32. Selena
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Selena
The lab had sent me the report that night. It was confirmed. Highly problematic levels of microplastics in the water. The little red graphs proved it.
I’d sent the lab report to Chase with no message attached, because there was nothing left to say that I hadn’t already said.
Now it was up to him.
But…I wasn’t a woman without a backup plan.
I’d emailed the reporter who had written up my tournament and sent the report to the coastal commission. But it all felt too small.
He didn’t respond.So I stopped checking and did what I did best. I focused on the task at hand—running my tournament.
And fuck if it wasn’t the best one yet.
The sign-up sheet had blown up after the video of me and Elliot versus Chase and Tanner had gone viral.
It had put us on the map, and then half the tour had followed, and we’d raised more for Elliot’s rescue in one weekend than in the last three years combined.
I thought I’d seen him crying over the numbers, and honestly, I had too.
I double—okay, triple—checked the net at sunrise on Saturday. Whatever else fell apart, I’d built this, and it was good, and it certainly wasn’t small.
I looked up the beach at the RipTide compound. The wrongness in the sand hummed beneath my bare feet, and I remembered that good wasn’t the same as finished. I had a fight ahead, no matter what happened today.
The surf broadcast started at ten.
The giant LED screen showed the live broadcast on the boardwalk. It was currently running the pre-show: drone shots of the swell covered by the RipTide logo dissolving into spray, a bunch of air horn sounds playing over it with too many flashing lights.
I watched it from my net because I couldn’t not watch it.
Some divorced-dad rock started playing over the speakers, and the RipTide logo dissolved into the WSL logo. Then the screen cut to Tanner.
He was grinning, his long, wet hair hanging into his eyes as he gestured with his hands, talking about the waves. “Best barrels ever, dude. Whoopah! You just drop in, ride the barrel, and get pitted.*”
Somewhere I knew my mother was glowing, because the conditions were hers and everyone was about to say so on national television. The announcer thanked local consultant Marina Torres, whose forecasting made the weekend possible.
There it was.
Her name in lights.
The glory that had overshadowed me my whole life.
“Mija!”
Speak of the devil.
She swept up the beach, her circle of witches following close behind. Most would have thought them perhaps a sophisticated book club or maybe the board of some charity, but I felt the magic pulsing within each of them. Some of the most powerful witches on the East Coast, my mother at the helm.
“Mija, did you see that? They thanked me personally. Oh, this is going to be wonderful for the town’s tourism.”
She walked up and hugged me, all for show, but my eyes were on the screen.
It had cut to Chase.
And my heart sank, because there he was—El Tiburón. A mic clipped to his RipTide rash guard and the toothy smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He looked like the poster. He looked like everything I’d once accused him of being.
He won’t stay for you, mija.
Some of the older women squealed like schoolgirls.
“So handsome, that one.”
“Wonder if he likes older women.”
“Didn’t you say he came to one of your parties, Marina?”
She beamed.
“Yes, and I’ll say this. He’s a good dancer, that one.”
More squeals, and my fists tightened.
“I think he and I understand each other. We both know how to perform. He understands the game one must play for success.”
She leaned in closer, like we were sharing a secret and not some one-way monologue.
“You should pay attention, mija. None of these people would be here for your little game if we hadn’t brought the cameras. I’m so grateful I was able to make a difference for the marine rescue.”
“Mamá.” I took a breath.
“Yes, mi corazón?”
“For once in your life, would you please shut the fuck up.”
You would have thought I had slapped her with how quickly her face went white.
She might have preferred it.
The ladies around her all tittered, but I honestly didn’t care what they were saying.
All my focus was on Chase.
On-screen, the announcer asked Chase about his comeback—about what this weekend meant for his career.
“It means a lot,” Chase said, and the grin held, and my stomach dropped even lower, because it was the brand voice. “RipTide took a chance on me when nobody else would. Three years of support. So I owe them—”
His grin flickered—just slightly—like something was trying to bubble to the surface beneath it.
“I owe them the truth.”
He reached into the waistband of his board shorts and pulled out a phone in a waterproof case.
He flicked on the screen, and I saw the logo of the university lab.
“This is a lab analysis,” Chase continued, and El Tiburón was gone, shed like a skin he didn’t need anymore.
My Chase held up the screen to a national audience with a steady hand.
“Commissioned by the Crescent Cove Marine Rescue. It shows that RipTide’s flagship product doesn’t biodegrade at all.
It breaks into microplastics. Right now, they’re in this beach, in this water, under the wave you are all waiting for me to surf.
” He looked straight down the lens. “And I have strong reason to believe RipTide knew this and used false eco-branding anyway.”
I wasn’t sure I was breathing.
“This ocean deserves better than a pretty green logo and a false promise.” Chase held the phone higher for the cameras. “The report is on my Instagram for anyone to see. Protect our—”
The feed cut.
The forty-foot screen went black. Then, a few moments later, it snapped to a frozen RipTide logo and PLEASE STAND BY EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES.
But it was too late, because I knew that report was already screenshotted on thousands of phones, already past the point where any legal team could put it back in the bottle.
The whole beach was noise. People on the boardwalk jeering, their phones up and recording. In the distance, I thought I heard a middle-aged white man shriek.
I was already running. I didn’t decide to. My body decided, because it had always known what was right long before I did.
Sand kicked up behind me as I sprinted flat-out across the beach toward the RipTide tents and the man who’d just imploded his career to do the right thing.
I saw him come out of the tent, scanning the crowd like he was hunting.
Then he saw me.
And he started running too.
We collided halfway, somewhere in the no-man’s-land between his beach and mine, and he caught me up off my feet and spun. I had my hands in his hair, his arms locked around me, and the magic flooded up, gold and bright—because it had never just been magic.
It had always been two like souls calling out to each other before their stupid brains could catch up.
“You did it,” I breathed into his neck, laughing and definitely not crying. “I knew you would.”
“Sorry it took me a minute.” He drew back enough to look at me, and there it was—the real smile. It was aimed at me, full and unguarded, in front of everyone. “You still proud of me, baby?”
I was crying.
“So proud. But Chase…you’re going to lose everything.”
“Nah.” He kissed my forehead, my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth, like he couldn’t stop. “I have everything I need right here.”
Behind us, the screen flashed, but all I saw was him.
A man who’d just proven, on national television, that he’d fight—that he’d stay—for me, and this place I had always called home.
I kissed him on my beach, with gold light spilling out of me. I didn’t bother trying to hold it in.
Let it show.
Let the whole cove see exactly how good it felt to finally be brave enough to claim what you really wanted.
“Hate to break this up,” Tanner drawled.
He was still soaking wet. Behind him, Diego kept pace.
“Genuinely. It’s beautiful. Ten out of ten.
Very moving.” He pointed a finger at Chase.
“But next time, a heads-up, dude. One text. ‘Hey, Tanner, I’m about to blow up our sponsor on live TV. You might want to take the logo off your shorts.’ That’s all I’m asking for. ”
“There’s not going to be a next time,” Chase replied, still not putting me down.
“There’s always a next time, dude.” Tanner was grinning, and despite the grievance, it was real. He reached over and gripped Chase’s shoulder, in that masculine way. “For what it’s worth, you did the right thing.”
“Derek’s having a stroke in the hospitality tent,” Diego offered mildly.
“So we’re probably unsponsored,” Tanner said cheerfully. “Homeless. Disgraced.”
“Weren’t you already technically homeless?” Diego asked.
“Which means”—Tanner spread his arms at the chaos of the beach—“our calendar is wide open. Well, except for a volleyball tournament this afternoon.” His gaze slid to me. “I have a personal score to settle with a woman with a shotgun for an arm who almost took my face off.”
“But I didn’t.” I grinned from ear to ear.
“Might have been an improvement.” Diego clapped him on the back, causing Tanner to pout and try to get the other man in a headlock.
Diego outmaneuvered him, and Tanner turned his attention to Chase, who had made himself a target by setting me down.
As Chase and Tanner did something that resembled two toddlers wrestling, Diego settled next to me.
“Play your best today.” He nodded toward the bleachers, which were slowly filling with everyone who had been on the boardwalk for the surf competition.
“There’s a woman in the back. You see her with the blue polo?
Pods talk. She saw my video and was asking about you.
I told her where you would be, and now she’s here. ”
“And who exactly is she?”
“She just might be in charge of registering teams for the AVP America tournament.”
The beach tilted beneath my bare feet.
“Diego,” I started, and my voice did something embarrassing.
“Don’t.” He held up a hand. “Pods take care of their own. And Chase has always been part of it, even if he fights it, so now you are too. So go show them what you’re made of, Selena.”
I turned to Chase, who’d finally released Tanner and was looking at me like he’d watched the exact thing he’d hoped for land on me, like it was the best part of his whole disastrous, career-ending, perfect morning.
“Go,” he said with a grin. “Show them all your real magic, Torres. I’ll see you in the final.” He winked.
So I did. The game was already mine before it had even started. And this time, I didn’t look up into the stands for approval.
Instead, my gaze found a man who had never once looked away and had never once tried to diminish my glow.
And no matter what the future held, I knew that we would conquer it together.
* This is a reference to a famous TV interview.