carefully arranged El Tiburón face nowhere to be seen. Just the man, his bleached hair mussed, a healing split lip, and a tattoo I now knew every detail of.
He’d stayed.
He’d stayed, like it was easy, like it was obvious, and the morning light made everything in my apartment look better than it was, including the situation I was very much in.
I let myself have it.
Five whole minutes of being happy without fighting it.
I lay there and listened to him breathe, watched his eyelashes flutter, and didn’t think about anything else.
Then I got up, because I had a shack to open and a seagull pecking at my window.
“Pervert,” I whispered at El Soldado, and he squawked.
Chase groaned, and I leaned over him, kissing his cheek.
“Sleep. I have to open the shack.”
He grunted but grabbed my face with his eyes still closed, kissed me once, then rolled over and immediately fell back asleep.
I was grinning all the way to Shark Bites, El Soldado soaring overhead. I swore he looked smug.
I had the rolling door halfway up when the storm arrived.
Years of monitoring my mother’s mood had made me hyperaware of her aura. I got the door the rest of the way up and turned around, and there she was, sunglasses on though the sun was barely up, looking flawless.
“You’re glowing.” xIt didn’t sound like a compliment, more like an accusation.
“It’s early, Mamá. We’re not open.”
“I won’t keep you.” She glanced over the shack the way she always did, appraising it for a buyer who would never come. “I wanted to talk to you before the weekend. About the Perez boy.”
“There’s nothing to—”
“He embarrassed me last night.” Yes, embarrassed her by choosing me over her.
No one had ever done that before. “In front of my people. Refused a perfectly reasonable conversation to do a little dance. I let it go because you seemed to be enjoying yourself, and you so rarely do.” She set her purse on my clean counter.
“But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d be a poor mother if I didn’t say something. Mija, be careful with that one.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sure you feel fine.” She reached out and tucked a curl behind my ear, gently, all maternal instinct and claws.
“But I’ve watched men like him my whole life.
They come through, they take what’s interesting, and then the season ends and they go back to the size of life they actually want.
He has everything, mija. A comeback, sponsors, a whole world that is not this.
He does not need you.” A flippant gesture at the shack, at me.
“Do you really think a man like that stays? Here? For this?”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know what he is. And I know what we are.” Her voice softened, which was how I knew the blade was coming.
“We’re Torres women. We have only ever had one thing we could count on, and it isn’t men.
It’s family, it’s blood, it’s the magic that lives in this place we built.
That boy will be gone by Monday, and I will still be your mother, and this town will still be your home, and you’ll thank me for reminding you where you actually belong. ”
She picked her purse back up, like this was over.
“And what if this isn’t where I belong?”
She froze. “What did you say?”
“You’re right, you will always be my mother, and this town will always be my home, but maybe I don’t need to stay. Maybe it’s time for me to move on.”
You’re Selena fucking Torres.
“Mija, you’re hysterical. Yes, heartbreak always does that. You belong here, with your family, with me.”
How had it taken me so long to see? Of course she wanted me here, not because she cared, but because she needed me.
She needed me small so she could be big.
She was the most powerful ocean witch in a small town, and I was her small, beautiful daughter, whom she could keep as the perfect foil to her power.
Fight for what you want. But that didn’t have to be teeth and nails. Sometimes the biggest fight was letting go of something you’d held onto for far too long.
“Of course, Mamá You’re right. You’re always right.”
She grabbed my face and kissed my cheek.
“I love you, mi corazón. You will see. I will be here for you, like I always have been. Wear something appropriate on Saturday.”
Then she left.
I clutched the counter to keep my hands from shaking, and it didn’t work.
Tears spilled down my cheeks. Twenty-eight years of wanting boiled up and out.
Twenty-eight years of wanting a mother who saw me as her daughter and not as competition.
I let myself have it. Crouching behind the counter of the business I built on my own, I cried and mourned the relationship that I would never have.
But I was done choosing it over what I wanted, what was right.
El Soldado flapped down onto the counter and rubbed his head against my cheek like some sort of feathered cat.
“This is all your fault, you know. I could have just lived the rest of my life in stagnation if you hadn’t butted in,” I said, petting his head softly.
He squawked, then flapped his wings so rapidly it sent my napkins flying. I lunged to hold everything down against the mini windstorm.
“Stop it. I don’t have fries for you yet…”
He flapped harder, then tilted his head back and sighed.
Could seagulls sigh?
He flew off the counter and landed on the groynes at the edge of the sand a few feet away.
“That all the emotional support I get for the day?”
He sighed again, so I guessed that was a thing seagulls could do, then flipped his head back and forth toward the water.
Like he wanted me to follow him.
“Taking orders from a flying rat. What else is new?”
I leapt over the counter, and he took off.
I ran after him, letting it drive all the tears away.